It's a good book. It covers all the kinds of things that most of us find important to get a across: The power of compounding, LBYM but not so much that you feel deprived, handling credit cards, stock market is best in the long run, etc.
It's written in a style that a teenager is likely to read, although the critical first pages could have been a little more cool and engaging. It has a lot of sidebars from teens, relating their actual experiences (how I lost money day trading, etc.).
The only downside is that the last third of the book is about investing directly in stocks. I'd rather that they had stopped at the point where they say "investing in index funds is good."
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The trick however, is actually getting them to read the book. At that age, retirement is an eternity away and not even in the thought process. A pity young people can not and usually will not listen to the voice of experience.
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I just wish that I had had more money to invest when I had all that valuable compounding time ahead of me...and that someone had offered me the right kind of advice.
I preached the "start early" philosophy to both of my married daughters and their husbands and they are a lot farther ahead in the ER game than I was at their age, so I think you're doing the kid a huge favor, Al. I hope he listens.
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"Do or do not ---there is no try." Yoda from Star Wars.
Don't screw around reading - you have already posted the salient example. If required draw him a picture with a no 2 lead pencil and a sheet of engineering graph paper - so's he can fold it up and carry it in his wallet.
Do a psssst! - Target Retirement. Depending on his size you 'could' whop him up the side of the head till he gets religion and invests.
The trick however, is actually getting them to read the book. At that age, retirement is an eternity away and not even in the thought process. A pity young people can not and usually will not listen to the voice of experience.
Our kid has read this book and it was a great springboard for discussion. She's already decided that she's not very interested by individual stocks (not everyone is wired to be Warren Buffett) so she had no trouble deciding on an index mutual fund, which I nudged to the "international" asset allocation. She's decided that later on she'll add a small value fund.
She's seen enough of our ER lifestyle to know that she's the one making the choices...
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I gave my nephews a similar book for Christmas last year (somewhere in our threads is the name). One of them immediately said that it helped a lot because it covered things like auto insurance, bank accounts that paid interest, warnings about credit card debt.
My theory is to offer the information in a format they are likely to use, all the rest is up to them.
Now if they were my kids..... [who of course walk on water and are world class financial managers] they would have been spoon fed this stuff from the get-go.
Our son graduated a couple of months back, moved back home, got a job within 6 weeks at a local bank and is about to move into his own apartment on July 1st. Unlike daughter he is so naive about money matters and just doesn't care. However, books like this might just peek his interest, if I can get him to listen and read a little. (Daughter graduated and started work a few years ago and is very money savvy, so no worries there)
My 15 year-old has read most of the book and liked a little organizer that can be bought with it. But he still comes in and asks me questions like "How can I get people to just give me money?". Still I think he's got the basics of investing down from the MF book. After he read it, he decided he wanted a Penfed CD...
I never figured that one out, but maybe choosing your parents? In my kids' case, they're barking up the wrong tree. I'm much more inclined to give 'lessons'. Yuck!!!!
Sounds good, I just wish they wouldn't use the non-word "ain't". The English language is butchered enough these days. Sigh.
(Pet peeve, sorry).
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/ain't
I think "ain't" has achieved legitimate status as a "real" word.
If English was a static language then we'd all sound like Quakers or Puritans or, even worse, like Hamlet or Beowulf. I'd rather have a part in guiding English's l33tspeak evolution than be a security cop enforcing a dead tradition!
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I noticed that you included LBYM as one of the topics in the book. It seems to me this is the place most people need to start, but I rarely see it mentioned in the articles that urge people to start investing when they are young.
There is no point talking about the power of compound interest on your savings without talking about the power of compound interest on your debts. The logical first step in investing is usually to pay off the credit cards and the auto loan.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Independent
I noticed that you included LBYM as one of the topics in the book. It seems to me this is the place most people need to start, but I rarely see it mentioned in the articles that urge people to start investing when they are young.
There is no point talking about the power of compound interest on your savings without talking about the power of compound interest on your debts. The logical first step in investing is usually to pay off the credit cards and the auto loan.
Technically speaking(hindsight being 20/20) it is the rational and logical thing to do .
I never let that bother me - I ran up credit cards/auto payments on occasion and partied in New Orleans for thirty years - with severe periods/bouts of LYBM. I had this 'godfather who took his cut to max DCA all tax deferred vehicles availible' before I got my pittance to party/live on/ and for reasonible stretches(when the light eventually came on LYBM) to engage in cheap bastardhood.
heh heh heh - as mentioned on other threads/posts in the past - theoretical purity is not one of my strongpoints - even though I may be in screaming agreement.
I think "ain't" has achieved legitimate status as a "real" word.
If English was a static language then we'd all sound like Quakers or Puritans or, even worse, like Hamlet or Beowulf. I'd rather have a part in guiding English's l33tspeak evolution than be a security cop enforcing a dead tradition!
Well, that pretty much makes me sick. Using that word makes people sound uneducated. Just MHO.
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