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Show HN: In a single HTML file, an app to encourage my children to invest
- cbeach 11mo agoShowing siblings' investment performance side-by-side on a fridge-mounted screen. Author understands child psychology. You can't motivate kids by filling their heads with theory. Instead, make the outcomes of their actions visible to them - then they -motivate themselves- to learn how to improve those outcomes. Add in some friendly peer-competition and you're golden!
- roberdam 11mo agoThat was the idea! I hope it works out that way.
- sebastiennight 11mo agoCan they pull money out? I don't see any place to update the balance up or down as the kids want to add money into the piggy bank or withdraw it.
- roberdam 11mo agofeatures coming with the next update, meanwhile they can withdraw at any time
- sebastiennight 11mo ago> meanwhile they can withdraw at any time How does the withdraw work? You manually reset the date to today and the amount to what it was last time you saw it minus the withdrawal?
- roberdam 11mo agoFor now it works like this until I add withdrawals and deposits.
- pprotas 11mo agoI feel like this is a great way to raise a crypto "line-must-go-up" addict
- nxor 11mo agoThat's not just crypto :)
- cluckindan 11mo agoWait until they want to divest their portfolio and start hyping meme stocks and shitcoins because number go up faster. Then orchestrate an artificial bubble and crash
- ascendantlogic 11mo agoWhat's the point of this comment? To discourage investing? Reddit-style shitposting? Not sure what you're going for here.
- brazukadev 11mo agoWhat is the point of your comment, actually? At least GP is talking about children psychology and is totally on topic. Wanting a faster profit then getting scammed or lose money in a crash market is also part of the learning.
- dbbr 11mo agoIt's for the lolz. I laughed and upvoted, just imagining my kids someday lecturing me on crypto. Then I thought about creating a bubble for them and then saying to their faces "Annnnnd it's gone."
- barbazoo 11mo agoThat comment is spot on and in my opinion completely in the spirit of the post. It is all about number go up and competition.
- wiseowise 11mo agoInvesting is not a safe piggy bank where you add coin and see green numbers go up.
- internet_points 11mo agois 15% realistic?
- roberdam 11mo ago11% is a safe interest rate on my country (py), I just got a 14.5% offer for local bonds BBB+
- philipwhiuk 11mo agoIt'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%
- loloquwowndueo 11mo agoNot in real-life terms, but for a kid, a larger interest rate will be less slow and boring than a realistic one, and it will be more engaging. “The first national bank of dad” is a book that suggests a similar approach and I believe it also advocates a 15% interest rate.
- Esophagus4 11mo agoI 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??
- normie3000 11mo agoYes, in Brasil and South Sudan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_central_bank_interest_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_central_b...
- dlisboa 11mo agoThose 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.
- latexr 11mo agoThis is frankly depressing. > As my eldest son’s birthday was approaching, we suggested that instead of asking for physical gifts, he ask for their equivalent in money. That way, he gathered a decent amount of capital for his first investment adventure. Yes, why would you want a toy or a book? Why waste time having fun or learning? You could instead watch a number go up slowly while you do nothing. Fun for the whole family, seconds at a time! > Each day, as they watch their small fund grow, they grasp the magic of compound interest — and that, more than any gift, is a lesson I hope will stay with them for life. This feels like raising finance dude bros and gambling addicts. There is no “magic” to compound interest, no one should have “watch money accumulate” as a life goal.
- ascendantlogic 11mo agoHow is teaching your kids to invest some portion of their money "raising finance due bros and gambling addicts"? Just because modern culture has incentivized these kinds of people doesn't suddenly make investing bad. This is such a wild take.
