[HN Gopher] Show HN: In a single HTML file, an app to encourage ...
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Show HN: In a single HTML file, an app to encourage my children to
invest
Author : roberdam
Score : 178 points
Date : 2025-10-30 10:39 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (roberdam.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (roberdam.com)
| cbeach wrote:
| Showing siblings' investment performance side-by-side on a
| fridge-mounted screen.
|
| Author understands child psychology.
|
| You can't motivate kids by filling their heads with theory.
| Instead, make the outcomes of their actions visible to them -
| then they -motivate themselves- to learn how to improve those
| outcomes. Add in some friendly peer-competition and you're
| golden!
| roberdam wrote:
| That was the idea! I hope it works out that way.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| Can they pull money out? I don't see any place to update the
| balance up or down as the kids want to add money into the
| piggy bank or withdraw it.
| roberdam wrote:
| features coming with the next update, meanwhile they can
| withdraw at any time
| sebastiennight wrote:
| > meanwhile they can withdraw at any time
|
| How does the withdraw work? You manually reset the date
| to today and the amount to what it was last time you saw
| it minus the withdrawal?
| roberdam wrote:
| For now it works like this until I add withdrawals and
| deposits.
| pprotas wrote:
| I feel like this is a great way to raise a crypto "line-must-
| go-up" addict
| nxor wrote:
| That's not just crypto :)
| cluckindan wrote:
| Wait until they want to divest their portfolio and start hyping
| meme stocks and shitcoins because number go up faster.
|
| Then orchestrate an artificial bubble and crash
| ascendantlogic wrote:
| What's the point of this comment? To discourage investing?
| Reddit-style shitposting? Not sure what you're going for here.
| brazukadev wrote:
| What is the point of your comment, actually? At least GP is
| talking about children psychology and is totally on topic.
| Wanting a faster profit then getting scammed or lose money in
| a crash market is also part of the learning.
| dbbr wrote:
| It's for the lolz. I laughed and upvoted, just imagining my
| kids someday lecturing me on crypto. Then I thought about
| creating a bubble for them and then saying to their faces
| "Annnnnd it's gone."
| barbazoo wrote:
| That comment is spot on and in my opinion completely in the
| spirit of the post. It is all about number go up and
| competition.
| wiseowise wrote:
| Investing is not a safe piggy bank where you add coin and see
| green numbers go up.
| internet_points wrote:
| is 15% realistic?
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Not in real-life terms, but for a kid, a larger interest rate
| will be less slow and boring than a realistic one, and it will
| be more engaging.
|
| "The first national bank of dad" is a book that suggests a
| similar approach and I believe it also advocates a 15% interest
| rate.
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| I remember watching the statements for my savings account as
| a kid and getting like 2C/ of interest per statement and
| thinking... that's it?? Why bother??
| xnx wrote:
| No. Since the late 1920s, US stocks have yielded an average
| real annual return of about 7%.
| Sammi wrote:
| Source: "Since 1957, the S&P 500 has delivered an average
| annual return of 10.54%, but when adjusted for inflation, the
| real return drops to 6.68%."
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042415/what-
| average...
|
| And on top of that there's huuuuuuuuge variance over time.
| You have to scale in and out of the market over a very long
| time to actually get the ~7%. Any one time investment is just
| a straight up gamble. It's only in aggregate over a long time
| that you get something somewhat reliable. But then the
| numbers aren't that impressive. I understand why people are
| so fond of buying bigger or second houses instead. It's a
| shame because it drives up the price of housing making it
| less available for our young. We're basically saving for our
| future by robbing the future of our young. It's pretty dark
| to be honest.
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| Yes, the trick with houses is that it's the only chance
| most retail can get 5:1 leverage. Your brokerage will never
| extend that to you to invest in equities.
|
| But without leverage, long run return of residential real
| estate is like 3% after costs, which is less than equities
| but above bonds.
|
| At least that's what I tell myself as I go to sleep in my
| apartment, a non-homeowner watching people accumulate
| serious paper gains in their houses ;(
|
| Source: a paper called the real return on everything.
| zipy124 wrote:
| Leverage comes with a cost though through interest rates.
| It is entirely possible (and even typical) to come out
| with a loss even on appreciating real estate, since your
| house must appreciate by more than the interest on your
| loan. In the UK at-least you can get 1:5 leverage on
| equities, but you'd be looking at a 20-25% APR, instead
| of the 5% mortage.
|
| The paper "the real return on everything" notably cuts
| off in 2010 and is talking about global averages, if you
| narrow it down to specific countries we can see stark
| differences. In the USA and UK you get 8.4% and 7.2%
| returns on equity, but only 6.03% and 5.36% returns on
| housing, a stark difference. Adding in mortage leverage
| adds on about a percent or so of return, thus still not
| bringing housing in-line with equities.
|
| If we narrow our window to post 1980, we see in the UK
| returns of 9.34, 6.81 and 6.67 % for equity, housing and
| bonds. If we look at post 2010 in the uk, house prices
| have only stayed the same or decreased in real terms
| since then in the uk for instance, whilst equities have
| soared.
|
| They also in the paper assume bond yields are roughly the
| same as mortage interest rates, which maybe was true for
| their data period, but hasn't been true since 2010 (https
| ://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/uploads/monthly_2022..
| .)
|
| Finally you can diversify equities globally, you cannot
| diversify your housing globally (if using leverage in a
| mortage).
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| Good points! And the period since 2010 has been mostly up
| and to the right.
|
| While the housing market as a whole may go up, the
| likelihood that any individual house will go up probably
| varies more.
|
| How do you get that much leverage from a brokerage to
| invest in equities? In the US we have something called
| Reg T, which basically says brokerages can only lend at
| 2:1 against securities in most cases.
|
| Even most leveraged ETFs will generally stop at 3X.
| normie3000 wrote:
| Yes, in Brasil and South Sudan:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_central_b...
| dlisboa wrote:
| Those two aren't similar. Brazil's annual inflation is 4-5%,
| you get 10% real return. South Sudan is 74% against your 15%
| return: you lose money.
| elAhmo wrote:
| So, not really.
| roberdam wrote:
| 11% is a safe interest rate on my country (py), I just got a
| 14.5% offer for local bonds BBB+
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| It's less surprising Paraguay has 14.5% interest rates when
| you realise there's persistent 4% inflation (spiking to 11%
| in 2022).
|
| Effective interest rate is something like 7-10%
| singpolyma3 wrote:
| /me looks at market gains for 2025
| thelastgallon wrote:
| 87% in Argentina.
| latexr wrote:
| This is frankly depressing.
|
| > As my eldest son's birthday was approaching, we suggested that
| instead of asking for physical gifts, he ask for their equivalent
| in money. That way, he gathered a decent amount of capital for
| his first investment adventure.
|
| Yes, why would you want a toy or a book? Why waste time having
| fun or learning? You could instead watch a number go up slowly
| while you do nothing. Fun for the whole family, seconds at a
| time!
|
| > Each day, as they watch their small fund grow, they grasp the
| magic of compound interest -- and that, more than any gift, is a
| lesson I hope will stay with them for life.
|
| This feels like raising finance dude bros and gambling addicts.
| There is no "magic" to compound interest, no one should have
| "watch money accumulate" as a life goal.
| ascendantlogic wrote:
| How is teaching your kids to invest some portion of their money
| "raising finance due bros and gambling addicts"? Just because
| modern culture has incentivized these kinds of people doesn't
| suddenly make investing bad. This is such a wild take.
| latexr wrote:
| > How is teaching your kids to invest some portion of their
| money
|
| That's not what the article says. I explicitly quoted the
| relevant part. It's not "a portion of their money", this is
| not money they had lying around in an envelope that grandma
| gave them. This father is incentivising the kids to _not get
| what they want for their birthday_ and instead ask for money
| with which they'll do nothing but unrealistically watch grow
| for a period of time. That's not a good core memory, no one
| looks fondly on "that birthday I had as a kid where I got
| nothing but a number on an app stated growing at a snail
| pace".
|
| > doesn't suddenly make investing bad.
|
| That's not the argument. Nowhere in my comment does it say
| investing is bad.
|
| > This is such a wild take.
|
| Any take is wild when you blatantly misrepresent it. Don't
| straw man.
| roberdam wrote:
| Kids are 7 and 10 , this is a mini "Marshmallow Test" and
| they can use their money whenever they want if they find a
| book or toy they like while they learn how investments
| work.
| macNchz wrote:
| I dunno, while they didn't tell me to ask for cash, my
| parents basically made me invest any cash I got as gifts,
| plus everything I earned at summer jobs. I think that this
| kind of "investing by default" mindset ( _plus_ getting my
| own desktop computer for Christmas at age 11) extremely
| significantly impacted my current life in a positive way.
|
| Also, learning to use Excel by playing fantasy stocks
| during the dot-com bubble, and having a Lycos homepage
| "Portfolio" widget just like my mom did is a fond memory
| for me, and zero people on Earth would call me a finance
| bro today.
| latexr wrote:
| The major difference is that in all your examples you
| were already getting cash. In the article, the poster is
| incentivising their kids to get cash _instead of
| something else specific_. From the article:
|
| > we suggested that instead of asking for physical gifts,
| he ask for their equivalent in money.
|
| _For their equivalent_. In other words, the kid has to
| decide something they want then deliberately choose to
| not get it so they can "invest" it and see line go up.
|
| It would've been different if this had instead been a
| case of "grandma just gave you an envelope with cash; if
| you don't have plans for it, how about investing?". Which
| works on many levels, they could've also spent some
| portion of the money on something they wanted then
| invested the surplus, or a myriad other options.
| nxor wrote:
| Investing isn't bad? Sure we all do it but how isn't it bad?
| rusty__ wrote:
| agreed - he doesn't say the age of the kids but I imagine
| they're both under 10? Done right this could set them up for
| life and make them millionaires with virtually no effort by the
| age of 30 and still give them a childhood filled with toys and
| fun. But removing birthday gifts entirely from a young child...
| woah. Kids need physical items and tangible hobbies to share
| and bond with friends, even if it's just a cool looking stick.
| Is a child's brain developed enough to understand, enjoy and
| share a lot of these concepts, could it maybe lead to them
| becoming isolated?
| floundy wrote:
| >Done right this could set them up for life and make them
| millionaires with virtually no effort by the age of 30
|
| This seems hyperbolic. Given that money doubles in roughly 10
| years at a 10% rate of return, if kiddos are 10 years old
| they get two doublings by 30. To be a millionaire by 30
| requires a present value investment of $250k per child.
| codedokode wrote:
| You should take inflation into consideration, so the
| million in 20 years won't be the same as now.
| floundy wrote:
| It's been my experience that when people are talking
| about some future sum of money without specifying real or
| nominal they are referring to a real sum, based on their
| current day concept of monetary value.
| roberdam wrote:
| Kids are 7 and 10 , this is a mini "Marshmallow Test" and they
| can use their money whenever they want if they find a book or
| toy they like while they learn how investments work.
| nxor wrote:
| Or they could work for money when they are old enough to
| mpalmer wrote:
| > Why waste time having fun or learning?
|
| yeah definitely no learning happening here
|
| > You could instead watch a number go up slowly while you do
| nothing.
|
| and then...spend it on something nice?
|
| > This feels like raising finance dude bros and gambling
| addicts.
|
| This is a super reactive take speaking from no experience
| whatsoever. My own parents did something like this for us when
| we were in elementary/middle school and it taught me restraint
| in spending, not the opposite.
