Today, in Spain, a young person who wants to rent a flat on their own would have to spend 98.7% of their net salary on it. That is the figure from the Spanish Youth Council, with data from the end of 2025: the average rent for a flat reached €1,176 a month, while the average salary of a young person stays at €1,191.
With these numbers, it is no surprise that only 14.5% of young people live away from their parents' home, the lowest share since comparable records began. Or that the average age for leaving home is 30, almost four years above the European average (26.2), according to Eurostat.
Nobody has explained it to us
On top of that, nobody teaches us what to do with money. In the Bank of Spain's latest Survey of Financial Competences (2021), only 41% of people answered a question on compound interest correctly, and only 19% got all three basic questions right: inflation, compound interest and risk diversification. And only 40% say they have ever had any financial education outside the home.
In my case, I quite like the world of money. And for that reason, thanks to the information available today in the digital world, on social media and on the internet, I was able to start investing in my 20s. I had always had a habit of saving, but keeping money sitting idle is not the best way to save.
What you can control
We can't control inflation or the price of things, but we can act accordingly and decide the order in which we do things:
- Know how much comes in and how much goes out. Without this, everything else is guesswork.
- Watch out for debts that charge a lot of interest. A mortgage or a student loan can make sense; credit card instalments or a quick loan don't: if you have any, pay them off before investing.
- Build an emergency fund: 3 to 6 months of expenses, at hand and not invested.
- Split your money by when you'll need it. The car you'll buy in two years doesn't go into the stock market; money you won't touch for more than five years does.
- Invest whatever is left each month, for example in an index fund, and leave it alone so compound interest can do its work.
Put in your numbers
I've built a calculator so everyone can see it for their own case: What do I do with my salary?
You enter your salary, your expenses and what you already have, and it tells you your investor profile, the emergency fund you need and how long it would take you to pay for a car, the deposit on a flat, any goals you choose or to live off your investments. You can add stages of your life, because what you can save changes over time: a new job, a new home or new expenses. It also has a chart of how much your monthly contributions could grow and explains how to pay for a purchase without selling off your investments.
This is educational material, not financial advice.