- latexr 11mo ago> How is teaching your kids to invest some portion of their money That’s not what the article says. I explicitly quoted the relevant part. It’s not “a portion of their money”, this is not money they had lying around in an envelope that grandma gave them. This father is incentivising the kids to not get what they want for their birthday and instead ask for money with which they’ll do nothing but unrealistically watch grow for a period of time. That’s not a good core memory, no one looks fondly on “that birthday I had as a kid where I got nothing but a number on an app stated growing at a snail pace”. > doesn't suddenly make investing bad. That’s not the argument. Nowhere in my comment does it say investing is bad. > This is such a wild take. Any take is wild when you blatantly misrepresent it. Don’t straw man.
- roberdam 11mo agoKids 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.
- al_borland 11mo agoAm I missing something? When they went to add money, do you go back in and increase the initial investment? Are they actually investing anything? If so, wouldn’t the app for the brokerage do this with real numbers?
- roberdam 11mo agoThey invest with “The first national bank of dad” as user loloquwowndueo pointed out, I'm their broker, no penalties when they want to make a withdrawal
- ramses0 11mo agoI 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.
- meatjuice 11mo agoI can feel the vibe-coding "vibe" from every vibe-coded websites, somehow.
- ajay_as 11mo ago[dead]
- mtrimpe 11mo ago[redacted]
- brazukadev 11mo agoThat's quite interesting. When do they start to understand that saving is better, if they do? I can imagine kids never wanting to save for later, but also I remember that I enjoyed saving more than spending coins when I was a kid.
- thelastgallon 11mo agoBrilliant idea! Do you deduct short term and long term capital gains taxes?
- freitzzz 11mo agoHi, 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.
- mpalmer 11mo ago[flagged]
- andrepd 11mo agoIt'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.
- brazukadev 11mo agois plain html different from single HTML? Because it is a single HTML that you can "Save as" and have one html with the working app.
- freitzzz 11mo agoIn 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.
- _ache_ 11mo agoHow can you have a localhost reference as canonical? You should fix your jekyll configuration I guess. <link rel="canonical" href="http://localhost:8080/en/dinversiones" />
- roberdam 11mo agoThanks for the tip, should be fixed now !
- LandR 11mo agoWill they also have periods of a bear market and see their money go down ?
- roberdam 11mo agohopefully, “The first national bank of dad” remains solvent.
- patapong 11mo agoAnd can they take loans with negotiated interest rates and lock-in periods? Or invest in more risky products such as derivatives with a corresponding chance to lose all money? So much potential... ;)
- roberdam 11mo agounlimited apps ideas :D
- ozim 11mo agoFirst they have to fill in KYC questionnaire and have no risky products if they did not have investing experience.
- sebastiennight 11mo agoJust add a $6-7CHICKENJOCKEY memecoin where they can put money in, see a 50% daily return for a random period of time, and suddenly have it go to zero. Or even worse, in the tradition of these unclickable javascript buttons of the late 1990's, just detect when the finger is approaching the "withdraw" button and have the asset crash right before they can click!
- Galanwe 11mo ago> I act as their investment agent, assigning realistic interest rates Author then proceeds to put 15% annual interest rate...
- roberdam 11mo ago11% is a safe interest rate on my country (py), I just got a 14.5% offer for local bonds BBB+
- mlok 11mo agopy = Paraguay, for those like me who didn't know
- Galanwe 11mo ago> 11% is a safe interest rate on my country 11% may be the safest bond you have access to, but that doesn't make it _safe_ in absolute terms.
- roberdam 11mo agoup to 30k, cover 100% by the central bank
- Galanwe 11mo agoLook, you do you, but rest assured that you don't get 11% for no reason.
- roberdam 11mo agoI 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 https://roberdam.com/jubilar.html
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- Jeremy1026 11mo agoFound a fun little bug. If you try to type into the date picker, and press backspace, the entire screen blanks out. (MacOS 15.0.1, Safari 18.0.1)
- roberdam 11mo agothanks for the bug report!
