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Investing for retirement at 17 is a bad idea! At 17 you should still be thinking about investing in education - the right education investment today will pay b

Investing for retirement at 17 is a bad idea! At 17 you should still be thinking about investing in education - the right education investment today will pay back far more than any other monitory investment. There are of course bad education investments, and some are not willing to study even more (or not able to pass a good education course), in that case retirement might be the best investment you can make, but it should not be your first choice. A different reply said they waited until 26 to start - that is probably about the right time to start saving for retirement. Maybe a little late, but close enough. Before about that age you are still getting started and so you have little spare cash. You need to pay off school loans (if you took any). You need to save for down payment on a house, and buy a lot of those will last a lifetime household items everyone needs. You should be thinking about marriage and saving for it (even if you don't get legally married most people will live with someone else and should be planning on how to make that life work). Most important: you don't know how long you will live. Save for the future, but not everything - you have no guarantee you will live to tomorrow - if you are under 60 odds are strongly in favor of it, but people die young all the time. You should have a little play money as well in your budget. Go climb Mt Fuji while your body is young and healthy enough to do so (I picked a random activity here, you should decide what you care about, not rush to Japan)

skybrian 1y ago
It seems like learning about personal finance is itself educational, and there are a lot of jobs where you deal with money. So this isn't entirely separate from investing in education, depending on which kind of education you mean.
sebastiennight 1y ago
As with many times when we use the word "should" (and you've used it a lot), the perspective you're sharing is deeply influenced by your own cultural background and might not apply to many people reading. A few examples: school loans, considering a house purchase to be a sound investment, purchasing once-in-a-lifetime household items, saving for a wedding (from the age of 17!?) or marriage (not sure what you even mean by that if you don't mean the wedding itself?).
- bluGill 1y ago
  The details matter and are personal I agree. Even if a house isn't right for you, you still need to save for the deposit on an apartment. You still need to buy furnishings for your apartment. You won't even know if a house is right for you until you are mid 20s to 30, so it is probably best to save for a house and if you decide at 30 it isn't right for you roll that money into retirement savings (if a house isn't right for you that means you need more retirement savings) Relationships - even if you don't have a wedding or kids - come at the time you have those starting to get out on your own expenses. You will need to figure those out.
  - sebastiennight 1y ago
    You just replaced "buying a house" with "buying an apartment", proving my point about cultural bias :-) I meant, for many people (especially young ones), taking that same deposit to purchase an investment property (which could be a house or apartment, but has a tenant who lives there rather than being for oneself) can be a better deal than buying for themselves. In the end, buying a place to live in is very much an emotional choice, which is totally valid. But in some locales and for some lifestyles, being a landlord who pays rent elsewhere can be a better financial decision.
  - joquarky 1y ago
    This kind of advice was gospel in the 90s.
- joquarky 1y ago
  [should, shouldn't, supposed to, never, always] These are key words to mentally breakpoint on and more carefully consider what is being said.
nonethewiser 1y ago
>Investing for retirement at 17 is a bad idea! At 17 you should still be thinking about investing in education Why would you assume they are mutually exclusive? You can just do both.
- lukan 1y ago
  And poor people just should eat cake, I know.. For real, I believe most 17 year olds on this earth do not have the funds to invest in education AND in a retirement fond, so there are choices to be made. (there are also the choices of creating social bonds and investing into activities together, ...)
  - sebastiennight 1y ago
    The root comment was talking about investing 5% of their earnings. If you're making any kind of income at 17 (which admittedly is not everybody) then learning to save+invest a small portion of that can have incredible positive snowball effects beyond the compounding itself. I can't imagine a scenario where at 55 years old, you would miss the 5% of your summer income you invested back in high school. But I can totally see a scenario where investing those 5% led you to increasing it to 10% in college, 20% on your first job, and being financially independent way before you hit the age of 55.
    - lukan 1y ago
      "I can't imagine a scenario where at 55 years old, you would miss the 5% of your summer income you invested back in high school." If those 5% were the question of whether to go with the group on a adventure together or not - and you end up alone at 55 years and not invited .. you might have rather invested different back then. But on the other hand I don't think those 5% of earnings with 17 make a difference later. The only real difference they can make, if they made you start a habit of saving income for important purchases. (But not really fore retirement at that age. But each to his own)
      - lurking_swe 1y ago
graeme 1y ago
If you start investing a small amount at age 17 you can build the habit and increase totals later. Saying "I'll do it later when it is rational" often translates to "I won't do it (for a long time)". Which is not rational
- bluGill 1y ago
  Get your habit be investing in an education savings account.
- Brendinooo 1y ago
  This is true of most money behaviors! My mom taught me the same thing about giving. And even today, knowing way more about personal finance than I did at the start of my working life, I'm still amazed at how blocking out money in the budget astronomically increases your chances that that money actually goes to the thing you want.
  - tonyhart7 1y ago
    "My mom taught me the same thing about giving." care to share what you learn???
    - imp0cat 1y ago
      Probably something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ayPuijerjQ 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).
    - vasco 1y ago
      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.
fao_ 1y ago
[flagged]
dottjt 1y ago
I think it's actually a bad thing to think about money early on. Because it adds a layer of responsibility which I think takes away from simply enjoying life and focusing on what you might be truly passionate about. One of the things I hate about my 30s is that I'm focused on money now and it feels like I'm not living the life that I want. It just feels like I'm preparing for death. Which I'm not saying isn't the sensible thing to do, there's just something inherently managerial about it which doesn't seem intuitive to living a meaningful life.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  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.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    > 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
  - dottjt 1y ago
    > 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.
joquarky 1y ago
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?
- a96 1y ago
  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.
groby_b 1y ago
> 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.

