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I remember the exact moment the power, influence, and potential of your generation first struck me.

It was midnight, four hours after the first polls closed in the 2012 presidential election. My colleague John King handed off CNN's “magic wall” to me and I quickly began studying the exit polling data. Surrounded by swooping cameras and a blinding grid of lighting, I stood in the CNN Election Center tapping through and cross-referencing table after table of numbers and responses from voters who had just left the voting booth.

Barack Obama had been reelected president of the United States just hours before, and the numbers were rolling in throughout the night telling us who voted and why. Measures for same-sex marriage were on the ballot and passed in three states. Washington and Colorado legalized marijuana. In all, there were 180 ballot measures in 38 states. As I scrolled through the results, I was struck by the fact that your generation had become a power player in social change in the United States. Those polls showed a generation that considers itself innovative and diverse. One that is open-minded and, better yet, flexible enough to change your mind. You have values you believe in, but you respect others' values. As I clicked, tapped, and dragged data across that magic wall, it became quite clear that this generation known as millennials is one to be reckoned with.

And you are different from your elders.

All of my reporting shows you are the first generation to value experience over possessions, which is a huge change for a U.S. economy based on the idea of me, more, now. Your parents' generation bought bigger houses, cars, boats, and second homes, and they spent more time planning vacations than their retirement – all thanks to a mirage of easy credit. But that's over – and you know it.

You're a generation forged by the Great Recession, the War on Terror, and an explosion of consumer technology no generation before you could have dreamed of. You've grown up comfortable with technology, and you expect it to change the world. And that technology brings you different experiences and values that you put above most other “things.” Look no further than the ideological and economic heart of this country right now, thriving with millennials at the helm: Silicon Valley. Understated is better. T-shirts, jeans, and ideas trump Wall Street bling, pinstripes, and financial engineering. Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer's car of choice sums it up: She drives a BMW that's nearly 20 years old!

You are the most educated generation in American history, and you have the student loan debt to show for it. But you are also coming into your prime spending years, which makes you the most coveted consumers in the world – tech-savvy, discriminating, and young. Companies spend more money marketing to you than to anyone else. Your brand loyalty is the holy grail; you've got 40-plus years of spending ahead of you, and everyone wants your money.

I want you to spend your money in ways that make you happy, but I also want to help you begin to save some and grow it.

Why write a money book for millennials? Because you have the most valuable ingredient for building wealth: time.

Money can't buy time. You have it for free.

It is the single most valuable ingredient in building wealth. And since you already picked up this book, you clearly have the will to put it to work.

Here's what these pages hold for you.

I've written this book to be read start to finish for a comprehensive look at managing your money: From your student loans to credit cards to investing for the first time. Or you can choose the chapters that speak most to your situation: negotiating your first job (Chapter 7) or building your credit score (Chapter 9). As the book title suggests, this is a guide. Just as the guidebook you would buy before a backpacking trip through Denmark or a honeymoon in Brazil, this guidebook combines my years of reporting on your generation and money with tips and tools to help you start building your wealth.

At the end of each chapter is an Action Plan – essentially the things you can do today to build wealth.

Chapter 1 gives you the budgeting basics that will help you build the mentality to save and the tools to get you started.

Chapter 2 shows how to choose a major, and how to make any major work in the postcollege rat race.

Chapter 3 reveals the smart ways to pay down student debt and still build for the future.

Chapter 4 is the essential read on the state of the U.S. labor market and your place in it. Anyone looking for a job and trying to excel in that job needs to know what's happening in the most dynamic labor market on earth. This is a critical macroeconomic look at the place that will be the engine of your personal economy – the job market.

Chapter 5 is the millennial handbook for getting ahead at work: how to interview for and negotiate your first salary. Does the thought of a nine-to-five job at an office of gen x-ers and baby boomers terrify you? How do you start your own company and make work work for you? Should you “lean in” or “lean back” at work? We will explore the subtle gender differences in the workplace, with advice about the different ways men and women negotiate. Remember, the salary you accept at the beginning is the starting line for a 40-year career. Where you start is critical.

Will you buy or rent? Chapter 6 offers strategies for the biggest questions in real estate, including how to survive living at home with your parents, how to split the rent bill with your roommate, and how to get your roommate's ubiquitous boy/girlfriend to kick in some of the rent, too.

Couples and families are more likely to talk about religion, politics, or sex than money. Chapter 7 explores how to frankly talk with your parents about money (and borrow some from them). And it discusses the right questions to ask early in a relationship to make sure you are a good money match. Is it appropriate to ask how much the other person owes in student loans on the third date?

Some of you may want to skip ahead to the investing chapter – of all the money moves you make, investing early will have the biggest impact on where you end up. Most of your grandparents could rely on a pension for their retirement, and your parents lean on a 401(k) for life after work. But you millennials will have even fewer investment tools handed to you when it comes to securing your financial health and wealth. So it's up to you.

Consider this: If you save $5,000 a year for five years in your twenties and then never invest a dime again, you'll have more money in your retirement than someone saving $5,000 a year all through their thirties and beyond. Chapter 8 shows you the common traits of 401(k) millionaires. (Hint: Time is on your side again.)

There's good debt – mostly student loans and mortgages – and bad debt – almost always credit cards. Chapter 9 offers valuable help for keeping your debts in perspective, with tricks for paying down the good debt and obliterating the bad debt, and how that will affect your credit score. The credit score is your money IQ. We look at how to keep it high and what to do to fix it if it is low.

My hope is that, whether you read this book straight through or choose the chapters that mean the most to your own personal finances, you'll find advice and information in these pages that will empower you to start planning your financial future now.

Christine Romans

September 2014