- yaky 11mo agoBe careful with comparing real-life things and experiences with a (virtual) number on a screen, especially for children. I used to know an adult who only cared about that number going up, despite making more than a comfortable amount of money. Live with parents, save on rent/mortgage, number goes up faster. Buy cheapest food, take leftovers from work-catered lunches, number goes up faster. Scam your way into being hired for a position you are severely underqualified for, get terminated after three months, keep the salary and sign-on bonus, number goes up. Invest pretty much everything (because there are almost no expenses), compound interest.
- nxor 11mo agoAhah but green ticker good red ticker bad. What's the problem sir
- ericyd 11mo agoThis feels like a severe anecdotal example which I'm not sure applies to most people.
- yaky 11mo agoIt is definitely a single point, but that is who this post immediately made me think of. And to be fair, investing does not apply to most people either.
- unmole 11mo ago> And to be fair, investing does not apply to most people either. Why doesn't investing apply to most people?
- encrypted_bird 11mo agoBecause most people are neither properly educated about investing nor have the money to spare to even start. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck.
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- nxor 11mo agoM 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?
- whackernews 11mo agoFor me, the ethics of investing is a bit more profound. I see stock market investment and share holding to be one of the main drivers of civilisations obsession with endless consumption and growth. To me those things are damaging to our minds and our planet. This is just doing the same retarded shit we’ve been doing since the end of the war. Personally I feel like we need to turn a corner now; ease-off this obsession with accumulating as much money as possible for ourselves and focus on our communities, our families, living in balance with nature, and securing a healthy future together with new values and goals that last. Investing into the stock market is like the opposite of this. Just my opinion.
- cindyllm 11mo ago[dead]
- yed 11mo ago> One thing that school doesn’t teach you (not even high school) is how to manage your personal finances. Can we stop with this myth? Most states require financial literacy courses to graduate. The reason it feels like it isn't happening is because it's boring and most just don't pay attention or absorb the lessons.
- gricha2380 11mo agoYour point is true in the USA, but the author appears to be from Paraguay.
- alias_neo 11mo ago> Most states require financial literacy courses to graduate What's a state? Pretty sure we don't have those here. Even if it was true for America (probably not), it certainly isn't true for the entire rest of the world. Maybe they should be teaching Geography.
- yed 11mo agoMy mistake, it's just such a common trope in the US I didn't realize it was a universal complaint. It is true for US incidentally, people generally don't remember it because a) the learning and real world practice are too far removed b) people often are poor with finances regardless of knowledge.
- nxor 11mo agoIt's not true for the US.
- rkomorn 11mo agohttps://www.ngpf.org/blog/advocacy/how-many-states-require-students-to-take-a-personal-finance-course-before-graduating-from-high-school-is-it-6-or-is-it-21/ https://www.ngpf.org/blog/advocacy/how-many-states-require-s... It's apparently now 30 states.
- johntiror 11mo agoThere’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.”
- taude 11mo agoThe market's are different now. Everyone's 401K plans are automatically investing in them each month (my theory on why equities are so expensive now).
- david927 11mo agoDifferent 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.
- vslira 11mo agoThe reasonable interpretation of such a project is not to pump the stock market even higher by getting children to invest their savings into it, but to inculcate the habits of investing over time so they can do it properly as adults. I'm sure Mr. Rothschild would be fine with this learning tool.
- tinfoilhatter 11mo agoThe 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.
- dangus 11mo agoBeing encouraged to invest is nice but having the ability to is a massive luxury. I knew I wanted to save a lot for my future and retirement since I was in high school. I didn’t gain any reasonable ability to do so until much later. A much better life skill in my opinion would be to teach about budgeting, how to cook economical meals, how to avoid debt traps and lifestyle inflation.
- ericyd 11mo agoI'm always bummed when I comment on HN and then scroll down and find another comment which said it better.
- yaky 11mo agoHN is a very specific and privileged demographic, very far from an average citizen. (of the US at least)
- encrypted_bird 11mo agoNot the OC, but yeah I've noticed this myself actually. I read HN because I love science and technology, but I don't work in either area. I work at a dead-end job as a cashier and barely make ends meet. Some of the people on here are exceedingly privileged and really don't realize it.