| latexr wrote:
| > This is a super reactive take speaking from no experience
| whatsoever.
|
| You have no idea what my experience is, please don't assume.
|
| > My own parents did something like this for us when we were
| in elementary/middle school and it taught me restraint in
| spending, not the opposite.
|
| I'm glad it worked out for you. Truly. But don't assume your
| experience is universal, because I unfortunately know for a
| fact it's not. Also, the argument isn't that it causes
| unrestrained spending, that's not what financial dude bros
| are about. Excessive restraint in spending can also lead to
| unhappiness and an unhealthy attachment to money.
| pickleglitch wrote:
| He's teaching them the most important lesson of living in a
| capitalist system: wealth comes from having money, not from
| earning money.
| SirMaster wrote:
| It's better to invest in assets though than just the stock
| market. The wealthy build wealth by borrowing and buying
| assets like real estate. This ways makes it easier to avoid
| income taxes and capital gains taxes and you also get massive
| tax deductions for asset deprecation that you can use to
| offset most or all of what income it does provide.
| exitb wrote:
| If he's not able to also provide them with a sizeable initial
| capital, this lesson is also completely irrelevant. No one
| becomes really wealthy by investing savings off their modest
| salary.
| UK-Al05 wrote:
| I mean you can literally do that. And get wealthly. It'll
| just be a meagre existence up and until retirement.
| kaggie wrote:
| Okay thank goodness I'm not the only one who finds this
| incredibly sad. Especially as someone who is trying to make
| money less important in my life.
| nxor wrote:
| In what way are you doing that? Not that I disagree just
| curious how
| exitb wrote:
| The simple way would be to not "manage" your finances,
| don't build an investment portfolio. Have an honest work,
| live happily within your means and save whatever's left in
| cash.
| nxor wrote:
| Sadly, honest work is a dying value.
| UK-Al05 wrote:
| I don't think you understand. In the US you have to
| invest, or you simply won't retire before you die.
| GCUMstlyHarmls wrote:
| By earning more.
| kaggie wrote:
| All I mean by that is having an honest job I don't totally
| dread, not getting a high-paying job that wrecks my mental
| health solely because it pays a lot, buying only what I
| need with minimal wants, trying to live simply without
| extravagance. I do in fact track budgeting very
| consistently and have a 401K, among other things, so that I
| avoid homelessness and stuff. But I do not think about how
| to make more and more money constantly.
| nxor wrote:
| Kids used to be encouraged to work hard and to learn. Every day
| I realize that some kids are not raised with this idea. Why
| work hard when others can, and you'll get even richer? Learning
| schmearning
| al_borland wrote:
| Am I missing something? When they went to add money, do you go
| back in and increase the initial investment?
|
| Are they actually investing anything? If so, wouldn't the app for
| the brokerage do this with real numbers?
| roberdam wrote:
| They invest with "The first national bank of dad" as user
| loloquwowndueo pointed out, I'm their broker, no penalties when
| they want to make a withdrawal
| ramses0 wrote:
| I think what he's saying is: Given a balance of $50, they
| "earn" $5/mo. Given a balance of $200, they "earn" $10/mo (or
| $199*0.10 + $1*0.05). If they don't spend it, I'm assuming it's
| "rollover", and if they eat into their capital (eg: buy an
| xbox) then they feel the sting of earning less-per-month.
| mtrimpe wrote:
| [redacted]
| brazukadev wrote:
| That's quite interesting. When do they start to understand that
| saving is better, if they do? I can imagine kids never wanting
| to save for later, but also I remember that I enjoyed saving
| more than spending coins when I was a kid.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| Brilliant idea!
|
| Do you deduct short term and long term capital gains taxes?
| freitzzz wrote:
| Hi, sorry to be that guys, I just wanted to make some corrections
| on what you call your app a "plain html file". Your HTML file
| loads:
|
| - react app - pwa manifest - tailwind css
|
| This is not at all a "plain html" file.
| brazukadev wrote:
| is plain html different from single HTML? Because it is a
| single HTML that you can "Save as" and have one html with the
| working app.
| freitzzz wrote:
| In my opinion this can't even be labeled as a single HTML
| file, because it loads external files to complete the app.
| But back to the question, a "plain html" file doesn't load
| any external resources and is usually semantically described.
| davsti4 wrote:
| Agreed - which is disappointing.
|
| My firewall shows blocked connections to
| cdn.tailwindcss.com and unpkg.com
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Candid question: why do you block those?
| croes wrote:
| If you can run the app without any other files and without
| internet then it's plain and a single file.
| bossyTeacher wrote:
| When people talk about a single plain HTML file, it implies
| that all markup and code is contained in the file and no
| libraries are being used
| b_e_n_t_o_n wrote:
| No it doesn't
| vultour wrote:
| I have a "plain Python file" that only imports TensorFlow.
| taude wrote:
| You are that guy. It was obvious that he built some interactive
| app packaged in a single html file. There's going to be
| javascript and stuff in there...doah.
|
| EDIT: I wouldn't have expected external dependencies, though.
| mrweasel wrote:
| One small html file, and half a megabyte of CSS and Javascript
| framework... oh and the html file contains 800 lines of
| additional Javascript.
| dangus wrote:
| I bet $10 that it's vibecoded, and it's such a dirt simple
| calculator that perhaps it was even done with a single prompt.
|
| The AI just picked react because that's the most common
| framework.
| mavamaarten wrote:
| That's the first thing I thought when opening it. Sure looks
| like a "make me an app" response that Claude would output.
|
| I mean nothing wrong with that, I needed a silly calculator
| thingimabob too yesterday (for some CRC checks on a piece of
| text) and Claude quickly cooked something up for me.
|
| But I'm not writing blog posts about it, releasing the tool
| in the wild, and claiming I wrote it. Blegh.
| linhns wrote:
| No way you get this with plain HTML, post title is deceptive to
| the core.
| b_e_n_t_o_n wrote:
| Why apologize and do it instead of not do it and no apologize?
| bigyabai wrote:
| Pedantry earns upvotes like bread beggars butter. I don't
| blame them.
| _ache_ wrote:
| How can you have a localhost reference as canonical? You should
| fix your jekyll configuration I guess.
|
| <link rel="canonical"
| href="http://localhost:8080/en/dinversiones" />
| roberdam wrote:
| Thanks for the tip, should be fixed now !
| LandR wrote:
| Will they also have periods of a bear market and see their money
| go down ?
| roberdam wrote:
| hopefully, "The first national bank of dad" remains solvent.
| patapong wrote:
| And can they take loans with negotiated interest rates and
| lock-in periods? Or invest in more risky products such as
| derivatives with a corresponding chance to lose all money? So
| much potential... ;)
| roberdam wrote:
| unlimited apps ideas :D
| ozim wrote:
| First they have to fill in KYC questionnaire and have no
| risky products if they did not have investing experience.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| Just add a $6-7CHICKENJOCKEY memecoin where they can put
| money in, see a 50% daily return for a random period of
| time, and suddenly have it go to zero.
|
| Or even worse, in the tradition of these unclickable
| javascript buttons of the late 1990's, just detect when the
| finger is approaching the "withdraw" button and have the
| asset crash right before they can click!
| Galanwe wrote:
| > I act as their investment agent, assigning realistic interest
| rates
|
| Author then proceeds to put 15% annual interest rate...
| roberdam wrote:
| 11% is a safe interest rate on my country (py), I just got a
| 14.5% offer for local bonds BBB+
| mlok wrote:
| py = Paraguay, for those like me who didn't know
| Galanwe wrote:
| > 11% is a safe interest rate on my country
|
| 11% may be the safest bond you have access to, but that
| doesn't make it _safe_ in absolute terms.
| roberdam wrote:
| up to 30k, cover 100% by the central bank
| Galanwe wrote:
| Look, you do you, but rest assured that you don't get 11%
| for no reason.
| roberdam wrote:
| I wrote an article (it's in Spanish) in which I took data
| from the central bank since 1990 and created a tool to
| simulate various scenarios. The tool includes a column
| showing the average interest rates on central bank-backed
| investments. Maybe you might find it interesting.
| https://roberdam.com/jubilar.html
| estsauver wrote:
| So, bonds basically all tend to converge on the same risk
| adjusted yield. If you're seeing yields that look like
| this, the market believes the currency will slip or
| there's repayment risk (relative to USD bonds that are in
| the 4.75% range.)
|
| Imagine you have a scenario where inflation is 0 in
| currency A and 10% in currency B. Would you rather have a
| 2% bond in currency A or a 9% bond in currency B? This is
| why Euro bonds go negative sometimes, when USD interest
| rates were very low and the Euro was deflationary
| relative to the dollar, it could push rates even further
| lower.
| wara23arish wrote:
| stay vigilant Lebanon was granting 12% rates and everything
| was fine and "covered" by central bank until it wasnt
| Jommi wrote:
| the issue is your local currency will lose its value over
| time
| triceratops wrote:
| Is there a (government-issued) currency that doesn't?
| neucoas wrote:
| Commenter just discovered that there are other countries and
| economic realities outside the US/Europe
| neilv wrote:
| Where can I get 15% annualized returns, please?
|
| (I'm told to no longer bet on even averaging 7% annually, over
| decades, on US stock indexes.)
| Jeremy1026 wrote:
| Found a fun little bug. If you try to type into the date picker,
| and press backspace, the entire screen blanks out. (MacOS 15.0.1,
| Safari 18.0.1)
| roberdam wrote:
| thanks for the bug report!
| yaky wrote:
| Be careful with comparing real-life things and experiences with a
| (virtual) number on a screen, especially for children.
|
| I used to know an adult who only cared about that number going
| up, despite making more than a comfortable amount of money. Live
| with parents, save on rent/mortgage, number goes up faster. Buy
| cheapest food, take leftovers from work-catered lunches, number
| goes up faster. Scam your way into being hired for a position you
| are severely underqualified for, get terminated after three
| months, keep the salary and sign-on bonus, number goes up. Invest
| pretty much everything (because there are almost no expenses),
| compound interest.
| nxor wrote:
| Ahah but green ticker good red ticker bad. What's the problem
| sir
| ericyd wrote:
| This feels like a severe anecdotal example which I'm not sure
| applies to most people.
| yaky wrote:
| It is definitely a single point, but that is who this post
| immediately made me think of.
|
| And to be fair, investing does not apply to most people
| either.
| ct0 wrote:
| Agreed, in 7th grade we did a stock market simulation, it made
| winning feel too easy.
| nxor wrote:
| M dashes everywhere, bold text everywhere ... what's next,
| teaching them to over-rely on LLM's? And if we're teaching them
| about investing, can we also teach them about the ethics of
| investing? As in, employing a bunch of people to direct the
| profit of their work into the hands of investors?
| yed wrote:
| > One thing that school doesn't teach you (not even high school)
| is how to manage your personal finances.
|
| Can we stop with this myth? Most states require financial
| literacy courses to graduate. The reason it feels like it isn't
| happening is because it's boring and most just don't pay
| attention or absorb the lessons.
| gricha2380 wrote:
| Your point is true in the USA, but the author appears to be
| from Paraguay.
| alias_neo wrote:
| > Most states require financial literacy courses to graduate
|
| What's a state? Pretty sure we don't have those here.
|
| Even if it was true for America (probably not), it certainly
| isn't true for the entire rest of the world.
|
| Maybe they should be teaching Geography.
