Comment by linsomniac

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

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.

>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.

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.

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?).

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?

> 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.

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It remains to be seen what's going to happen over the next few decades. It's entirely possible that it'll all get wiped out (the substantial gains, not all value).

While the market was a very good bet for the last 50yrs, its not a guarantee.

Especially in the current climate you should be fully aware that it's significantly more risky to start investing today vs 10 yrs ago.

(Riskier doesn't mean it's necessarily a bad idea. It should just be a conscious decision under the acknowledgement that the upward trajectory is not certain. Especially in current political climate - and that "hodl"-ing doesn't necessarily mean you'll eventually get back what you invested, if a downturn manifests)

Saving is follows the same advice as for planting a tree.

The best time to plant a tree is ten years ago.

The second best time is now.

Historically, it takes about 7-10 years to double your money in the stock market. So between doubling your money and incremental saving, yeah you should see a pretty significant difference from 26-35. And that's before it skyrockets :)

I didn't start til 35 so don't feel too bad.

I've made a similar deal with my kids: Around 7 years ago I set up a "kid retirement" plan for them, where they couldn't touch the money until they were 18, but any money they put in I would match, and I'd also give them 10% APY with monthly compounding. My daughter aged out of it a couple years ago, she got something in the $100 range. Her brother still has a 18 months left, and I just recently rolled his over into the custodial account, he's got over a grand in there currently.

My daughter I just recently set up a ROTH for her and told her I'd match anything she puts into it, and stressed she should put something into it now from her savings, and then put some of her paycheck into it, anything is better than nothing. So far she's declined the free money. I'm going to set one up for my son, once he's at the point of having an income to justify it. She's very smart, but in some ways she's very stupid.

My dad made a deal with me that, of doubling what I would save during the week.

Don't know about Switzerland, but most US brokers offer some kind of "target retirement date" fund, which automatically shifts from higher-risk assets to lower-risk as you approach retirement. VFIFX is one from Vanguard, for example. Pick one you like (just ask a coworker what they use, if you pick a big-name brokerage it really doesn't matter which one), shove your extra cash into it regularly, and forget about it. Then cross your fingers the market isn't actively crashing when you plan to retire (this is unlikely, but it does happen a couple times per century).

If you start to get into truly high wealth amounts (USD$500K+) you might consider hiring a wealth advisor, who can probably do better even after accounting for their fees.

My understanding is that, if the market generally continues on the rate of return it's averaged throughout its history (that is, if you're not a doomer), then the single most important thing is showing up to play.

People who try to time the market or wait for a perfect time or pick the exact right blend of stocks, on average, don't do as well as people who pick a boring index or mutual fund and forget about it for 40 years.

Read "The Four Pillars of Investing". Basically index funds, diverse whole markets, leave it alone and watch it grow.

I did this at 22, and that seed money has grown a ton.

All the choices you have to make can be very daunting. I was very lucky to have a colleague at work who gave a talk at the right time in my life with some plausibly right choices.

In the UK I started out using https://www.charles-stanley-direct.co.uk/ and later moved to https://www.ii.co.uk/. I initially invested in https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investments/vanguard-life... which is a fund which is available on a bunch of platforms. These days I recommend https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/ to some people as an easy and low fee way of getting started with Vanguard funds in the UK.

I don't know what the best trading platform options are in Switzerland - it looks like all of the ones I'm familiar with are not relevant to you.

The key thing is you want to minimise two types of fees: * Platform fees * Product fees

For example Charles Stanley Direct charge 0.3% platform fees, and https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/ charges 0.15% platform fees.

Vanguard LifeStrategy® 100% Equity Fund charges 0.22%.

The bottom line is that there are lots of good choices, and the main thing is to make a choice and get started. You can always optimise/improve your choices later.

I'm also in Switzerland, currently my approach is to invest in Vanguard VOO (tracks the S&P500) via Interactive Brokers. There is a way to setup auto transfer and invest every month

As a caveat your money will be in dollars and in American companies, which might not be what you want, but it's worked for me well so far

Are you saving for retirement or buying property? Then start filling your 3rd pillar (Säule 3a) first because of the tax cut. Ideally in a low cost provider (viac/finpension), but the bank you already have probably has an offer too. It might be a bit more expensive than viac, but still much better than not investing. Stay away from 3rd pillar at insurance companies, they might be hard to cancel. Do yourself a favor and do this just for the tax cut.

If you max out the 3a, you can start of thinking investing elsewhere. IBKR is the cheapest to buy a US domiciled world ETF. But the UX is not super easy and you will have to fill all transactions manually in the tax report.

Neon with investments is another option I can recommend if you prefer a swiss company and a simple user interface. Fees are low if you set up a savings plan and pick one of the 0% ETFs

Your bank probably has an investment platform, you can just use it, it doesn't matter. My portfolio is 70% XEQT 30% CASH.TO—don't bother with anything else.

- Your bank's platform will cost an arm and a leg; Interactive Brokers or Degiro are both available in Switzerland and you will save so much on fees (especially if you only buy and hold ETFs of which Degiro offers many with 0% fees) that it's the equivalent of faster returns on your money.

- There are many "getting started" guides available, I found Mister Money Mustache the most straightforward to my liking, but you're golden as long as you understand a couple of basics: 1. investing a high% of your income is more important than chasing returns (you seem to be there already), 2. don't trade, just buy the whole market (you mentioned Vanguard, they offer a "total market" ETF), 3. look for the lowest fees as long as you hold title to your shares (IB and Degiro do this ; eToro does not so if they sink, you're SOL), 4. don't time the market, just buy now and sit on it as it grows

For the plattforms, that also blocked me for a while. But it is easy now. You just get one account at a platform that offers a free broker account and supports buying the etf you want without extra fees.

Typical options in Europe: Trade Republic, scalable, Consors Bank.

Then the usual: Around 10K where you can access it directly, a small amount in an investment with percentage (scalable and trade republic both offer that, limit there is or was 50k), rest in one broad ETF like one that follows the FTSE all world (vanguard or invesco offer that, one is bigger, the other asks for less fees).

No affiliation, and I dont know whether being outside of the EU changes things. And yes, there is the risk that we are in a huge bubble now and it popping would at first significantly lower the money put into the etf. But you certainly do have access to vanguard etc.

Have a look now and at the latest this weekend you have this solved, hopefully forever.

Naw, dawg, Imma try and try to encourage them to get started early and put a little bit away, because it's good for them. I'm acutely afraid of a scenario where they have bad habits and anything I leave them they flush down the toilet because of those bad habits. I'm hoping to leave them plenty, but they need to be in a position to not waste that for it to be worth anything.

great resource, thanks for sharing!

Teaching children to invest in bonds is spectacularly bad asset allocation. Investing in stocks or bonds both help promote economic growth.

For me, the notion of teaching kids to invest in some company they know (Disney, McDonalds, Coke, Apple, or whatever) and telling them that they are buying a tiny, tiny share of the company is an important mental model to help shape in them.

Stock picking and speculation especially with a single company is indeed a spectacularly bad strategy, but it can be a motivating start.

A well diversified fund would be the better alternative if you need to aim at a single thing. But it's hard to say what's the better first step if you're trying to teach personal finance management.

Investing in stocks and bonds both helps promote economic growth.

Corps have always been focused on their market valuation. It's up to society, and the laws it passes, to change their incentives.

Bonds returns don't match inflation so long term you're loosing money to inflation, it might be better to spend it

It is one of the most common reasons people invest though so it's entirely relevant