- ericyd 11mo agoFinancial literacy is a gift, and absolutely omitted from standard education, which is unfortunate. That said, I don't think knowledge of investment gets you very far if your job pays subsistence wages. I worked for a popular fintech focused on personal investment and their narrative was essentially "financial freedom through investment". I think it's important to understand that even the most sophisticated knowledge of investment and personal finance does nothing substantial if you aren't making surplus money to begin with.
- nxor 11mo agoSure but if you learn a lot about investing then surely you have learned a lot about other stuff too and maybe have chances at a good job. Not that I disagree
- bilekas 11mo ago> Financial literacy is a gift, and absolutely omitted from standard education, which is unfortunate. With my tinfoil hat on, I feel like that is by design.
- tinfoilhatter 11mo agoI don't think you even need to wear a tinfoil hat to reach this conclusion. Knowing about the origins of the modern outcome-based education systems in the West (we borrowed from the Prussian education system which replaced the classical education system based on the Trivium and Quadrivium) I would assert that your claim is spot on.
- internet_points 11mo agoyou should know haha :)
- tinfoilhatter 11mo agoI wear it proudly!
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- fdjsaoifjew89 11mo ago[dead]
- ho_schi 11mo agoAt the point with investment I was lost. Children should learn to be patient (saving money) and prepare for bad situations (saving money). That’s enough. When older we can teach them what capitalism considers as investment. Capitalism is a longer word for greed. Money doesn’t work. Employees do. Customers pay. Both suffer to make greedy persons rich. Give them a piggy bank. Teaches the concept of preparation.
- nxor 11mo agoI mostly agree but greed is a part of human nature is it not?
- Jaxan 11mo agoPeople keep repeating this. But why is it people’s nature. Maybe it is learned, because everyone keeps repeating this phrase!
- ho_schi 11mo agoCapitalism itself is a rather modern idea around 1800. And greed is maybe rooted in human nature, within the need to keep a buffer of food. But we’ve brains and are social entities. I don’t think greed is necessity. But greed of other harm our needs. And we need to get greedy to get enough? Examples: I want a nice bicycle. I need small house or nice flat. I enjoy good food from time to. I’m rather sure I don’t need a super-yacht, no swimming pool and no villa. I think stuff which I cannot keep myself clean is too much. If I cannot keep it clean myself it was greed? But we’ve big dreams? For the big dreams I would probably consider a cooperative society. These airliners are so expensive and suffer from not being used. Sharing them would be nice? Like…like owning airline stocks. Without the enforcement to gain money. Maybe some people enjoy flying it around, other maintaining it and others care about safety and passengers. Others maybe want fly to the moon. And others enjoy ships. Maybe sharing them deliberately makes sense?
- array_key_first 11mo agoI don't know, is it? It seems natural - after all, animals are selfish and will put themselves first to survive. ... but then again, animals also rape and murder each other. Is rape a part of human nature? I don't know, but I know we don't want it.
- didip 11mo agoGood. Financial education is sorely needed for everyone in America. Now if only there’s an app that can teach delayed gratification.
- linsomniac 11mo agoThere's an awful lot of negativity here, but as someone who's 55 and has earned a good wage since I was 17, I really wish I had taken investing more seriously from the very beginning. While I knew of compound interest, I really didn't understand it until like a decade ago. If I'd started putting 5% of my money into a target retirement plan from 17, I'd be retired now. As it is I'm not doing badly, but I really wish I'd started earlier. So I say: Good on you. Somewhat related: I just got my son set up with a custodial account and put his "kid retirement" plan into it, and let him pick a couple stocks to put some money into, and put the majority of it into target retirement and a few stocks and EFTs, so he can get some ideas of how they perform, make it a little fun with picking things he's into, and also follow ups and downs of the market, all of which I think is good education.
