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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

Get your habit be investing in an education savings account.

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.

"My mom taught me the same thing about giving."

care to share what you learn???

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).

They mean don't wait till you're rich to start giving charity. Just give what you can when you can. Many people tell themselves they are great people because of all the money they'd give away just as soon as they are rich enough to do it but die without giving anything.

More or less: yup.

The great thing about saying "give 10%" is how well it scales.

Except it doesn’t. If you’re poor, 10% directly impacts your life negatively. It means less (or lesser quality) food. It means less money set aside for yourself in the case you need it — and you will.

10% for middle class is fine. That’s just one less night out.

People should not give to charity if they themselves are likely to be dependent on charity.

This comment perfectly illustrates the mindset folks are talking about. "I'll give when it doesn't hurt me so much" is another form of "I'll give when I have more." It doesn't make the person "bad" or any such thing for not giving, but you won't convince folks to not give by saying "but what about you, don't you want nicer food/clothes/etc."

Most people do think they have less than they really do - which is to say there are families living on less income than they are thus proving it is possible with some luxury quality of life compromises. However that doesn't destroy the point that there are people at or near the bottom who shouldn't be giving.

I live in reality. It's me first, then it's my family and my close friends, and then my local community and then, finally, local charities. That's how my budget works. A budget is money in and money out. And when all of that is good, then maybe I'll think about larger charities where I can't be directly involved to see where my help actually goes.

> give what you can when you can

I could get into virtue ethics or religion but I know this is Hacker News, so maybe I can frame it like this:

Telling people to wait until they're financially stable before giving risks creating a dynamic where people never start. The person who says "I'll give when I can afford it" at $30k is likely to say the same thing at $100k, because the scarcity mindset scales with income.

Small-scale giving early on helps build the identity and habits of someone who contributes to their community rather than just consuming from it.

And arguably there are network effects formed from generosity of time/money that can bring long-term benefits as well. It's a spicier idea, but I could even suggest that giving helps you see money as a tool rather than as security itself.

Yeah no. I used to let people of a higher social order (politicians and media figures) guilt trip me into giving to charity when they themselves just conjure money from taxes I’ve already paid, while the rare few times I’ve needed help due to work injuries the state nor charities were never there for me.

I will help my neighbours and my friends first, real people who will also be there for me. And when it comes to charity for foreign nations, I will never do it. Suicidal empathy is being weaponised and I’m through with it.

I think this reply shows that we're engaging this idea on different planes. I'm primarily focused on the giver, and giving as habit/character formation. (I didn't say a word about who to give to!) You're coming at this through the lens of...something else? Institutional trust? Geopolitics?

> I will help my neighbours and my friends first, real people who will also be there for me.

That sounds great, and perfectly compatible with everything I'm saying.

Yes. You can make it a 2% contribution at 17 then add another 2% each year, until you hit say 24% at 29 then keep it there.

Then the habit is set up and you just log in to whatever and up the number.

>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.

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, ...)

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.

"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)

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!

"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.

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.

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.

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.

Eventually you just don't have enough. If are short $50 where does it come from?

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.

> I believe most 17 year olds on this earth do not have the funds to invest in education AND in a retirement fond

There is also a huge overlap between "kids who have wealthy parents" and "kids who can afford to invest".

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.

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.

> The earliest years of your earning life contribute overwhelmingly more to your final retirement figure than your later years.

for most the amount we earn before about 25 is so little that even everything saved at the best return is insignifitant inretirement. at 25 a small percentage of your income saved becomes meaningful, but you are likely to earn enough more at 35 that the amount you can save then totals to more

> One can lead a meaningful, enjoyable life while also considering their finances.

This is where I disagree. I think there's a certain amount of naivety required to pursue meaningful things. There's so much in life that makes no financial sense that creates meaning. The moment you start having to think sensibly from a financial perspective, is when so many of these things no longer make sense.

Once you're plugged into the system there's almost no turning back.

> There's so much in life that makes no financial sense that creates meaning. The moment you start having to think sensibly from a financial perspective, is when so many of these things no longer make sense.

I get the sentiment, but it implies the opposite of your conclusion.

Since so many things make no sense from a financial point of view, the only sensible strategy is to break free of the financial constraints as soon as possible. Money cannot buy you happiness, but it can buy you the freedom to pursue it.

Retire early to give yourself the best cushion (and best possible chance) to pursue meaningful things, without the everlooming sword of making ends meet. The added benefit of life experience to filter out pursuits that only look meaningful on the surface, is a nice side-effect of this strategy.