| yed wrote:
| My mistake, it's just such a common trope in the US I didn't
| realize it was a universal complaint. It is true for US
| incidentally, people generally don't remember it because a)
| the learning and real world practice are too far removed b)
| people often are poor with finances regardless of knowledge.
| nxor wrote:
| It's not true for the US.
| rkomorn wrote:
| https://www.ngpf.org/blog/advocacy/how-many-states-
| require-s...
|
| It's apparently now 30 states.
| nxor wrote:
| Are you from the US? I went to a good high school and
| even that class was awful. No one wants to teach it and
| genuinely, you learn more about money in history,
| english, science, and math. Additionally, you can take it
| online and over the summer, which kids do so they can
| take nicer looking classes. Granted, students with a work
| ethic tend to learn these things on their own.
| rkomorn wrote:
| I graduated high school almost 30 years ago so whether
| I'm from the US or not isn't particularly relevant. I did
| live in the US for 25 years though, and up to however
| many minutes ago, I didn't know these classes were a
| requirement in any state (let alone 30).
|
| But going from "it's not a requirement" to "the class is
| awful" would kinda be moving goalposts, no?
| alias_neo wrote:
| All good.
|
| I think it's common everywhere to be honest.
|
| Here in the UK there's never been financial literacy taught
| at a national scale that I'm aware, there certainly wasn't
| when I was in school, albeit that was some decades ago now,
| and from what I've seen of my nephews/nieces it still
| isn't.
|
| My children are still too young to worry about the
| minutiae, but we're already trying to teach them about
| income/outgoings and saving even at their middle single-
| digit ages.
|
| Investing is something I can't say I'm extremely
| comfortable with the details of even at my advanced age
| besides the simple things like "I have a pension" and "I
| have a LISA".
|
| I definitely think there's room for some self-service tools
| to aid in teaching these things to our kids from an early
| age.
| anonymous908213 wrote:
| Have you considered that "people generally don't remember
| it" because most of them graduated before 2020? People are
| going to reflect on their own experiences at school, which
| will often be from decades ago. If they aren't a teacher,
| they probably aren't going to find out about any changes to
| the curriculum. Maybe if they have a child, but that
| potentially takes an 18 year delay between implementation
| and learning about it if it's about a high school, if the
| teenager bothers to report that they had a boring finance
| class to their parent.
| tianreyma wrote:
| > Most states require financial literacy courses to graduate.
|
| Prior to 2020 only 8 states required a standalone financial
| literacy class. So a good percentage of people from the US on
| here probably didn't have to.
|
| There were also states that had it integrated with another
| course but I'd question if they were any good. My state was
| like that and all we did was a 2 week project where we
| pretended to trade stocks starting with $1k. Which didn't even
| include things like dividends, short vs long term capital gains
| tax, etc...
|
| We weren't taught basic things like budgeting, planning for
| emergencies, how loans and interest work, how taxes work, how
| credit scores work and affect you, etc...
| johntiror wrote:
| There's an old story about Rothschild getting a haircut when the
| barber started giving him stock tips. Rothschild thanked him,
| left the shop, and immediately sold all his holdings. The reason
| was: "When even the barber is investing, the market's gone too
| far."
|
| I might be wrong, but reading this, I couldn't help but think: if
| we've reached the point where we're building apps to get our kids
| into investing, maybe we're living through our own "barber
| moment."
| vslira wrote:
| The reasonable interpretation of such a project is not to pump
| the stock market even higher by getting children to invest
| their savings into it, but to inculcate the habits of investing
| over time so they can do it properly as adults.
|
| I'm sure Mr. Rothschild would be fine with this learning tool.
| tinfoilhatter wrote:
| The Rothschild bloodline is responsible for helping to
| orchestrate every modern war since the Napoleonic Wars, by
| loaning money to both sides of the conflict. Major General
| Smedley D. Butler wrote about this in War is a Racket. I
| personally, don't give a damn what Mr. Rothschild would be
| fine with, or the rest of his disgusting family.
| FredPret wrote:
| Standard antisemitic trope
| tinfoilhatter wrote:
| Standard bs defense to prevent any legitimate criticism
| of Jewish people no matter how reprehensible their
| actions are. Please spare me.
|
| Maybe we should get into what Natalie Rothschild said
| while being interviewed, about her family's fondness for
| incest? Or would that be anti-Semtiic as well?
|
| What exactly can you say about the Rothschild bloodline
| (except for praising them) that isn't considered anti-
| Semitic? Please do tell!
| FredPret wrote:
| To your credit, your original comment didn't mention all
| Jews, just made heavy allusions to stereotypes about
| them. But now you've removed all possible doubt about
| what you meant.
|
| Criticize individuals all you want, but don't do it by
| "bloodline", ethnicity, or whether they're a banker or
| not. Agency lies with the individual.
| tinfoilhatter wrote:
| I am criticizing individuals - individuals who are
| members of a bloodline that have historically engaged in
| war profiteering and have been instrumental in running
| the international central banking cartel. You're right
| that I didn't mention all Jews, because that would indeed
| be anti-Semitic.
|
| Sorry but I'm not going to kowtow to your ridiculous
| logic. It's perfectly fair to lob criticism at
| bloodlines, and if you had ever opened a history book you
| would readily understand that.
| FredPret wrote:
| Criticizing individuals because they're part of a
| bloodline / ethnicity is:
|
| - the exact opposite of criticizing individuals; you're
| really just going after the group
|
| - the definition of prejudice
|
| - the foundation of most (all?) giant human catastrophes
| like the Holocaust, the various communist land reforms,
| the crusades, and all sorts of horrible events
|
| I'm a conservative, but I have to say this idea of not
| being prejudiced is really something great that
| liberalism brought to the table over the past 100-200
| years. I'm gobsmacked to see people rejecting this idea.
| tinfoilhatter wrote:
| So when authors of history-related works criticize or
| make remarks about bloodlines such as the Hapsburgs or
| the Medicis or the Colonnas are you equally as outraged
| as when it involves a bloodline of Jewish people?
|
| If I navigate to - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealog
| y_of_the_Rothschild_fa... - every section of the page
| mentions the family being involved in banking. Am I
| stereotyping members of the Rothschild bloodline by
| saying they're involved in international banking? I don't
| think so.
|
| I'm equally gobsmacked by people who claim we shouldn't
| utilize pattern recognition or who want to pretend
| stereotypes materialize out of thin air.
| random9749832 wrote:
| Narrative: You are teaching about the intricacies of finance
| and the stock market.
|
| Reality: Dump everything into Nvidia / S&P 500. Number go up.
| taude wrote:
| The market's are different now. Everyone's 401K plans are
| automatically investing in them each month (my theory on why
| equities are so expensive now).
| david927 wrote:
| Different as in much worse? It's not that you're wrong but,
| just to be clear, the problem with investing as the only
| place to keep up with inflation means that markets will
| detach from value, and become a giant Ponzi scheme.
|
| There is no such thing as "growth detached from value"
| lasting forever.
| projektfu wrote:
| It's certainly apocryphal and you have the British version,
| probably. In the US it is usually Joe Kennedy and a shoeshine
| boy, and also didn't likely happen. These stories are useful
| parables, and they serve the purpose of explaining why the
| smart money didn't get cleaned out when the rubes did.
|
| Still, if a 10 year old had started investing 10% in the market
| in 1920 and stuck through it during the depression, even with
| no income coming in at the time, they would have done
| handsomely through the recovery and into old age. In fact, a
| middle aged person who had been investing until 1929 would have
| not been fully cleaned out, and that money would have recovered
| its value by 1943. Margin was what killed fortunes in the day,
| so the lesson to learn is to avoid margin for your investment
| portfolio. (Speculation is a different story).
| sd8f9iu wrote:
| I think the assumption here is the investment vehicle will be
| large bundles of diverse stocks, e.g. via a mutual fund or
| equivalent ETF. That's the standard way to invest 401Ks and
| other savings, and something for which stock tips are no use.
| random9749832 wrote:
| Greed is at a 21st century high. I am just waiting for the
| rugpull moment when billionaires decide the show is over
| (https://seekingalpha.com/news/4464647-deeper-dive-the-
| wealth...).
|
| Even George Hotz understands this is the symptom of a larger
| issue and it is going to end bad:
| https://geohot.github.io/blog/jekyll/update/2025/10/24/gambl...
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| What is going to happen specifically when billionaires decide
| the show is over?
| kccqzy wrote:
| In December 2017 I literally saw shopkeepers and barbers
| checking Coinbase every few minutes when they weren't with
| customers. I sold a substantial portion shortly afterwards. Of
| course I'd be much richer today if I hadn't done that. But I
| don't really regret it because it's not real investing; it's
| speculation.
| Maxamillion96 wrote:
| the story is about Joe Kennedy and his shoeshine boy
| dangus wrote:
| Being encouraged to invest is nice but having the ability to is a
| massive luxury.
|
| I knew I wanted to save a lot for my future and retirement since
| I was in high school. I didn't gain any reasonable ability to do
| so until much later.
|
| A much better life skill in my opinion would be to teach about
| budgeting, how to cook economical meals, how to avoid debt traps
| and lifestyle inflation.
| ericyd wrote:
| I'm always bummed when I comment on HN and then scroll down and
| find another comment which said it better.
| yaky wrote:
| HN is a very specific and privileged demographic, very far from
| an average citizen. (of the US at least)
| ericyd wrote:
| Financial literacy is a gift, and absolutely omitted from
| standard education, which is unfortunate.
|
| That said, I don't think knowledge of investment gets you very
| far if your job pays subsistence wages. I worked for a popular
| fintech focused on personal investment and their narrative was
| essentially "financial freedom through investment". I think it's
| important to understand that even the most sophisticated
| knowledge of investment and personal finance does nothing
| substantial if you aren't making surplus money to begin with.
| nxor wrote:
| Sure but if you learn a lot about investing then surely you
| have learned a lot about other stuff too and maybe have chances
| at a good job. Not that I disagree
| bilekas wrote:
| > Financial literacy is a gift, and absolutely omitted from
| standard education, which is unfortunate.
|
| With my tinfoil hat on, I feel like that is by design.
| tinfoilhatter wrote:
| I don't think you even need to wear a tinfoil hat to reach
| this conclusion. Knowing about the origins of the modern
| outcome-based education systems in the West (we borrowed from
| the Prussian education system which replaced the classical
| education system based on the Trivium and Quadrivium) I would
| assert that your claim is spot on.
| internet_points wrote:
| you should know haha :)
| tinfoilhatter wrote:
| I wear it proudly!
| nxor wrote:
| How couldn't it be? If the finance industry made things
| clearer then more people would benefit from it.
| alxmdev wrote:
| Probably, because everything would collapse if everyone was
| an "investor" and fewer people did actual work to keep the
| world going.
| RealStickman_ wrote:
| This type of investing isn't about day trading following
| the latest hype. It's about putting some surplus money to
| better use for when you need it in 10-20 years.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| There are people who don't invest? Do they just keep their
| retirement savings in cash? I imagine for most people
| either the government or their employer invests for them.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| For most people it's "what retirement savings?"
| whoooboyy wrote:
| Incredible HN post. I'm hoping it's because you are from
| a country where people are generally well taken care of.