- nxor 11mo agoRetirement is not mentioned in the post
- _vqpz 11mo agoIt is one of the most common reasons people invest though so it's entirely relevant
- koakuma-chan 11mo agoI 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.
- _vqpz 11mo agoOkay
- koakuma-chan 11mo agoI 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.
- swalsh 11mo agoWhere can I find this 15% annual interest rate?
- triceratops 11mo agoBecome OP's kid.
- roberdam 11mo agoopen to adoptions :P
- roberdam 11mo agosample= 14.5% on local currency, https://www.bolsadevalores.com.py/nuevas-emisiones/investigaciones-agropecuarias-paraguay-sociedad-anonima-emisora-i-a-p-p-s-a-e/ https://www.bolsadevalores.com.py/nuevas-emisiones/investiga...
- philipwhiuk 11mo agoIn a country with high inflation
- beej71 11mo agoHappy to see a PWA. These things need to make a comeback for a variety of reasons.
- alternatex 11mo agoThough for a PWA JavaScript is required so not a single HTML file.
- Waterluvian 11mo agoI 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/RTw5sCDJ https://ibb.co/ycRB8750 https://ibb.co/ycRB8750 https://ibb.co/gLGQ0tKT https://ibb.co/gLGQ0tKT
- roberdam 11mo agogreat!, mobile app?
- Waterluvian 11mo agoIt’s just a static hosted page they run on the family iPad. There’s no server at all! I should really clean it up and make a blog post about it. But wanted to share it here because this project reminded me of it :)
- FredPret 11mo agoYou should make it an app, I would pay for it
- Shopper0552 11mo agoThis is such a great idea, I would love to implement this for my kids! Could you post a link to your blog or GitHub so people who want to know can follow you when/if you release it?
- koyote 11mo agoThat is very cool! Do you have any details on how it was built or is the source code available? Also, what happens if one of the daily missions is not completed? Is there a passive income from those?
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- thw_9a83c 11mo agoNice! I also created a "virtual bank account" for my kids when they were 7-8yo. They can choose to take the weekly cash or put it in their savings account. My bank gives them a 5% interest rate per month, which isn't bad. Explaining the idea of compound interest this way is easy. However, I think that's the easier part of being an investor. The more complicated part is risk management. With a savings account, there is basically zero risk. But that's not how you invest these days.
- mattmanser 11mo ago5% per month? Where is this crazy money generator? Assume you meant per year here! It's not zero risk: - Your currency may collapse, see Germany 1930s, Argentina, Zimbabwe, Venezula, etc. - Only a certain figure is protected in savings, though governments will act aggressively to protect that (see 2008 + the Icelandic/UK/Dutch palava)
- thw_9a83c 11mo agoYes, it's 5% per month. You wouldn't be able to explain the concept of a yearly compound interest rate to such young children. One year is an eternity in their life. I also don't give them too much pocket money to encourage them to save. They would spend it on junk food if they had too much cash. A agree, that the currency is not a 100% safe investment. Inflation especially makes it bad for long-term savings. Indeed, money in any savings account is insured only up to a certain amount. However, that's not something you can explain to kids with a "virtual account." I suppose the idea that Daddy's bank will go bankrupt is probably not an ideal way to teach kids financial literacy.
- fodkodrasz 11mo agoBut how do you charge the phone?
- roberdam 11mo agodisabling wifi+data extend a lot the battery
- fodkodrasz 11mo agoThe screen is the biggest consumer imho. I mean of course I understand that the phone can be removed by the suction mount, but thus also defeats the idle infotainment concept. Also seen screen burn in...
- roberdam 11mo agolocked by default, unlock when you want to check your balance.
- pmg102 11mo agoYou're giving a 15% growth rate with zero volatility? That isn't going to teach many important lessons. How about offering a range of rates with volatility increasing as rate increases. Then they can think about the benefit of guaranteed return vs the benefit of long-term growth, or a combination of both.