> Since so many things make no sense from a financial point of view, the only sensible strategy is to break free of the financial constraints as soon as possible. Money cannot buy you happiness, but it can buy you the freedom to pursue it.

So I think the reason why this doesn't make sense (in my mind) is because in a state of retirement i.e. financial independence, you're still just as conscious of money as you were when you were accumulating wealth. You still need to manage money no different to when you were accumulating, it's just now you're not earning.

To me the freedom I'm referring to is similar to that of childhood - where you're not worried/concerned about "the system". You're just doing your own thing in your own world. That kind of purity no amount of money can resolve, even in an early retirement scenario.

The other issue is that a lot of stuff only makes sense when you're younger. Like it's a lot difficult for example to become a travelling musician or even to travel etc.

Now of course, early retirement provides it's own kind of freedom. But I would say that it's not equivalent to the kind of "freedom" that I'm referring to, which is basically being carefree.

> To me the freedom I'm referring to is similar to that of childhood - where you're not worried/concerned about "the system". You're just doing your own thing in your own world. That kind of purity no amount of money can resolve, even in an early retirement scenario.

The only ways you can live as an adult unconcerned about the system is 1. if you actually have a substantial financial backstop (trust fund, wealthy parents, etc.) and just pretend you don't, or 2. if you don't have a financial backstop, at which point "doing your own thing in the world" just means being a vagrant, drifter or bum.

Oh, the FIRE community. If you trained yourself to live looking at the money you need to save to retire, your brain will most likely be wired to that behavior, and breaking free from that will be utterly difficult. On top of that, people with the FIRE mindset have probably by default already a strong (innate? taught?) bias towards enjoying optimizing their life and making it the end goal.

> Oh, the FIRE community.

I think you may be confused, I'm not part of the FIRE community. I'm only taking the statement that "doing meaningful things is not financially sensible" to its logical conclusion, not endorsing any position.

> If you trained yourself to live looking at the money you need to save to retire, your brain will most likely be wired to that behavior, and breaking free from that will be utterly difficult. On top of that, people with the FIRE mindset have probably by default already a strong (innate? taught?) bias towards enjoying optimizing their life and making it the end goal.

So many assumptions and claims without any supporting evidence:

- "FIRE people" train themselves to live looking at money only.

- This wires their brain to that behaviour (left unclear what this actually means in terms of concrete behaviour).

- Breaking free from this behaviour is difficult.

- People with this mindset have a bias towards enjoying optimizing their life, to the point this is their end goal.

- (Implied) This makes their life some combination of sad/bad/meaningless.

I don't really want to even argue against this because the burden of proof for providing any supporting evidence is yours, not mine. I'm not particularly interested in constructing some overarching psychoanalytic theories for a large category of people who I've never even interacted with, but you do you.

Sorry, I wasn't addressing directly at you, even if I was technically answering to you. It was more of an unsolicited rambling about the general topic.

Sorry for that.

> 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.

FAANG job at 22. Save up 25k a year for 4 years, that is 100k. You'll already retire at 56 with over 1.5M in the bank. It isn't perfect but it is a lot better than what most people do.

Really all you need to do as a programmer is max out 401k and maybe throw another 10k a year into savings on top of that.

I worked at MSFT for a decade and I would have retired at 40 if I hadn't spent 3 years trying to run a startup after my time at Microsoft.

This includes international travel every year, and 2 domestic vacations.

> You'll already retire at 56 with over 1.5M in the bank

That 1.5M isn't inflation adjusted. If there is 0 inflation between now and when you die 1.5M is plenty. However the more inflation there is between now and when you die the more money you will need, the later you need to retire, or the less spending money you have. (of course we need to asking how things like social security fits into your plans as well, but this is already complex enough).

If you 22 and used to a FAANG income even with saving $25k/year every year you need more than 3M to retire retire without losing quality of life (even though most of that is luxury).

Are you willing to live on less, or will you discover with your free time you want to spend more money (hobby supplies? Now you have time to travel - maybe first class). I can't answer this question for you, but you need to think about it. Worse, your answer is likely to change over time.

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.

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?).

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.

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.

This kind of advice was gospel in the 90s.

[should, shouldn't, supposed to, never, always]

These are key words to mentally breakpoint on and more carefully consider what is being said.

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?

I'd offer learning skills, personal finance and other life skills, (more or less public) speaking, potentially languages and (modest) mathematics as some examples of skills that will probably be useful for any foreseeable future including most dystopias. Particularly they are things that many 17 year olds will be lacking.

> 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.