|
| Yes, there are people who don't invest. Where do they
| keep their retirement savings? 40-50% of Americans, at
| least, simply have no retirement savings! Most people in
| America aren't earning enough to put away a meaningful
| amount for retirement. It's going to be grim as boomers
| and millennials hit retirement age and have to keep
| working.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| And it doesn't occur to them that they will need money
| when they're old and can't work? Incredible.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| it does but they don't know how to change it
| pton_xd wrote:
| They're worried about paying for their next trip to the
| dentist. Not working when they're old is not in the
| picture.
| czottmann wrote:
| I am very certain it does occur to them but they simply
| have no financial means to do anything about it. Which
| must be soul-crushing to them.
|
| Rest assured it usually isn't their choice.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| > Rest assured it usually isn't their choice.
|
| People choose to marry, have kids, and buy a house.
| czottmann wrote:
| Your comments make me think you've never seen hardships
| in your life that weren't self-afflicted.
|
| Life can be cruel even if you've made great plans and
| took all the precautions you could think of. Illnesses,
| accidents, the lack of a social net because your country
| was set up that way, crime, the list goes on.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| Illnesses and accidents are exactly the things you need
| savings for, and aren't really relevant here because they
| don't prevent you from saving until and after they
| happen. The issue appears to be that 50% of Americans
| live paycheck-to-paycheck and have no savings? I can't
| imagine how this could be anything other than them just
| spending money on shit they don't need.
|
| And yes, I am assuming you live in a developed country. I
| have Ukranian citizenship and right now the Ukrainian
| government is abducting men who are over 24 years old and
| sends them to death. If you live in a country like that,
| true, you shouldn't worry about investing because you
| don't even have basic human rights.
| bilekas wrote:
| > The issue appears to be that 50% of Americans live
| paycheck-to-paycheck and have no savings? I can't imagine
| how this could be anything other than them just spending
| money on shit they don't need.
|
| Or that there's no standard minimum wage, or income
| protection if something does go wrong. Student debt is
| crippling to people in itself never mind hospital events.
|
| That's so many people you should think "something must be
| wrong with the system"
|
| > Illnesses and accidents are exactly the things you need
| savings for
|
| It shouldn't be though, if you pay taxes, the government
| should be there for you in an emergency when it comes to
| health.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| > It shouldn't be though, if you pay taxes, the
| government should be there for you in an emergency when
| it comes to health.
|
| As far as I know in the US your employer provides health
| insurance?
| whoooboyy wrote:
| Oh. No. Not in most jobs. Many jobs do provide some
| health care.
|
| If you are working many jobs in the US you get no health
| care. You have to pay for it yourself. Even jobs that
| provide it you still need to pay for it. The employer
| basically pays a portion of the insurance bill. Good
| employers pay a lot, bad employers pay none.
|
| Then you have deductibles. The amount you have to pay out
| of pocket every year before insurance does anything. If
| you have a ten thousand dollar deductible, insurance only
| kicks in at $10,001 and beyond.
| mfro wrote:
| Wow, you are so out of touch
| 91bananas wrote:
| This has to be satire at this point.
| whoooboyy wrote:
| I.... they are dealing with systemic poverty. Being poor
| is expensive. They absolutely know they need to save, but
| if the choice is "starve to death today but save for
| retirement OR don't die, but don't save for retirement"
| most people are going to choose the latter.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| I just checked and McDonald's pays $15 an hour, no?
| That's more than enough to not starve.
| whoooboyy wrote:
| Median rent value in Seattle is $2300/month if you are
| looking for a one bedroom, a little cheaper if you are
| looking at a studio. Minimum wage here is $21/hr. The
| first quartile for rent is $1600.
|
| Assuming you work full time, you are making $3360 a
| month, less taxes.
|
| That means that even if you get the bottom 25% of rents,
| over half your take home pay goes to rent. Then we need
| health care, food, taxes, transportation, clothing, etc.
|
| Not a lot of savings easily available there.
| InvisibleUp wrote:
| McDonald's will not let you work 40 hours a week, or any
| consistent schedule at all. You will show up when they
| tell you to and that's that. Same with grocery stores or
| most retail jobs.
|
| Also you're neglecting the cost of transportation (almost
| certainly a car, with gas and insurance), rent, and
| medical expenses.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| median emergency savings in the US is $500-600
|
| 1 in 5 have $0
|
| 50% have enough to cover 3 months of expenses
| sebastiennight wrote:
| The math doesn't add up here?
|
| You're saying that $500-600 (the amount you claim 50% of
| people have saved up, if it's the median) covers 3 months
| of expenses?
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| I mean no offense, but your understanding of a median
| seems flawed. The median is the number/point that
| separates the upper half from the lower half - it is not
| what 50% has.
|
| The math does add up. There is no contradiction in your
| parent's post.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| I'm not sure I catch your explanation, so let's try with
| some simple numbers and you'll tell me where I'm wrong.
|
| I have a family of 10 people. These people have,
| respectively,
|
| $0 ; $0 ; $1 ; $5 ; $49 ; $51 ; $190 ; $8,000 ; $150,000
| and $1,000,000.
|
| What's the median amount of savings in this group?
|
| And what amount would complete the sentence : "50% of
| people have ..."?
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| The median of those ten numbers is 50.
|
| If the count of observations is even, it is usually the
| arithmetic mean of the two mid-points, so (49+51)/2 in
| this case.
|
| The median does not have to be in the finite set of
| values.
|
| Maybe Wikipedia can explain better than I can:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median
| sebastiennight wrote:
| You didn't answer my second question. Yes the median in
| my example is $50. Thus it would be accurate to say "50%
| of people in that sample have $50 (or $51)". But not
| anything further than that middle point.
|
| Back to the original post:
|
| I'm assuming that "three months of expenses" would be
| roughly $6,000.
|
| The parent post had the median at $500.
|
| 1. Given the sheer number of adult Americans (hundreds of
| millions of observed data points), wouldn't you say it's
| quite likely that the two mid-points are very close to
| each other (eg $499.97 and $500.02)? But definitely not
| (-$5,500) in debt for one mid-point individual vs $6,000
| in savings for the next individual (which comes out to
| $500 in median and "top half has $6k")?
|
| 2. In the first scenario (almost continuous curve at the
| midway point), how likely do you think it is that
| somewhere right after that $500 mid-point, there is a
| huge discontinuous jump to $6,000 to accomodate the idea
| that the rough top half of observed savers has "3 months
| of expenses" saved?
|
| 3. Is there any other scenario I'm not foreseeing, that
| can reconcile: "the median is $500" with "the top 50%
| have $6,000+ in savings"?
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| Most of my family and extended American family doesn't
| really invest. I think probably 10% of us "believe" in
| the stock market. The rest sometimes buy houses (which I
| encourage because it's better than nothing), but
| otherwise are planning on social security, pensions, and
| lump-sum savings to cover their retirement
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| > social security, pensions, and lump-sum savings
|
| Isn't that very little money?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| While defined-benefit pensions are less and less common,
| they may not be small.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| In short, yes, but my family is very cheap, so it is
| doable with sacrifice. I think I'm middle class (or maybe
| upper-middle?) now, but I think I'm the first generation
| that can say that. And even I rented closets, garages,
| and spaces behind TV's until about 4 years ago, lol.
| linhns wrote:
| You'll be surprised by how many people fear the term
| investment.
| triceratops wrote:
| I don't know what you mean by that. They teach compound
| interest in every school. Basic economics too. Anything more
| advanced is going to be lost on most kids, because that's most
| adults' level of financial literacy too.
|
| The problem is many kids don't have much money to save or
| invest. Or if they do, real banks kinda suck when you only have
| a kid amount of money ("Here's the 0.2% interest on your $37
| balance"). So they can't apply what they learned. An app like
| this, backed by the Bank of Mom and Dad, is great for practice.
| danielbarla wrote:
| While I certainly had the _concept_ of compound interest
| taught to me at some abstract mathematical level, the
| application to real life practical financial scenarios was
| definitely not done [1]. Economics as a whole was an optional
| subject.
|
| I think schools and curriculums could do a whole lot better
| in representing this important facet of life. More broadly, I
| often feel that "applying all that math you've learned to
| real things" is a subject that could be taught.
|
| [1] Seriously, having applied math questions like "Johnny
| earns X per year, with a cost of living of Y. Assuming
| inflation of Z and average yearly returns of R, what
| percentage should he be putting away, starting at age 25, so
| that at age 50 he essentially gets the equivalent of his own
| salary each month?" would likely cause some lightbulbs to go
| off in the kids' heads.
| triceratops wrote:
| > the application to real life practical financial
| scenarios was definitely not done
|
| Of course it was. You can't teach compound interest without
| referring to money or banks. That's the whole point of it.
| Otherwise it's just multiplication.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| It... is just multiplication. And can't talk about GP's
| experience, but I can tell you that going through
| scientific schooling and engineering schools in the
| French system you'll learn exactly how to calculate the
| math and never have a single example such as mentioned
| above.
|
| We're here to build bridges, not count stashes of money
| after all!
|
| You'd probably get those if you went through "economic
| studies" (which is a different track and where math
| includes a lot more statistics even in high school).
| seemaze wrote:
| > that's most adults' level of financial literacy too.
|
| The vicious cycle! We have to start somewhere..
| recursive wrote:
| Where do you send your money to invest? What is a stock? This
| is the type of information missing.
| triceratops wrote:
| > Where do you send your money to invest?
|
| If they had taught you that in high school 10 or 20 years
| years ago, it would be outdated by now. People used to save
| in savings accounts. Then 401ks. Then individual brokerage
| accounts with index funds. Now crypto or whatever is hot
| using some fintech app.
|
| > What is a stock?
|
| That's fair. It can come up in basic economics but not
| always.
| recursive wrote:
| > If they had taught you that in high school 10 or 20
| years years ago, it would be outdated by now.
|
| That's a fair criticism, but I don't think it's enough to
| outweigh the benefits. I think I learned how to write a
| check in second grade. It was useful information.
| bluGill wrote:
| I give my kids a copy of their 529 accounts I opened and
| contribute to in their name. This is real money and they can
| see a return on investment and growth happening.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| investment for many is more important than ever, because with
| home ownership out of reach younger people those with any
| savings are looking for alternatives. I just hope that - much
| like how you wouldn't buy and sell your house every day - they
| can resist the urge to be overly active investors.
| ho_schi wrote:
| At the point with _investment_ I was lost. Children should learn
| to be patient (saving money) and prepare for bad situations
| (saving money). That's enough.
|
| When older we can teach them what capitalism considers as
| investment. Capitalism is a longer word for greed. Money doesn't
| work. Employees do. Customers pay. Both suffer to make greedy
| persons rich.
|
| Give them a piggy bank. Teaches the concept of preparation.
| nxor wrote:
| I mostly agree but greed is a part of human nature is it not?
| Jaxan wrote:
| People keep repeating this. But why is it people's nature.
| Maybe it is learned, because everyone keeps repeating this
| phrase!
| ho_schi wrote:
| Capitalism itself is a rather modern idea around 1800. And
| greed is maybe rooted in human nature, within the need to
| keep a buffer of food.
|
| But we've brains and are social entities. I don't think greed
| is necessity. But greed of other harm our _needs_. And we
| need to get greedy to get enough?
|
| Examples: I want a nice bicycle. I need small house or nice
| flat. I enjoy good food from time to. I'm rather sure I don't
| need a super-yacht, no swimming pool and no villa. I think
| stuff which I cannot keep myself clean is too much. If I
| cannot keep it clean myself it was greed?
|
| But we've big dreams?
|
| For the _big dreams_ I would probably consider a cooperative
| society. These airliners are so expensive and suffer from not
| being used. Sharing them would be nice? Like...like owning
| airline stocks. _Without the enforcement to gain money_.