- sebastiennight 11mo agoOP: I think introducing volatility (which you can just model with one percentage variable and a sinusoidal multiplier based on this: 100% volatility means if your "real" balance was going to be $100 today, it varies between $0 and $200 ; 10% volatility means you're fluctuating between $90 and $110) is also a good idea in teaching kids to refrain from the impulse of withdrawing the money just because today's daily gain is in the red. Another add to the feature request list :)
- pmg102 11mo agoThe biggest challenge with pensions is convincing people in their 20s to invest in high risk/high return investments. This is usually the right strategy because of the long time horizon of several decades until they will need to crystallise losses/gains. However if they see their pension balance fall in a big correction, they can panic and move to less volatile investments, thus reducing their long term gains. You can theorize all you want but the best way to learn to cope with this is for it to happen to you so it would be great to include it in the simulation!
- a96 11mo agoI think an even better option would be to show diversification. You could have some part in a higher risk volatile thing and another part that shows steadier positive growth. Get people to decided how much of each to mix. One of the most important lessons is that all your eggs don't need to be and usually should not be in one basket.
- wiseowise 11mo agoYou forgot to add taxes, market crashes, sanctions, asset depreciation, companies goes bankrupt and other fun things.
- seydor 11mo agoTangentially i can't help but notice a pattern. Generation1 says "build more homes", then they build them and convince Generation2 to invest despite ever climbing real estate prices. Then the internet happens and Generation2 says "build more companies". They build them , and proceed to convince Generation3 to invest in those companies despite ever climbing stock values. Seems like these trends run in cycles
- mlmonkey 11mo agoWhen I started working at 24, a friend of mine (a few years older than me) asked me if our company had a 401(K) and what was the match. I was confused. What's this gobbledygook? So I asked around and got him the answers, and he responded with: max out your 401(K). Just do it. And do not ever think about taking money out of it. So I followed his advice. At that time, the ~$5500 cut in paycheck (my gross was around $35K, IIRC) stung a little. I was single, footloose and fancyfree, and those extra few hundred dollars a month would have been fun to have. But I stuck to his advice. Today, almost 30 years later, thanks to that, I have a nice nest egg and don't have to worry about retirement (modulo catastrophic illnesses, of course). So recently my friends' kids started working, and I gave them the same advice: Max out your 401(K), pick a Vanguard Target Retirement fund, and forget about it. If your place offers a "Mega Back Door" option, use it to the fullest extent possible. And if your company has a HDHCP, put funds in your HSA too. We have a lot of avenues to save these days. Make full use of them.
- sema4hacker 11mo ago> We have a lot of avenues to save these days. Consider investing your time, not just your money. In other words, do careful research, start a business, then put your labor into offering a product or service that fills a need, instead of simply working for someone else. If you fail, you'll still learn a lot for another try. And if you succeed, the payoff can be much larger and faster than anything else you might attempt.
- UK-Al05 11mo agoThe reality is you'll probably lose a ton of money, then get another job.
- itake 11mo agoI’m in my 30s. Very very few of my friends have been able to match my tech income (and investment portfolio my tech income gave me) with their startup or local business. Many of them are realizing how far behind they are with someone that stuck with their tech career for 15 years.
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- deadbabe 11mo agoThe number one thing people fail to truly take advantage of is the triple tax advantage of HSA accounts. So powerful. Even better is that you can save medical receipts throughout your life and withdraw all that money for any purpose in the future without paying income tax on it.
- FredPret 11mo agoLove this. Especially the opening line: "“What comes with the milk, leaves with the soul” — Russian proverb." I love a good proverb. This one goes hard.
- lala_ 11mo ago[flagged]
- lutusp 11mo ago> I explained to my kids that investing is like having a magic box that generates more money over time. That is wildly misleading. Investing is super important, but it shouldn't be described in this fairy-tale way. Young people might be misled into trusting investment advisors/counselors/brokers, whose real goal is to enrich themselves at your expense. In fact, there are adults who haven't yet learned this. An article about investing that doesn't mention the WSJ dartboard contest isn't worth reading -- essentially, over 14 years, random stock picks produced returns equal to those of stockbrokers, before the stockbroker's fees and other costs were subtracted. An investment counselor's primary goal is to make you think you need his services. His secondary goes is to keep you from performing your own research to discover that is false.