skybrian 1y ago

It seems like learning about personal finance is itself educational, and there are a lot of jobs where you deal with money. So this isn't entirely separate from investing in education, depending on which kind of education you mean.

sebastiennight 1y ago

As with many times when we use the word "should" (and you've used it a lot), the perspective you're sharing is deeply influenced by your own cultural background and might not apply to many people reading. A few examples: school loans, considering a house purchase to be a sound investment, purchasing once-in-a-lifetime household items, saving for a wedding (from the age of 17!?) or marriage (not sure what you even mean by that if you don't mean the wedding itself?).

bluGill 1y ago
The details matter and are personal I agree. Even if a house isn't right for you, you still need to save for the deposit on an apartment. You still need to buy furnishings for your apartment. You won't even know if a house is right for you until you are mid 20s to 30, so it is probably best to save for a house and if you decide at 30 it isn't right for you roll that money into retirement savings (if a house isn't right for you that means you need more retirement savings) Relationships - even if you don't have a wedding or kids - come at the time you have those starting to get out on your own expenses. You will need to figure those out.
- sebastiennight 1y ago
  You just replaced "buying a house" with "buying an apartment", proving my point about cultural bias :-) I meant, for many people (especially young ones), taking that same deposit to purchase an investment property (which could be a house or apartment, but has a tenant who lives there rather than being for oneself) can be a better deal than buying for themselves. In the end, buying a place to live in is very much an emotional choice, which is totally valid. But in some locales and for some lifestyles, being a landlord who pays rent elsewhere can be a better financial decision.
- joquarky 1y ago
  This kind of advice was gospel in the 90s.
joquarky 1y ago
[should, shouldn't, supposed to, never, always] These are key words to mentally breakpoint on and more carefully consider what is being said.

nonethewiser 1y ago

>Investing for retirement at 17 is a bad idea! At 17 you should still be thinking about investing in education Why would you assume they are mutually exclusive? You can just do both.

lukan 1y ago
And poor people just should eat cake, I know.. For real, I believe most 17 year olds on this earth do not have the funds to invest in education AND in a retirement fond, so there are choices to be made. (there are also the choices of creating social bonds and investing into activities together, ...)
- sebastiennight 1y ago
  The root comment was talking about investing 5% of their earnings. If you're making any kind of income at 17 (which admittedly is not everybody) then learning to save+invest a small portion of that can have incredible positive snowball effects beyond the compounding itself. I can't imagine a scenario where at 55 years old, you would miss the 5% of your summer income you invested back in high school. But I can totally see a scenario where investing those 5% led you to increasing it to 10% in college, 20% on your first job, and being financially independent way before you hit the age of 55.
  - lukan 1y ago
    "I can't imagine a scenario where at 55 years old, you would miss the 5% of your summer income you invested back in high school." If those 5% were the question of whether to go with the group on a adventure together or not - and you end up alone at 55 years and not invited .. you might have rather invested different back then. But on the other hand I don't think those 5% of earnings with 17 make a difference later. The only real difference they can make, if they made you start a habit of saving income for important purchases. (But not really fore retirement at that age. But each to his own)
    - lurking_swe 1y ago

graeme 1y ago

If you start investing a small amount at age 17 you can build the habit and increase totals later. Saying "I'll do it later when it is rational" often translates to "I won't do it (for a long time)". Which is not rational

bluGill 1y ago
Get your habit be investing in an education savings account.
Brendinooo 1y ago
This is true of most money behaviors! My mom taught me the same thing about giving. And even today, knowing way more about personal finance than I did at the start of my working life, I'm still amazed at how blocking out money in the budget astronomically increases your chances that that money actually goes to the thing you want.
- tonyhart7 1y ago
  "My mom taught me the same thing about giving." care to share what you learn???
  - imp0cat 1y ago
    Probably something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ayPuijerjQ 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).
  - vasco 1y ago
    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.

fao_ 1y ago

[flagged]

dottjt 1y ago

I think it's actually a bad thing to think about money early on. Because it adds a layer of responsibility which I think takes away from simply enjoying life and focusing on what you might be truly passionate about. One of the things I hate about my 30s is that I'm focused on money now and it feels like I'm not living the life that I want. It just feels like I'm preparing for death. Which I'm not saying isn't the sensible thing to do, there's just something inherently managerial about it which doesn't seem intuitive to living a meaningful life.

ryandrake 1y ago
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.
- bluGill 1y ago
  > 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
- dottjt 1y ago
  > 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.

joquarky 1y ago

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?

a96 1y ago
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.

groby_b 1y ago

> 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.