| Maybe some people enjoy flying it around, other maintaining
| it and others care about safety and passengers. Others maybe
| want fly to the moon. And others enjoy ships. Maybe sharing
| them deliberately makes sense?
| kccqzy wrote:
| You say "when older we can teach them what capitalism considers
| as investment" but you never specify the age. What exactly
| counts as older? My mom started telling me about how the new
| home we just moved into was both a place to live and also an
| investment at age 8. My dad started telling me about his
| brokerage account when I was 7. My dad also explained to me why
| the new car we just bought was _not_ an investment when I was
| 6.
|
| That's to say, I strongly disagree. It's almost never too early
| to teach this to children. As soon as children know money could
| be spent on exchange for things, they should begin to think
| about how money is made.
| kmijyiyxfbklao wrote:
| Even saving can be seen as greed. Someone can focus too much on
| accumulating for themselves. Both investing and saving can be
| seen as preparation.
|
| To avoid things becoming evil, you just need to make sure that
| your interactions with other are cooperative and not zero sum,
| and not all investments are zero sum.
| didip wrote:
| Good. Financial education is sorely needed for everyone in
| America.
|
| Now if only there's an app that can teach delayed gratification.
| linsomniac wrote:
| There's an awful lot of negativity here, but as someone who's 55
| and has earned a good wage since I was 17, I really wish I had
| taken investing more seriously from the very beginning. While I
| _knew of_ compound interest, I really didn 't _understand_ it
| until like a decade ago. If I 'd started putting 5% of my money
| into a target retirement plan from 17, I'd be retired now. As it
| is I'm not doing badly, but I really wish I'd started earlier.
|
| So I say: Good on you.
|
| Somewhat related: I just got my son set up with a custodial
| account and put his "kid retirement" plan into it, and let him
| pick a couple stocks to put some money into, and put the majority
| of it into target retirement and a few stocks and EFTs, so he can
| get some ideas of how they perform, make it a little fun with
| picking things he's into, and also follow ups and downs of the
| market, all of which I think is good education.
| nxor wrote:
| Retirement is not mentioned in the post
| ikamm wrote:
| It is one of the most common reasons people invest though so
| it's entirely relevant
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| I don't think you need a reason to invest. You should be
| making more money than you spend, so you might as well put
| the surplus to work.
| ikamm wrote:
| Okay
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| I said that because I find it puzzling when asked the
| reason why I invest. They're like, are you saving for a
| house? No, I'm saving in general, and then I buy whatever
| I want.
| ikamm wrote:
| Nobody here asked you anything
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| I put my thoughts out here for others to see and comment
| if they wish.
| bluGill wrote:
| Be careful here. You should have some "rainy day"
| savings. You should have some retirement plans. You can
| save for big items like a vacation.
|
| However you don't know how long you will live. Don't be a
| miser who spends nothing. If you have surplus after the
| above you should either spend it or donate to charity.
| sureglymop wrote:
| You say that now but as a young person with a decent income and
| no family or many responsibilities it's hard to even know where
| to start.
|
| And I'm not even talking about what to invest in, I'm already
| confused at which platform/bank/whatever to do it through. The
| "meta", if you will. I just want to invest the 70% of my salary
| I don't need every month and not think about it for 40 years
| but how? Maybe an important detail, I'm from Switzerland,
| perhaps it's easier in the US with things like Vanguard.
| whoooboyy wrote:
| Read "The Four Pillars of Investing". Basically index funds,
| diverse whole markets, leave it alone and watch it grow.
|
| I did this at 22, and that seed money has grown a ton.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| Your bank probably has an investment platform, you can just
| use it, it doesn't matter. My portfolio is 70% XEQT 30%
| CASH.TO--don't bother with anything else.
| onli wrote:
| Oh, that can be bad advice. It does matter a lot if the
| bank asks for high fees, which would be the case with
| all(?) German banks, and I'd be surprised if that's
| different in Switzerland.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| My bank also charges a trade fee which I think is
| bullshit, but at least it's a major bank. It's like $10
| so doesn't matter all that much, not sure how much it
| would be for Switzerland, but you could just buy the
| stocks in larger batches if trades are expensive.
| onli wrote:
| With the amount people usually trade $10 is a huge
| percentage. When you factor that in with the missed
| compound interest of that money you usually lose tens of
| thousands of dollars until retirement, likely more.
|
| There is no need for a big bank here, in Europe. If one
| of those regulated companies goes bankrupt the etf is
| still yours and transferable to a different institution.
|
| War in Europe is the remaining risk factor, but if that
| happens it won't matter anyway.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| Not sure how it's like over in EU, but in Canada, at this
| point, I assume all fin tech startups are scam. Neo
| financial and wealth simple are definitely fucking scam.
| Major banks may suck but at least you get what you pay
| for.
| jamie_ca wrote:
| Curious about your opinions on WealthSimple, if you can
| share. I got introduced to them when they bought out
| SimpleTax, and so far they've been pretty reasonable for
| investments.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| They require a paid subscription to use USD. They claim
| to have customer support, but the button isn't actually
| working, it does nothing. At least they respond by email.
| That's all I found so far, but I haven't actually made
| any trades yet.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Banks don't typically charge any fees for a self-directed
| account that holds primarily ETFs, beyond maybe a small
| trade fee or account fee(?) - which we would never pay in
| North America. Active management of either your account
| or the products you hold is where they stick it to you.
| Each product will have a management fee which you should
| check, but you'll likely avoid the big bank and insurance
| company products because they do no better than the
| market funds and take more in fees so the returns suck.
| coldpie wrote:
| Don't know about Switzerland, but most US brokers offer some
| kind of "target retirement date" fund, which automatically
| shifts from higher-risk assets to lower-risk as you approach
| retirement. VFIFX is one from Vanguard, for example. Pick one
| you like (just ask a coworker what they use, if you pick a
| big-name brokerage it really doesn't matter which one), shove
| your extra cash into it regularly, and forget about it. Then
| cross your fingers the market isn't actively crashing when
| you plan to retire (this is unlikely, but it does happen a
| couple times per century).
|
| If you start to get into truly high wealth amounts
| (USD$500K+) you might consider hiring a wealth advisor, who
| can probably do better even after accounting for their fees.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| Even when it crashes it's like 20% no? It's not actually
| that big of a deal.
| aners_xyz wrote:
| I'm sorry but 20% of a retirement fund is a lot of money.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| It may be a lot of money but it shouldn't matter because
| you don't need all of it right away.
| im3w1l wrote:
| Crashes can be a lot bigger than just 20%.
| linsomniac wrote:
| The idea is that over a 40 year window that 20% (or more)
| crash is eventually going to rebound, so just sitting on
| the target retirement fund is going to do well over it's
| lifetime. As you get closer to retirement, and don't have
| the time to recover from the crash, the plan moves to
| safer investments.
| triceratops wrote:
| > If you start to get into truly high wealth amounts
| (USD$500K+) you might consider hiring a wealth advisor
|
| That's not nearly high enough for a "wealth advisor". Maybe
| a fee-only financial planner, but even then it's
| borderline.
| onli wrote:
| For the plattforms, that also blocked me for a while. But it
| is easy now. You just get one account at a platform that
| offers a free broker account and supports buying the etf you
| want without extra fees.
|
| Typical options in Europe: Trade Republic, scalable, Consors
| Bank.
|
| Then the usual: Around 10K where you can access it directly,
| a small amount in an investment with percentage (scalable and
| trade republic both offer that, limit there is or was 50k),
| rest in one broad ETF like one that follows the FTSE all
| world (vanguard or invesco offer that, one is bigger, the
| other asks for less fees).
|
| No affiliation, and I dont know whether being outside of the
| EU changes things. And yes, there is the risk that we are in
| a huge bubble now and it popping would at first significantly
| lower the money put into the etf. But you certainly do have
| access to vanguard etc.
|
| Have a look now and at the latest this weekend you have this
| solved, hopefully forever.
| singiamtel wrote:
| I'm also in Switzerland, currently my approach is to invest
| in Vanguard VOO (tracks the S&P500) via Interactive Brokers.
| There is a way to setup auto transfer and invest every month
|
| As a caveat your money will be in dollars and in American
| companies, which might not be what you want, but it's worked
| for me well so far
| mchr3k wrote:
| All the choices you have to make can be very daunting. I was
| very lucky to have a colleague at work who gave a talk at the
| right time in my life with some plausibly right choices.
|
| In the UK I started out using https://www.charles-stanley-
| direct.co.uk/ and later moved to https://www.ii.co.uk/. I
| initially invested in
| https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investments/vanguard-
| life... which is a fund which is available on a bunch of
| platforms. These days I recommend
| https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/ to some people as an easy
| and low fee way of getting started with Vanguard funds in the
| UK.
|
| I don't know what the best trading platform options are in
| Switzerland - it looks like all of the ones I'm familiar with
| are not relevant to you.
|
| The key thing is you want to minimise two types of fees: *
| Platform fees * Product fees
|
| For example Charles Stanley Direct charge 0.3% platform fees,
| and https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/ charges 0.15%
| platform fees.
|
| Vanguard LifeStrategy(r) 100% Equity Fund charges 0.22%.
|
| The bottom line is that there are lots of good choices, and
| the main thing is to make a choice and get started. You can
| always optimise/improve your choices later.
| Brendinooo wrote:
| My understanding is that, if the market generally continues
| on the rate of return it's averaged throughout its history
| (that is, if you're not a doomer), then the single most
| important thing is showing up to play.
|
| People who try to time the market or wait for a perfect time
| or pick the exact right blend of stocks, on average, don't do
| as well as people who pick a boring index or mutual fund and
| forget about it for 40 years.
| linsomniac wrote:
| Yes, however: My father in law gave me some great advice:
| Pick a stock or two and put some small amount of your
| investments into it, like 1-5%. This makes the investing
| more fun. And he was very right, not the least of which
| because the stock I put $7K in exploded and ended up worth
| over $200K. ;-)
|
| My BIL put money into Underarmor (he's an outdoors guy) and
| Electronic Arts (he's also a gamer), both of which have
| done good for him. My son put some money into Roblox (he's
| a gamer), and that's done well also.
| acuozzo wrote:
| > People who try to time the market
|
| If you have doubts about the long-term __existence__ of the
| market, then investing in the first place necessitates
| "timing the market" since you'll need to determine when to
| sell before the panic sell-off which inevitably comes
| before the global minimum is reached.
|
| Mind you, I'm not talking about figuring out whether or not
| to "hodl" through local minima. I'm talking about rolling
| into a different store of value (e.g., cattle, crops,
| ammunition) before the whole thing goes up in smoke.
| triceratops wrote:
| If it goes up in smoke, you personally can't ever buy
| enough ammunition to matter. Who's gonna man all those
| guns?
| buenzlikoder wrote:
| Are you saving for retirement or buying property? Then start
| filling your 3rd pillar (Saule 3a) first because of the tax
| cut. Ideally in a low cost provider (viac/finpension), but
| the bank you already have probably has an offer too. It might
| be a bit more expensive than viac, but still much better than
| not investing. Stay away from 3rd pillar at insurance
| companies, they might be hard to cancel. Do yourself a favor
| and do this just for the tax cut.
|
| If you max out the 3a, you can start of thinking investing
| elsewhere. IBKR is the cheapest to buy a US domiciled world
| ETF. But the UX is not super easy and you will have to fill
| all transactions manually in the tax report.
