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The money I saved as a child would buy one picogram of gold today

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Re: The money I saved as a child would buy one picogram of gold today

#61

Post by nobrains »

Taek wrote: post #12
Certhas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a childhood lesson you don't need crazy inflation for this to hold true though. Anything that takes more than a few of months to save up to just doesn't make sense as a kid. Your disposable income goes up by factors of ten every few years. You have 2$ to spend at 5, 20$ at 10, 200$ at 15. Then it slows down but you might still get to 2000$ at 25. Saving as a kid really never seemed worth it to me.

It's about the lesson more than anything else. I really want my kids to learn how to save and be well practiced at it, even though the utility function doesn't make a ton of sense.

We put our children's savings (money for good school results, birthday money, eid money, etc.) into 3 separate envelops, equally: SPEND, SAVE, CHARITY.

SPEND: They are encouraged to spend 1/3rd of the money. Whatever they want to buy. They have become online discount shopping experts, whether getting rubiks cubes, roller blades or harry potter merchandise.

SAVE: 1/3rd goes into savings, which we will let them tap once they need it. Not sure when: once they are 17/18 perhaps? In all cases, it will be a big payout compared to the amounts they are used to "spend".

CHARITY: And 1/3rd goes to charity envelop. So whenever an opportunity comes up, they can use that towards any charity event. Good thing is that they usually spend it all in one go. Great!

Re: The money I saved as a child would buy one picogram of gold today

#62

Post by klyrs »

epgui wrote: post #33
Taek wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about the lesson more than anything else. I really want my kids to learn how to save and be well practiced at it, even though the utility function doesn't make a ton of sense.

I don’t understand why so many people “save money” but then just keep cash under a mattress or in a savings or checking account. If you want to win at life, you “save money” by purchasing non-cash assets like stocks.

Sure, saving money isn't the best strategy, but it sure beats "spend every dime the minute you get it" which is what children are naturally inclined to do. Teaching kids to save money is the first step towards financial literacy.

Re: The money I saved as a child would buy one picogram of gold today

#63

Post by clamprecht »

gpgn wrote: post #19
clamprecht wrote: post #13

I'm from the US but I lived in Argentina for about 5 years (2013-2018). It was a great lesson, and I'm seeing things in the US now that I used to see in Argentina. At the bank recently, they had a sign about the national shortage of coins. That was common in Argentina. Sizes of products getting smaller in order to keep the price the same - "inflacion escondido" (hidden inflation).

"inflacion escondidA"

Gracias.. mejor comentario hasta ahora ;)

Re: The money I saved as a child would buy one picogram of gold today

#64

Post by Bolkan »

t43562 wrote: post #3

I remember my dad encouraging me to save my dollars and not spend them on choc-99 double ice-creams ($2.13). These were soft whip ice-creams with 2 cadbury's flake chocolates stuck in the side and they seemed like the closest thing to heaven on earth to me. What my dad said seemed logical though and I saved. When I was 16 I had a holiday job that earned me many ice-cream-worths but I kept it - didn't buy a bicycle or…

No post body was provided.

Re: The money I saved as a child would buy one picogram of gold today

#65

Post by krastanov »

Taek wrote: post #12
Certhas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a childhood lesson you don't need crazy inflation for this to hold true though. Anything that takes more than a few of months to save up to just doesn't make sense as a kid. Your disposable income goes up by factors of ten every few years. You have 2$ to spend at 5, 20$ at 10, 200$ at 15. Then it slows down but you might still get to 2000$ at 25. Saving as a kid really never seemed worth it to me.

It's about the lesson more than anything else. I really want my kids to learn how to save and be well practiced at it, even though the utility function doesn't make a ton of sense.

I feel most of my saving habits came from RPG games, not from my parents (although they did try to teach me that too).

Re: The money I saved as a child would buy one picogram of gold today

#66

Post by randyrand »

imtringued wrote: post #14
teddyh wrote: post #2

Ah, the magic of interest: http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/at-the-bank

Why exactly do we want to reward already rich people at the expense of poorer people? Somehow, people convinced themselves that giving money to those who don't need it is efficient.

It’s not that we want to. Its not our choice. It’s decided by the people, or the foreign countries, that have the money to lend. It’s the rate they are willing to lend at. Most don’t lend it for free.

Re: The money I saved as a child would buy one picogram of gold today

#67

Post by xivzgrev »

nobrains wrote: post #61
Taek wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about the lesson more than anything else. I really want my kids to learn how to save and be well practiced at it, even though the utility function doesn't make a ton of sense.

We put our children's savings (money for good school results, birthday money, eid money, etc.) into 3 separate envelops, equally: SPEND, SAVE, CHARITY. SPEND: They are encouraged to spend 1/3rd of the money. Whatever they want to buy. They have become online discount shopping experts, whether getting rubiks cubes, roller blades or harry potter merchandise. SAVE: 1/3rd goes into savings, which we will let them tap onc…

My mom had a similar system. She had also split savings into long term and short term. So

LT - 40% ST - 30% Spend - 20% Charity - 10%

I don’t recall what the term was for short term, maybe a few months.

Something about it worked. Today I follow a similar system, tho percentages are different (spend obviously higher) and no charity.

Re: The money I saved as a child would buy one picogram of gold today

#68

Post by dlivingston »

imtringued wrote: post #14
teddyh wrote: post #2

Ah, the magic of interest: http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/at-the-bank

Why exactly do we want to reward already rich people at the expense of poorer people? Somehow, people convinced themselves that giving money to those who don't need it is efficient.

Do you understand why the system is set up the way it is? By which I mean the actual financial mechanisms.

Re: The money I saved as a child would buy one picogram of gold today

#69

Post by judge2020 »

nobrains wrote: post #61
Taek wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about the lesson more than anything else. I really want my kids to learn how to save and be well practiced at it, even though the utility function doesn't make a ton of sense.

We put our children's savings (money for good school results, birthday money, eid money, etc.) into 3 separate envelops, equally: SPEND, SAVE, CHARITY. SPEND: They are encouraged to spend 1/3rd of the money. Whatever they want to buy. They have become online discount shopping experts, whether getting rubiks cubes, roller blades or harry potter merchandise. SAVE: 1/3rd goes into savings, which we will let them tap onc…

I guess this is the type of modelling CNBC used for millenial spending in their infamous tweet[0]; I don't know many people that actually donate >10% of their income to charity.

0: https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/1076173906455810050?s=20&t=Z...

Re: The money I saved as a child would buy one picogram of gold today

#70

Post by xiphias2 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #43
xiphias2 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the same thing for many years, until in 2013 the Cyprus bailouts woke me up...at that point I went all in on Bitcoin out of anger of the banking system, and haven't changed anything since.

I hope this works out for you in the long term; BTC isn't the most stable platform, but it could certainly be more stable than some national currencies.

If you don't look at the price, it's the most stable and predictable service and protocol in the existence of the internet (maybe after the internet / IPv4). It's uptime is 99.987%, last time it was down in 2013, and the cool thing is that even if it gets down, it has self healing property in the case of network separation / sybil attack.

https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/bitcoin-uptime/

I dare you to find another internet service (or even banking service) with the same stability.

Also the same software that I downloaded in 2013 still works (although I'm not using it, I have the option to not upgrade).

There was a bail in last month in my country (Hungary) as well: all people who stored their money in Russian banks lost their money over $100000, just like in Cyprus in 2013. They did't even know that their bank was Russian owned. I'm not playing the game of russian roulette with my money anymore.

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