- roberdam 11mo agonever speak about investment counselors on the article, I will forward the WSJ article to my 7 year old girl so she won't be scammed by her broker (me).
- Mr_Bees69 11mo agoyou need to add the meta utf8 tag
- roberdam 11mo agothanks for the tip!, added.
- tictacttoe 11mo agoI wouldn’t want kids to grow up chasing a number. It’s just too reductionist. If you want them to be financially secure, teach them skills and the money will follow. TC obsession is a blight.
- bruckie 11mo agoI run a "Bank of Dad", tracked in a spreadsheet for my kids. They can choose to "invest" their money with me or not. To make investing meaningful for them, I pay 10% interest per month, up to a $50 balance. To avoid bankrupting myself—and to encourage them to get a real investment account when the time comes—the rate drops as the balance increases, similar to progressive tax brackets. By the time they get to $1000 balance, the annualized rate works out to ~6%, and after that it drops fast enough that it's essentially free for me to operate. Overall, it's been quite successful. Now whenever the kids get money, they invest it immediately. And they often delay or forego spending so that they can get more interest the next month. They haven't turned into complete misers, but it has encourage a mentality of thinking about saving, and I think the concept of interest has landed quite well. I think things really started to click for them around age 8 or 9. If you're interested in doing something similar, I made a sanitized version of the spreadsheet. Feel free to copy: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1f3FgHUohw26sHuCoO40sYJAEhGaU6buf4s2m6bBnQhA/edit?gid=1608680985#gid=1608680985 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1f3FgHUohw26sHuCoO40s...
- singleshot_ 11mo agoThese kids are going to be so mad at how low interest rates are at actual banks that I wonder if this is ultimately going to teach them to borrow rather than save. I guess it’s the same thing, really: they’re learning the time value of money either way.
- moffkalast 11mo ago> The phone is attached to the fridge and works as a panel or dashboard where my kids can see their money growing each day. Or alternatively, your kids can see their money going up and down in value randomly, giving them constant anxiety if they're gonna lose it all while the US president uses the stock market as a pump and dump scheme.
- dndn1 11mo agoNot for the same audience but for much the same idea I made a progressive visualization of saving and compound interest in a blog post about pension saving: https://calcwithdec.dev/posts/pictures-pensions/ https://calcwithdec.dev/posts/pictures-pensions/ I intentionally didn't include numbers at all - they are a bit more effort to interpret. A visualization might be a nice feature for kids (but it probably depends on the kid!)
- eps 11mo agoWhat's the native version of the opening proverb? > What comes with the milk, leaves with the soul.
- wbadart 11mo agoOP, love the idea, and cool to see a useful PWA! One note: I noticed when opening the installed PWA in airplane mode, styles didn't load. You might be interested in this article on PWA caching from MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web_apps/Guides/Caching https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web...
- roberdam 11mo agothanks for the comment & tip!, I'm going to try to make the app without external dependencies.
- cutler 11mo agoTeach your kids how life is about getting something for nothing. Great parenting.
- cutler 11mo ago"We're only making plans for Nigel" (XTC, 1979)
- bhu1st 11mo agoIf you don't have an old device lying around to make use of, here's an X thread I found a while ago supporting similar habit for kids: https://x.com/ValKatayev/status/1926734004314624481 https://x.com/ValKatayev/status/1926734004314624481 I have set up a similar Google sheet for my 12 yo, which is shared with him on view-only mode. He loves the idea that he's earning $$ every day out of his savings. He's on fire to grow his investment to the point that he earns $5 every day, "while sleeping". He's currently making ~$2/day.