|
| Neon with investments is another option I can recommend if
| you prefer a swiss company and a simple user interface. Fees
| are low if you set up a savings plan and pick one of the 0%
| ETFs
| sebastiennight wrote:
| - Your bank's platform will cost an arm and a leg;
| Interactive Brokers or Degiro are both available in
| Switzerland and you will save so much on fees (especially if
| you only buy and hold ETFs of which Degiro offers many with
| 0% fees) that it's the equivalent of faster returns on your
| money.
|
| - There are many "getting started" guides available, I found
| Mister Money Mustache the most straightforward to my liking,
| but you're golden as long as you understand a couple of
| basics: 1. investing a high% of your income is more important
| than chasing returns (you seem to be there already), 2. don't
| trade, just buy the whole market (you mentioned Vanguard,
| they offer a "total market" ETF), 3. look for the lowest fees
| as long as you hold title to your shares (IB and Degiro do
| this ; eToro does not so if they sink, you're SOL), 4. don't
| time the market, just buy now and sit on it as it grows
| ashleyn wrote:
| Sometimes I feel like I started investing late at 26. Already,
| six years into the best decade for compounding in your life.
| But such was the power of compounding that I had reached a
| substantial net worth by age 35. So even just nine years can
| make such a tremendous difference even into later ages. It's
| never too late to sock money away.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| It remains to be seen what's going to happen over the next
| few decades. It's entirely possible that it'll all get wiped
| out (the substantial gains, not all value).
|
| While the market was a very good bet for the last 50yrs, its
| not a guarantee.
|
| Especially in the current climate you should be fully aware
| that it's significantly more risky to start investing today
| vs 10 yrs ago.
|
| (Riskier doesn't mean it's necessarily a bad idea. It should
| just be a conscious decision under the acknowledgement that
| the upward trajectory is not certain. Especially in current
| political climate - and that "hodl"-ing doesn't necessarily
| mean you'll eventually get back what you invested, if a
| downturn manifests)
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> Especially in the current climate you should be fully
| aware that it's significantly more risky to start investing
| today vs 10 yrs ago.
|
| First, I don't think this absolute statement is true; I
| think you need to look at it from the alternatives
| perspective. If not investing then what? bury gold? spend
| it all?
|
| Second, are we at a much riskier time than past history,
| both short & long term? I made significant contributions in
| 2014, saw 30%+ wiped out within 6 months and seen it all
| come back and more with the power of long timeframes.
|
| Third, investment can take a lot of forms, not just today's
| hot tech stocks. I won't get into it beyond the standard
| think long term and avoid leverage, which seems to be
| completely inline with start early; start now.
| ashleyn wrote:
| Your money has to go somewhere or it will rot to inflation.
| If you're ultrabearish on stocks, snap up bonds. If you're
| bearish on stocks and bonds alike, snap up gold. Either
| way, bare minimum of what to do with your money long term
| is to preserve its value across inflation.
|
| But really I would recommend nonetheless staying the course
| with investment advice on a stocks/bonds balance relative
| to your age. Increasingly, the economy distributes not
| through labour but through capital and holding stocks is
| essential even with their inherent risks. Even in light of
| that CNN article about meme stock and crypto investors
| having the last laugh over the past decade, indices of
| ordinary large-cap stocks bring you exposure to these
| things.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > Your money has to go somewhere or it will rot to
| inflation.
|
| Inflation is mainly created by this act of "putting your
| money somewhere". For most people, this "somewhere" means
| loans. Money is being loaned out to people, spent,
| deposited back into the bank, and loaned out again, on
| and on it goes until $1,000 turns into $100,000 in
| circulation, not a cent of it real until all loans are
| paid back.
| carllerche wrote:
| You are very confidently incorrect. So incorrect, it is
| hard to even start correcting you.
|
| * Inflation is not caused by "putting your money
| somewhere" What on earth. * At a high level, inflation is
| caused by either "too much money chasing too few goods"
| and/or the cost of producing the goods rising. Money
| supply can increase without causing inflation if the
| supply of goods can also increase. In short, the supply
| of money can increase without causing inflation if
| productivity rises to match it. * Most people do not "put
| money" in loans what are you even talking about there? *
| Bank loans do not automatically increase the supply of
| money. When a loan is taken out, it is (mostly) deposited
| to another bank, resulting in a net-zero change in money.
| Increasing the supply of money requires the federal
| reserve to take steps.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > In short, the supply of money can increase without
| causing inflation if productivity rises to match it.
|
| You're actually agreeing with me. Money supply _must_ be
| backed up by real wealth and production.
|
| That's not how things work in current times. We have
| nearly zero interest rates, and currencies are backed up
| by literally nothing.
|
| > Most people do not "put money" in loans what are you
| even talking about there?
|
| Fractional reserve banking. Banks loan out the cash you
| deposit. They "efficiently allocate" the money in their
| custody.
|
| > Inflation is not caused by "putting your money
| somewhere" What on earth.
|
| It absolutely is. Banks can easily turn thousands of
| dollars into hundreds of thousands of dollars by
| repeatedly loaning out the exact same dollars numerous
| times.
|
| It's some kind of society wide financial call stack. Too
| many defaults and everything starts unwinding.
|
| > Bank loans do not automatically increase the supply of
| money.
|
| Obviously they do.
|
| Imagine you deposit $100 at your bank. It takes your $100
| and loans out $90 of it to someone else. There are now
| $190 dollars in circulation.
|
| Whoever took the loan goes off and spends it. Eventually
| it gets deposited back into a bank. Then the bank loans
| out $81 out of that $90. There are now $271 dollars in
| circulation.
|
| And it keeps going.
|
| You can inflate _bitcoin_ via this algorithm.
|
| > When a loan is taken out, it is (mostly) deposited to
| another bank
|
| Irrelevant. Banks form interconnected systems. They all
| settle debts and accounts with each other.
|
| > Increasing the supply of money requires the federal
| reserve to take steps.
|
| The physical supply of money is irrelevant. It
| contributes only a small fraction of the circulating
| money supply. Money is numbers in bank databases now.
| They could run the money printers 24/7 and they'd never
| even come close to catching up to the inflation caused by
| banks.
| gadders wrote:
| Saving is follows the same advice as for planting a tree.
|
| The best time to plant a tree is ten years ago.
|
| The second best time is now.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Historically, it takes about 7-10 years to double your money
| in the stock market. So between doubling your money and
| incremental saving, yeah you should see a pretty significant
| difference from 26-35. And that's before it skyrockets :)
| elictronic wrote:
| I started my daughter investing with a custodial account at 13.
| She put a few hundred dollars of her money in and I convinced
| her by matching her investment and told her if the amount ever
| went below the original investment I would backstop any loss.
|
| Investing is all about that long term gain and slow growth.
| Having 10 years of experience after finishing college will do
| so much more than Robinhood for refrigerators.
| linsomniac wrote:
| I've made a similar deal with my kids: Around 7 years ago I
| set up a "kid retirement" plan for them, where they couldn't
| touch the money until they were 18, but any money they put in
| I would match, and I'd also give them 10% APY with monthly
| compounding. My daughter aged out of it a couple years ago,
| she got something in the $100 range. Her brother still has a
| 18 months left, and I just recently rolled his over into the
| custodial account, he's got over a grand in there currently.
|
| My daughter I just recently set up a ROTH for her and told
| her I'd match anything she puts into it, and stressed she
| should put something into it now from her savings, and then
| put some of her paycheck into it, anything is better than
| nothing. So far she's declined the free money. I'm going to
| set one up for my son, once he's at the point of having an
| income to justify it. She's very smart, but in some ways
| she's very stupid.
| bluGill wrote:
| That young you should be investing in a 527 education
| account not a ROTH retirement account. Education is a much
| better ROI when you are young than anything else. As you
| get older the value of education decreases. In generally
| the cross over is sometime in your early/mid 20s (Could be
| as young as 16 if you don't do well in school, or as old as
| 35 for things like medical doctor)
|
| If you don't live in the US you will have different
| options, but the idea still applies
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| The spiraling price of college in the US today has been
| questioning the assumption that education has a better
| ROI.
| bluGill wrote:
| There are a lot of it depends. If you are going to be a
| retail worker all your life there is no reason to go to
| college. A music degree has questionable value on its
| own, but many people get them understanding that "any
| degree" is needed for some good jobs and those that find
| those do well enough (your generals and non-major
| electives are important). The school matters - Harvard is
| expensive but the networking can be worth it if you
| network well in school. State schools tend to be a lot
| cheaper than private or out of state as well, and
| generally pretty good. Scholarships enter in as well.
| Degrees like Engineering or Medical doctor tend to have a
| much better ROI long term, but only if you pick the right
| one and pass.
|
| But you need to make your own decisions. For some your
| best ROI is dropping out of school at 16 - but for the
| vast majority more school will be worth it.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| This would be fun to model. Lifetime earnings are higher
| for those who have more education, but there's
| potentially decades of servicing a potential mountain of
| non-dischargeable debt to consider (potentially
| decreasing post-college investment ability) too.
|
| I don't know the first thing about student loans
| (interest rates, amortization periods). I never had one.
| I just search-engined 2025 federal student loan rates and
| I'm blown away by the interest rates. It looks like
| avoiding student loans at all costs is the way to go.
|
| I wonder if spending a few years working (especially if
| your parents are able to continue to house you and pay
| for health insurance) and contributing to a 529 plan
| might meaningfully decrease the overall cost, albeit at
| the "penalty" of starting college later in life (at, say,
| 22 instead of 18).
| kevstev wrote:
| You mean a 529 account right? 527 seems to be associated
| with political contributions. I looked it up to ensure I
| wasn't missing out on something I did not know about...
| bluGill wrote:
| Too late to edit, but I stand corrected
| linsomniac wrote:
| I'm doing a 529 as well as wanting to set up the ROTH
| Note that you can also just take money from your other
| investments, deposit it into a 529, and then immediately
| pay yourself back for educational expenses you've paid
| for off the 529.
|
| My kids have some 529 buffer, and we are paying for my
| daughter's school right now (though she's paid us back
| for the class she got an F in). My son, it's not clear
| that the typical school track is going to be the right
| thing for him, but we also have a 529 for him that I've
| been contributing to.
| coldpie wrote:
| Ah, she's barely out of her teens, give her a break :)
| Better things to spend one's life on in those years than
| worrying over a few hundred bucks in a bank account. She'll
| come back around in a few years.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| I hope that @roberdam reads this and implements those into
| his PWA.
|
| OP, enabling: - deposits (and withdrawals) - a matching
| logic (which we can do manually I guess, by doubling the
| deposit amount) - and correct calculation of compounding
| (if I had $100 for 11 months and add $100 in december, I
| shouldn't see the value compound $200 for the whole year)
|
| would be great.
|
| Bonus points if there was some kind of password (even
| hardcoded) so that the kids can't just click the gear icon
| and write themselves a blank check of $1,000,000
| roberdam wrote:
| Excellent suggestions! For now, what I do is update the
| amount every time there's a deposit or withdrawal, and I
| set the initial date to the day of the withdrawal or
| deposit.
| kelvinjps10 wrote:
| My dad made a deal with me that, of doubling what I would
| save during the week.
| bluGill wrote:
| Investing for retirement at 17 is a bad idea! At 17 you should
| still be thinking about investing in education - the right
| education investment today will pay back far more than any
| other monitory investment. There are of course bad education
| investments, and some are not willing to study even more (or
| not able to pass a good education course), in that case
| retirement might be the best investment you can make, but it
| should not be your first choice.
