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.
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.
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)
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.
>> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Vanguard LifeStrategy® 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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... ;)
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
I remember watching the statements for my savings account as a kid and getting like 2¢ of interest per statement and thinking… that’s it?? Why bother??
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.
> 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.
> 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...
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
>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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
>> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Even when it crashes it's like 20% no? It's not actually that big of a deal.
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.
Crashes can be a lot bigger than just 20%.
I’m sorry but 20% of a retirement fund is a lot of money.
It may be a lot of money but it shouldn't matter because you don't need all of it right away.
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® 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Retirement is not mentioned in the post
It is one of the most common reasons people invest though so it's entirely relevant
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.
Okay
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
you should know haha :)
I wear it proudly!
Probably, because everything would collapse if everyone was an "investor" and fewer people did actual work to keep the world going.
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.
For most people it’s “what retirement savings?”
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.
And it doesn't occur to them that they will need money when they're old and can't work? Incredible.
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.
> Rest assured it usually isn't their choice.
People choose to marry, have kids, and buy a house.
Wow, you are so out of touch
They're worried about paying for their next trip to the dentist. Not working when they're old is not in the picture.
it does but they don't know how to change it
median emergency savings in the US is $500-600
1 in 5 have $0
50% have enough to cover 3 months of expenses
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.
How couldn't it be? If the finance industry made things clearer then more people would benefit from it.
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.
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.
> 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.
> that's most adults' level of financial literacy too.
The vicious cycle! We have to start somewhere..
Where do you send your money to invest? What is a stock? This is the type of information missing.
> 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.
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.
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
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.”
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.
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.
Narrative: You are teaching about the intricacies of finance and the stock market.
Reality: Dump everything into Nvidia / S&P 500. Number go up.
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.
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).
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.
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).
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.
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...
What is going to happen specifically when billionaires decide the show is over?
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.
One small html file, and half a megabyte of CSS and Javascript framework... oh and the html file contains 800 lines of additional Javascript.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Agreed - which is disappointing.
My firewall shows blocked connections to cdn.tailwindcss.com and unpkg.com
I have a "plain Python file" that only imports TensorFlow.
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
If you can run the app without any other files and without internet then it’s plain and a single file.
[flagged]
It's a valid point lol. "A single html file" for me is a Ciechanowski page, not something that needs many gigabytes of bloat to compile.
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.
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
great!, mobile app?
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 :)
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.
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)
> I act as their investment agent, assigning realistic interest rates
Author then proceeds to put 15% annual interest rate...
11% is a safe interest rate on my country (py), I just got a 14.5% offer for local bonds BBB+
py = Paraguay, for those like me who didn't know
stay vigilant Lebanon was granting 12% rates and everything was fine and “covered” by central bank until it wasnt
> 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.
up to 30k, cover 100% by the central bank
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.
Look, you do you, but rest assured that you don't get 11% for no reason.
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
the issue is your local currency will lose its value over time
Is there a (government-issued) currency that doesn't?
I can feel the vibe-coding "vibe" from every vibe-coded websites, somehow.
When 50% of the words are bold you know you're in for a treat
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.
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?
Will they also have periods of a bear market and see their money go down ?
hopefully, “The first national bank of dad” remains solvent.
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... ;)
First they have to fill in KYC questionnaire and have no risky products if they did not have investing experience.
unlimited apps ideas :D
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.
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.
This feels like a severe anecdotal example which I'm not sure applies to most people.
Agreed, in 7th grade we did a stock market simulation, it made winning feel too easy.
Ahah but green ticker good red ticker bad. What's the problem sir
Happy to see a PWA. These things need to make a comeback for a variety of reasons.
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" />
Thanks for the tip, should be fixed now !
But how do you charge the phone?
disabling wifi+data extend a lot the battery
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...
locked by default, unlock when you want to check your balance.
Where can I find this 15% annual interest rate?
sample= 14.5% on local currency, https://www.bolsadevalores.com.py/nuevas-emisiones/investiga...
In a country with high inflation
Become OP's kid.
open to adoptions :P
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!
I feel like this is a great way to raise a crypto "line-must-go-up" addict
That's not just crypto :)
That was the idea! I hope it works out that way.
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.
features coming with the next update, meanwhile they can withdraw at any time
Good. Financial education is sorely needed for everyone in America.
Now if only there’s an app that can teach delayed gratification.
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)
thanks for the bug report!
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?
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
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.
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
What's the point of this comment? To discourage investing? Reddit-style shitposting? Not sure what you're going for here.
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.
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.
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."
is 15% realistic?
No. Since the late 1920s, US stocks have yielded an average real annual return of about 7%.
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.
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.
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).
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.
I remember watching the statements for my savings account as a kid and getting like 2¢ of interest per statement and thinking… that’s it?? Why bother??
11% is a safe interest rate on my country (py), I just got a 14.5% offer for local bonds BBB+
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%
Yes, in Brasil and South Sudan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_central_b...
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.
So, not really.
/me looks at market gains for 2025
87% in Argentina.
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.
I'm always bummed when I comment on HN and then scroll down and find another comment which said it better.
> 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.
> 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...
Your point is true in the USA, but the author appears to be from Paraguay.
> 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.
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.
It's not true for the US.
https://www.ngpf.org/blog/advocacy/how-many-states-require-s...
It's apparently now 30 states.
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.
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?
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.
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.
I mostly agree but greed is a part of human nature is it not?
People keep repeating this. But why is it people’s nature. Maybe it is learned, because everyone keeps repeating this phrase!
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.
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.
In what way are you doing that? Not that I disagree just curious how
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.
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.
Sadly, honest work is a dying value.
I don't think you understand. In the US you have to invest, or you simply won't retire before you die.
By earning more.
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
He's teaching them the most important lesson of living in a capitalist system: wealth comes from having money, not from earning money.
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.
I mean you can literally do that. And get wealthly. It'll just be a meagre existence up and until retirement.
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.
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.
Or they could work for money when they are old enough to
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?
>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.
You should take inflation into consideration, so the million in 20 years won't be the same as now.
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.
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.
Investing isn't bad? Sure we all do it but how isn't it bad?
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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Brilliant idea!
Do you deduct short term and long term capital gains taxes?
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.
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