Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: In a single HTML file, an app to encourage my children to invest

roberdam.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–448 of 448 posts

Re: Show HN: In a single HTML file, an app to encourage my children to invest

#441

Post by itake »

sema4hacker wrote: post #240
mlmonkey wrote: post #235

When 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 $35…

> 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 atte…

I’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.

Re: Show HN: In a single HTML file, an app to encourage my children to invest

#442

Post by simianparrot »

Brendinooo wrote: post #413
simianparrot wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 bui…

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.

Re: Show HN: In a single HTML file, an app to encourage my children to invest

#443

Post by Brendinooo »

simianparrot wrote: post #442
Brendinooo wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bui…

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 ch…

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.

Re: Show HN: In a single HTML file, an app to encourage my children to invest

#444

Post by a96 »

pmg102 wrote: post #316
sebastiennight wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP: 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 gai…

The 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 ca…

I 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.

Re: Show HN: In a single HTML file, an app to encourage my children to invest

#445

Post by a96 »

rkomorn wrote: post #143
nxor wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you from the US? I went to a good high school and even that class was awful. No one wants to teach it and genuinely, you learn more about money in history, english, science, and math. Additionally, you can take it online and over the summer, which kids do so they can take nicer looking classes. Granted, students with a work ethic tend to learn these things on their own.

I graduated high school almost 30 years ago so whether I'm from the US or not isn't particularly relevant. I did live in the US for 25 years though, and up to however many minutes ago, I didn't know these classes were a requirement in any state (let alone 30). But going from "it's not a requirement" to "the class is awful" would kinda be moving goalposts, no?

The goalposts were that "school doesn’t teach you (not even high school) is how to manage your personal finances." is a myth. It doesn't matter if there's no class or the class is useless, the statement is almost as true in either case. Students don't learn personal finance in school. They particularly don't learn practical investment as a way to manage their savings.

And for many of us, financial education, if there was any, was probably from boomers going "debt bad! credit bad! get a job and make money!".

Re: Show HN: In a single HTML file, an app to encourage my children to invest

#446

Post by rkomorn »

a96 wrote: post #445
rkomorn wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I graduated high school almost 30 years ago so whether I'm from the US or not isn't particularly relevant. I did live in the US for 25 years though, and up to however many minutes ago, I didn't know these classes were a requirement in any state (let alone 30). But going from "it's not a requirement" to "the class is awful" would kinda be moving goalposts, no?

The goalposts were that "school doesn’t teach you (not even high school) is how to manage your personal finances." is a myth. It doesn't matter if there's no class or the class is useless, the statement is almost as true in either case. Students don't learn personal finance in school. They particularly don't learn practical investment as a way to manage their savings. And for many of us, financial education, if there…

I guess that depends on how you read up the thread.

Seems pretty clear to me that the comment I was originally replying to was about whether there was a requirement for financial classes in the US, not about the quality of the classes.

So we clearly weren't looking at the same goalposts.

Re: Show HN: In a single HTML file, an app to encourage my children to invest

#447

Post by bhu1st »

If 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

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.

Re: Show HN: In a single HTML file, an app to encourage my children to invest

#448

Post by zipy124 »

Esophagus4 wrote: post #215
zipy124 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leverage comes with a cost though through interest rates. It is entirely possible (and even typical) to come out with a loss even on appreciating real estate, since your house must appreciate by more than the interest on your loan. In the UK at-least you can get 1:5 leverage on equities, but you'd be looking at a 20-25% APR, instead of the 5% mortage. The paper "the real return on everything" notably cuts off in 2010…

Good points! And the period since 2010 has been mostly up and to the right. While the housing market as a whole may go up, the likelihood that any individual house will go up probably varies more. How do you get that much leverage from a brokerage to invest in equities? In the US we have something called Reg T, which basically says brokerages can only lend at 2:1 against securities in most cases. Even most leveraged…

The trick in the UK and other commenwealth nations like australia is that you can't get leverage on buying the actual stock, but instead you can use contracts-for-difference (CFD's) which are bets on stock prices. In the US you used to have bucket shops which operated on the same principle many decades ago.

Since we have stamp duty (a tax on share purchases), it is massively advantageous to use CFD's especially if you can find a provider who doesn't offer leverage, so your downside stays low. In addition since it is legally classed as gambling, earnings are not taxed which offers a nice tax advantage over stocks or options if you're investing more than £20k a year (the max you can invest tax-free a year in the UK in an ISA).

Post reply on HN