|
| A different reply said they waited until 26 to start - that is
| probably about the right time to start saving for retirement.
| Maybe a little late, but close enough. Before about that age
| you are still getting started and so you have little spare
| cash. You need to pay off school loans (if you took any). You
| need to save for down payment on a house, and buy a lot of
| those will last a lifetime household items everyone needs. You
| should be thinking about marriage and saving for it (even if
| you don't get legally married most people will live with
| someone else and should be planning on how to make that life
| work).
|
| Most important: you don't know how long you will live. Save for
| the future, but not everything - you have no guarantee you will
| live to tomorrow - if you are under 60 odds are strongly in
| favor of it, but people die young all the time. You should have
| a little play money as well in your budget. Go climb Mt Fuji
| while your body is young and healthy enough to do so (I picked
| a random activity here, you should decide what you care about,
| not rush to Japan)
| skybrian wrote:
| It seems like learning about personal finance is itself
| educational, and there are a lot of jobs where you deal with
| money. So this isn't entirely separate from investing in
| education, depending on which kind of education you mean.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| As with many times when we use the word "should" (and you've
| used it a lot), the perspective you're sharing is deeply
| influenced by your own cultural background and might not
| apply to many people reading.
|
| A few examples: school loans, considering a house purchase to
| be a sound investment, purchasing once-in-a-lifetime
| household items, saving for a wedding (from the age of 17!?)
| or marriage (not sure what you even mean by that if you don't
| mean the wedding itself?).
| bluGill wrote:
| The details matter and are personal I agree.
|
| Even if a house isn't right for you, you still need to save
| for the deposit on an apartment. You still need to buy
| furnishings for your apartment. You won't even know if a
| house is right for you until you are mid 20s to 30, so it
| is probably best to save for a house and if you decide at
| 30 it isn't right for you roll that money into retirement
| savings (if a house isn't right for you that means you need
| more retirement savings)
|
| Relationships - even if you don't have a wedding or kids -
| come at the time you have those starting to get out on your
| own expenses. You will need to figure those out.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| You just replaced "buying a house" with "buying an
| apartment", proving my point about cultural bias :-)
|
| I meant, for many people (especially young ones), taking
| that same deposit to purchase an investment property
| (which could be a house or apartment, but has a tenant
| who lives there rather than being for oneself) can be a
| better deal than buying for themselves.
|
| In the end, buying a place to live in is very much an
| emotional choice, which is totally valid. But in some
| locales and for some lifestyles, being a landlord who
| pays rent elsewhere can be a better financial decision.
| joquarky wrote:
| This kind of advice was gospel in the 90s.
| joquarky wrote:
| [should, shouldn't, supposed to, never, always]
|
| These are key words to mentally breakpoint on and more
| carefully consider what is being said.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| >Investing for retirement at 17 is a bad idea! At 17 you
| should still be thinking about investing in education
|
| Why would you assume they are mutually exclusive? You can
| just do both.
| lukan wrote:
| And poor people just should eat cake, I know..
|
| For real, I believe most 17 year olds on this earth do not
| have the funds to invest in education AND in a retirement
| fond, so there are choices to be made. (there are also the
| choices of creating social bonds and investing into
| activities together, ...)
| sebastiennight wrote:
| The root comment was talking about investing 5% of their
| earnings. If you're making any kind of income at 17
| (which admittedly is not everybody) then learning to
| save+invest a small portion of that can have incredible
| positive snowball effects beyond the compounding itself.
|
| I can't imagine a scenario where at 55 years old, you
| would miss the 5% of your summer income you invested back
| in high school. But I can totally see a scenario where
| investing those 5% led you to increasing it to 10% in
| college, 20% on your first job, and being financially
| independent way before you hit the age of 55.
| lukan wrote:
| "I can't imagine a scenario where at 55 years old, you
| would miss the 5% of your summer income you invested back
| in high school."
|
| If those 5% were the question of whether to go with the
| group on a adventure together or not - and you end up
| alone at 55 years and not invited .. you might have
| rather invested different back then. But on the other
| hand I don't think those 5% of earnings with 17 make a
| difference later.
|
| The only real difference they can make, if they made you
| start a habit of saving income for important purchases.
| (But not really fore retirement at that age. But each to
| his own)
| lurking_swe wrote:
| I think this really comes down to how a teenager is wired
| and life circumstances. Some of us made all our close
| friends in college and dont even live near our hometowns
| anymore. My high school friendships are all "dead" so to
| speak.
|
| I think if a teenager is the social type, or they have a
| positive (non-toxic) friend group, then absolutely -
| spend the money! It's an investment in your friends that
| may or more not pay off.
|
| But some teenagers don't have much in common with their
| peers, are bullied in high school, or just want to move
| on to the "real world" and graduate already. For those
| kids, invest!
| lukan wrote:
| "or just want to move on to the "real world" and graduate
| already. For those kids, invest!"
|
| In general sure, it really depends .. so invest in what?
| It can mean many things, like also saving for the drivers
| licence/first car to make that move away into a nicer
| worlds with better opportunities.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| absolutely! It's always a good idea to write down your
| life goals and major planned expenses. Then you can
| prioritize them as needed.
|
| That usually helps answer questions like "if i invest X%
| of each paycheck into an S&P500 index fund, and put the
| remainder toward saving for my 1st car, i'll have money
| for the car by date Y."
|
| And this skill translates to adult life really well. I
| find myself doing just that a couple times a year! Of
| course for some teenagers investing a substantial amount
| is simply not realistic...not every family is middle
| class after all.
|
| One important reminder: inflation is no joke these days.
| I'd only recommend a savings account to a teenager for
| short term goals. Even if they are poor.
| bluGill wrote:
| Most 17 year olds have very low income and education
| goals. They will miss that 5% in a retirement fund
| because they are forced to take a student loan to cover
| that.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| Forgive my puzzlement, as I come from a country where you
| would not consider taking a student loan (if this even
| existed) to cover the $50 you put into an ETF from your
| summer job.
| bluGill wrote:
| Eventually you just don't have enough. If are short $50
| where does it come from?
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Im not claiming everyone can do it. Im saying they are
| not mutually exclusive. If they were mutually exclusive
| that would imply _no one_ could do both. For those that
| have to chose one or the other I agree they should choose
| education, but thats a subset of cases.
| graeme wrote:
| If you start investing a small amount at age 17 you can build
| the habit and increase totals later.
|
| Saying "I'll do it later when it is rational" often
| translates to "I won't do it (for a long time)". Which is not
| rational
| bluGill wrote:
| Get your habit be investing in an education savings
| account.
| Brendinooo wrote:
| This is true of most money behaviors! My mom taught me the
| same thing about giving.
|
| And even today, knowing way more about personal finance
| than I did at the start of my working life, I'm still
| amazed at how blocking out money in the budget
| astronomically increases your chances that that money
| actually goes to the thing you want.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| "My mom taught me the same thing about giving."
|
| care to share what you learn???
| imp0cat wrote:
| Probably something like this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ayPuijerjQ tldr; have
| your kids split their money into three separate "jars":
| Spend (can be freely spent), Save (this jar generates
| interest from the money in it, they also have to wait
| some time to access the money if they want to spend them)
| and Give (for charity).
| dottjt wrote:
| I think it's actually a bad thing to think about money early
| on. Because it adds a layer of responsibility which I think
| takes away from simply enjoying life and focusing on what you
| might be truly passionate about.
|
| One of the things I hate about my 30s is that I'm focused on
| money now and it feels like I'm not living the life that I
| want. It just feels like I'm preparing for death.
|
| Which I'm not saying isn't the sensible thing to do, there's
| just something inherently managerial about it which doesn't
| seem intuitive to living a meaningful life.
| ryandrake wrote:
| The earliest years of your earning life contribute
| overwhelmingly more to your final retirement figure than
| your later years. Anyone lucky enough to have a job in
| their teens that gives them disposable income after each
| paycheck really, really, _really_ should be saving and
| investing. Like OP, if I was more serious about investing
| in my early years, I would be retired by now.
|
| One can lead a meaningful, enjoyable life while _also_
| considering their finances.
| joquarky wrote:
| What educational path is safe to invest in right now?
|
| What kind of job will be in high demand in a few years and
| will remain in demand for at least 20 years?
| groby_b wrote:
| > At 17 you should still be thinking about investing in
| education
|
| I mean, sure, in a perfect world you can postpone retirement
| savings. But if we're doing perfect world, you shouldn't have
| to think about "investing in education", your government
| should have the basic cognitive skills that would let it
| recognize that _they_ should invest in education - ROI is
| pretty spectacular.
|
| Realistically, both, because... otherwise you just pick how
| screwed you'll be later in life.
| roberdam wrote:
| Thanks for your encouragement!. I started investing in my
| mid-30s, and compound interest really works wonders after a
| while. I hope my kids do better than me, though.
| ivape wrote:
| Actively invested retirement funds throughout 30+ years can
| also catch more concentrated moves if you are educated on a
| sector. For example, choosing the mag7 in the early 2010s vs
| just the SPY. Following the market could also let you pull out
| during serious world events.
|
| There is definitely money left on the table when you ignore the
| market, even in a retirement fund.
| intrasight wrote:
| Same. But is same for most people. Average American retirement
| savings is like $200k. I've done better that that but not by
| orders of magnitude.
|
| About six years ago I was hired to make an investment
| simulator. I wish someone had show the results to me when I was
| a teen. I did show it to my daughter at the time (she was in
| college), and used it to explain the power of compounding
| interest.
|
| I found they still an old preview online (sorry not https)
|
| http://simulators.gibsoncapital.com/new-preview-for-total-si...
| nonethewiser wrote:
| That's why you shouldn't leave it up to a kid with very little
| money who quite literally cannot understand the long term
| impacts of their decisions to invest or not. Instead, put aside
| something for them. You can even start well before they are 17.
| linsomniac wrote:
| Naw, dawg, Imma try and try to encourage them to get started
| early and put a little bit away, because it's good for them.
| I'm acutely afraid of a scenario where they have bad habits
| and anything I leave them they flush down the toilet because
| of those bad habits. I'm hoping to leave them plenty, but
| they need to be in a position to not waste that for it to be
| worth anything.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Yeah you can do that. Doesn't prevent you from setting
| something aside for them and giving it to them if and when
| there is a good time.
| dingaling wrote:
| > and let him pick a couple stocks to put some money into
|
| And yet we complain that corps today are too focused on their
| market valuation over everything else; customer experience,
| longevity, worker conditions, R&D are all being neglected in
| order to make the needle go up.
|
| 'Investing' in stocks in order to flip them when the price goes
| up is feeding this insanity. Teaching kids that this is
| perfectly rational seems selfish and short-sighted.
|
| Our children should be encouraged to invest into something like
| bonds which actually help promote economic growth.
| kelvinjps10 wrote:
| Bonds returns don't match inflation so long term you're
| loosing money to inflation, it might be better to spend it
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Please share https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started
| with your son.
| swalsh wrote:
| Where can I find this 15% annual interest rate?
| triceratops wrote:
| Become OP's kid.
| roberdam wrote:
| open to adoptions :P
| roberdam wrote:
| sample= 14.5% on local currency,
| https://www.bolsadevalores.com.py/nuevas-emisiones/investiga...
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| In a country with high inflation
| meatjuice wrote:
| I can feel the vibe-coding "vibe" from every vibe-coded websites,
| somehow.
| lm28469 wrote:
| When 50% of the words are bold you know you're in for a treat
| pton_xd wrote:
| My decade in the making habit of only reading HN comments is
| finally paying off. Nowadays when I do randomly skim an
| article it's almost always slop.
| beej71 wrote:
| Happy to see a PWA. These things need to make a comeback for a
| variety of reasons.
| alternatex wrote:
| Though for a PWA JavaScript is required so not a single HTML
| file.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I had a very similar idea this summer. But my kids are 6 and 8,
| so I approached it using the video game approach. It's been an
| _absolute smash hit_ and entirely altered the habits of doing
| chores in this home. It 's been about 3 months and it's still
| going stronger than ever. The whole thing is a static page,
| driven by a Google Spreadsheet that Mom and I edit to adjust
| goals and track progress.
|
| https://ibb.co/RTw5sCDJ https://ibb.co/ycRB8750
| https://ibb.co/gLGQ0tKT
| roberdam wrote:
| great!, mobile app?
| Waterluvian wrote:
| It's just a static hosted page they run on the family iPad.
| There's no server at all!
|
| I should really clean it up and make a blog post about it.
| But wanted to share it here because this project reminded me
| of it :)
| FredPret wrote:
| You should make it an app, I would pay for it
| koyote wrote:
| That is very cool! Do you have any details on how it was built
| or is the source code available?
|
| Also, what happens if one of the daily missions is not
| completed? Is there a passive income from those?
| thw_9a83c wrote:
| Nice! I also created a "virtual bank account" for my kids when
| they were 7-8yo. They can choose to take the weekly cash or put
| it in their savings account. My bank gives them a 5% interest
| rate per month, which isn't bad. Explaining the idea of compound
| interest this way is easy.
|
| However, I think that's the easier part of being an investor. The
| more complicated part is risk management. With a savings account,
| there is basically zero risk. But that's not how you invest these
| days.
| mattmanser wrote:
| 5% per month? Where is this crazy money generator? Assume you
| meant per year here!
|
| It's not zero risk:
|
| - Your currency may collapse, see Germany 1930s, Argentina,
| Zimbabwe, Venezula, etc.
|
| - Only a certain figure is protected in savings, though
| governments will act aggressively to protect that (see 2008 +
| the Icelandic/UK/Dutch palava)
| thw_9a83c wrote:
| Yes, it's 5% per month. You wouldn't be able to explain the
| concept of a _yearly_ compound interest rate to such young
| children. One year is an eternity in their life. I also don
| 't give them too much pocket money to encourage them to save.
| They would spend it on junk food if they had too much cash.
|
| A agree, that the currency is not a 100% safe investment.
| Inflation especially makes it bad for long-term savings.
| Indeed, money in any savings account is insured only up to a
| certain amount. However, that's not something you can explain
| to kids with a "virtual account." I suppose the idea that
| Daddy's bank will go bankrupt is probably not an ideal way to
| teach kids financial literacy.
| fodkodrasz wrote:
| But how do you charge the phone?
| roberdam wrote:
| disabling wifi+data extend a lot the battery
| fodkodrasz wrote:
| The screen is the biggest consumer imho.
|
| I mean of course I understand that the phone can be removed
| by the suction mount, but thus also defeats the idle
| infotainment concept.
|
| Also seen screen burn in...
| roberdam wrote:
| locked by default, unlock when you want to check your
| balance.
| pmg102 wrote:
| You're giving a 15% growth rate with zero volatility? That isn't
| going to teach many important lessons.
|
| How about offering a range of rates with volatility increasing as
| rate increases. Then they can think about the benefit of
| guaranteed return vs the benefit of long-term growth, or a
| combination of both.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| OP: I think introducing volatility (which you can just model
| with one percentage variable and a sinusoidal multiplier based
| on this: 100% volatility means if your "real" balance was going
| to be $100 today, it varies between $0 and $200 ; 10%
| volatility means you're fluctuating between $90 and $110) is
| also a good idea in teaching kids to refrain from the impulse
| of withdrawing the money just because today's daily gain is in
| the red.
|
| Another add to the feature request list :)
| pmg102 wrote:
| The biggest challenge with pensions is convincing people in
| their 20s to invest in high risk/high return investments.
| This is usually the right strategy because of the long time
| horizon of several decades until they will need to
| crystallise losses/gains.
|
| However if they see their pension balance fall in a big
| correction, they can panic and move to less volatile
| investments, thus reducing their long term gains.
|
| You can theorize all you want but the best way to learn to
| cope with this is for it to happen to you so it would be
| great to include it in the simulation!
| wiseowise wrote:
| You forgot to add taxes, market crashes, sanctions, asset
| depreciation, companies goes bankrupt and other fun things.
| seydor wrote:
| Tangentially i can't help but notice a pattern. Generation1 says
| "build more homes", then they build them and convince Generation2
| to invest despite ever climbing real estate prices. Then the
| internet happens and Generation2 says "build more companies".
| They build them , and proceed to convince Generation3 to invest
| in those companies despite ever climbing stock values. Seems like
| these trends run in cycles
| mlmonkey wrote:
| When I started working at 24, a friend of mine (a few years older
| than me) asked me if our company had a 401(K) and what was the
| match.
|
| I was confused. What's this gobbledygook? So I asked around and
| got him the answers, and he responded with: max out your 401(K).
| Just do it. And do not ever think about taking money out of it.
|
| So I followed his advice. At that time, the ~$5500 cut in
| paycheck (my gross was around $35K, IIRC) stung a little. I was
| single, footloose and fancyfree, and those extra few hundred
| dollars a month would have been fun to have. But I stuck to his
| advice.
|
| Today, almost 30 years later, thanks to that, I have a nice nest
| egg and don't have to worry about retirement (modulo catastrophic
| illnesses, of course).
|
| So recently my friends' kids started working, and I gave them the
| same advice: Max out your 401(K), pick a Vanguard Target
| Retirement fund, and forget about it. If your place offers a
| "Mega Back Door" option, use it to the fullest extent possible.
| And if your company has a HDHCP, put funds in your HSA too.
|
| We have a lot of avenues to save these days. Make full use of
| them.
| sema4hacker wrote:
| > We have a lot of avenues to save these days.
|
| Consider investing your time, not just your money. In other
| words, do careful research, start a business, then put your
| labor into offering a product or service that fills a need,
| instead of simply working for someone else. If you fail, you'll
| still learn a lot for another try. And if you succeed, the
| payoff can be much larger and faster than anything else you
| might attempt.
| mothballed wrote:
| I used a lot of the money I could have 'saved for retirement'
| on a house instead. Given how fast housing prices have risen
| and the compounding issue of the cost of rents, I'm not sure
| I'm too far behind. If you look at REITs, which combine the
| value of housing appreciation with increased values of rents,
| they are beating stocks in general over the period I've been
| working.
|
| You might actually be worse off saving for retirement, at early
| career stages. Of course, some will point out retirement
| savings are tax protected, but so are modest capital gains on
| primary residence.
|
| https://i2.wp.com/financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/20...
| Pooge wrote:
| > You might actually be worse off saving for retirement, at
| early career stages.
|
| A very well-diversified, international fund usually performs
| at 8% annually which is far more than you would get holding
| REITs (or worse, properties themselves). What you invest for
| (e.g. education, retirement, projects) is irrelevant as long
| as your time horizon allows for crash recoveries (measured in
| decades at worst and months at best).
| mothballed wrote:
| REIT is largely a reflection of property appreciation plus
| rents, which is the opportunity cost of not owning your own
| property. The link I posted was showing an 8+% return once
| accounting for both over the a 20 year period that doesn't
| even include the recent COVID era price explosions.
| Pooge wrote:
| > The link I posted was showing an 8+% return
|
| If I'm not mistaken, they usually pay at least 3%
| dividend which is added to your salary. ETFs don't
| trigger any tax as long as you don't sell. And I didn't
| check but REITs probably have higher annual fees.
| mothballed wrote:
| I was using REITs as a proxy for the value and
| opportunity cost of buying your housing rather than
| investing in a retirement account. If you actually buy
| REITs this breaks down because REIT capital gains are
| taxable, while residence capital gains on a primary
| residence of modest value are not.
|
| It was not my intent to convey you should buy REITs
| instead of a place to live.
|
| After early career this breaks down though, because the
| tax advantage are only good for primary residence modest
| value homes, it's not a strategy that can be continually
| employed.
| ZeWaka wrote:
| > 8% annually
|
| Historically, yes - but the last 5 year average has been
| ~14% (I guess it's like ~9% if you're adjusting for
| inflation). I think 10% is a bit of a better number these
| days.
|
| That's not to say I couldn't be eating my words when the
| market crashes tomorrow, however.
| deadbabe wrote:
| The number one thing people fail to truly take advantage of is
| the triple tax advantage of HSA accounts. So powerful.
|
| Even better is that you can save medical receipts throughout your
| life and withdraw all that money for any purpose in the future
| without paying income tax on it.
| FredPret wrote:
| Love this.
|
| Especially the opening line:
|
| ""What comes with the milk, leaves with the soul" -- Russian
| proverb."
|
| I love a good proverb. This one goes hard.
| lala_ wrote:
| main di jo777. pasti cuan
| lutusp wrote:
| > I explained to my kids that investing is like having a magic
| box that generates more money over time.
|
| That is wildly misleading. Investing is super important, but it
| shouldn't be described in this fairy-tale way. Young people might
| be misled into trusting investment advisors/counselors/brokers,
| whose real goal is to enrich themselves at your expense. In fact,
| there are adults who haven't yet learned this.
|
| An article about investing that doesn't mention the WSJ dartboard
| contest isn't worth reading -- essentially, over 14 years, random
| stock picks produced returns equal to those of stockbrokers,
| before the stockbroker's fees and other costs were subtracted.
|
| An investment counselor's primary goal is to make you think you
| need his services. His secondary goes is to keep you from
| performing your own research to discover that is false.
| roberdam wrote:
| never speak about investment counselors on the article, I will
| forward the WSJ article to my 7 year old girl so she won't be
| scammed by her broker (me).
| Mr_Bees69 wrote:
| you need to add the meta utf8 tag
| tictacttoe wrote:
| I wouldn't want kids to grow up chasing a number. It's just too
| reductionist. If you want them to be financially secure, teach
| them skills and the money will follow. TC obsession is a blight.
| bruckie wrote:
| I run a "Bank of Dad", tracked in a spreadsheet for my kids. They
| can choose to "invest" their money with me or not. To make
| investing meaningful for them, I pay 10% interest per month, up
| to a $50 balance.
|
| To avoid bankrupting myself--and to encourage them to get a real
| investment account when the time comes--the rate drops as the
| balance increases, similar to progressive tax brackets. By the
| time they get to $1000 balance, the annualized rate works out to
| ~6%, and after that it drops fast enough that it's essentially
| free for me to operate.
|
| Overall, it's been quite successful. Now whenever the kids get
| money, they invest it immediately. And they often delay or forego
| spending so that they can get more interest the next month. They
| haven't turned into complete misers, but it has encourage a
| mentality of thinking about saving, and I think the concept of
| interest has landed quite well. I think things really started to
| click for them around age 8 or 9.
|
| If you're interested in doing something similar, I made a
| sanitized version of the spreadsheet. Feel free to copy:
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1f3FgHUohw26sHuCoO40s...
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