I just turned 18 and am about to start college. I have about 1000 dollars in the bank and make about 140 a week at my summer job. Im sure this is a type of thread Veeky Forums gets a lot but Id just like to know if any of you have any tips for how I should manage my money, or any advice/reccomendations to get started with investing the little I have in the bank. Id prefer to find something simple to start with so I can just get a feel for the whole thing, and Ive heard a lot of discussion about investing in silver. Whats your guys' take on it?
I just turned 18 and am about to start college...
Hunter Reyes
Noah Thomas
I don't think Silver is a good idea for your first investment; it's usually bought by people who want something to diversify their portfolio or whackos that think the dollar is going to collapse.
Open a Vanguard account and buy $500 worth of VTSMX and $500 of VGTSX,
Those are both funds that are based on the entirety of the the US and international stock markets, respectfully. Having these two will privide a safe, sane way for you to learn how the market fluctuates day to day, and also by getting these you will force yourself to learn how to invest.
It's really not hard. I'm convinced the Jew banks make it seem tough so people give them their money to invest for them (and give them 2% of all earnings).
If you have more questions, let me know. I remember being 18 and wanting to invest 2K. A bunch of jackoffs online told me to buy beer with it and not worry so much.
That was in April 2009. FUCK those people.
Nicholas Reyes
Thanks so much for the advice, I feel exactly the same way. Im not in the mood to blow my money on cheap thrills just because Im young and can shrug it off as a generally accepted way of acting for my age, I really want to try and create the foundation for financial security when I leave college. Ill definitely look into Vanguard and try to get started. Thanks again, and Ill probably be coming back to this board in the future to learn more.
Ryan Hill
you're doing better than 90% of people our age bro.
if this was the 70's / 80's you'd only be doing better than a bout 30% of your peers. but boy have times changed.
Liam Gutierrez
Oh and while Ive got you here, I had anothe question, because Im an absolute beginner to investing. I can see the two you listed, VTSMX and VGTSX, fluctuate a lot, which is good so I can learn how the markets work like you said. But how would you reccomend making decisions based around that? Is it smart to try and monitor the patterns for a while and then try to cssh out during a high point? Or is it good to keep some invested and then only take some out to try to buy more of that option or a different one when the market shifts for it to be cheaper? Sorry if what Im saying doesnt make a lot of sense, Im not really used to the vernacular with these types of things
Ayden Diaz
Thanks man, It really does bug me how my generation seems to have abandoned most of their sense of responsibility, not just financially but socially as well.
Blake Perry
well its a result of their parents and who they look up to. rappers and celebrities.
James Hernandez
Yup, its become fashionable to a certain extent to waste your time and resources, especially money and credit on momentary satisfaction, rather than security for the future. And then to top it all off, after people waste four years of their life and 30,000 dollars in loans on a degree that cant get them a job, they whine how the world didnt cater to their selfish desire to waste their own and others' time. Its disgusting, really. Its why im so worried about soending too long at college, with the track Im on I should have a masters in Electrical Engineering in 3 years, but Im hoping to get a co-op program in for some job security once I graduate.
Daniel Hernandez
They certainly do fluctuate, but honestly not as much as most stocks. You want fluctuation, check out something like Best Buy:
google.com
VTSMX is intended to rise and fall with the general market. Compare its movement to the Dow:
google.com
As you can see it's almost exactly the same. Stock move a lot. If they don't then the company is probably a dud
As for what you should do: There are different philosophies towards investing. I'm a fan of buy and hold, which basically means you but stock and then just never do anything ever. People who try to sell stocks at peaks and then rebuy and shit are considered speculators, and they tend to find trouble for two major reasons
1) It cost around 8 bucks to buy or sell a stock with most accounts. If you're buying and selling the same stock over and over again, you begin to eat away at your profits simply by getting raped by those fees. Now, a lot of people here like an app called Robinhood that allows you to buy and sell without fees, and you can try that, but I still don't recommend it because...
2) It's basically impossible to predict the market. You admit you don't know much, so when high-power bankers with their awesome computer programs can't predict the future, what chance do you think you have? You also get fucked by this thing called high frequency trading (look it up). I'm rambling, but what I'm getting to is you should be buying stock with the plan to hold on.
My general rule is that I buy a stock and if I REALLY like what it's doing, I buy more.
Oh, and look up Roth IRA's. You want to invest in those.
If you want to learn the way I learned, check out this guide:
fool.com
It might be a bit dated now, but it gave me a ton of great info when I was starting out.
Aaron Hughes
This is all great information, I cant thank you enough. The only thing Im a little confused about is your buy and hold idea. Again Im totally new to all of this, so I might just not be understanding it correctly, especially since I have pretty much no idea how stocks work on the large scale. So if you, in theory spenf 500 dollars or however much on one of these Vanguard stocks, and then leave it in indefinitely, how do you ultimately gain or maintain your money? Im not sure if the ultimate goal here is just to try to keep the money you currently have or jut make a little over time as the market does better in the long run, but in the end what are you actually doing with the money? Surely you need to take it out eventually right? Or is it just there as a sort of emergency thing where you never plan to take the money out but its there just in case what you have in the bank isnt enough?
Aiden Wright
I understand. Let me clarify.
When most people talk about investing, what they're really implying is investing for retirement. That Roth IRA I mentioned can only be withdrawn from once you're 59.5 years old.
You read all this stuff about Social Security collapsing and people having to work until they're 70; that's not a meme. A lot of our parents (and a lot of us, sadly) don't or can't save until they're already old, and make things a lot tougher for them.
Google was around 140 in 2009 when I wanted to invest. If I had put my 2K there, it would be worth around 12K now. Time is crazy thing. Hell, go look at any major companies historic stock. Besides some scam tech stocks, almost all of them have had 10x gains in the past 15-25 years. Day to day this is impossible to decipher, but with buy and hold you're buying stocks and then letting forty years in your case go buy before checking back in. Some naysayers will tell you all sorts of reasons the market is actually not that generous and how things are going south soon, but they don't know shit and history says otherwise.
That doesn't mean you can't sell. Shit, I sold 2k worth of some crappy tech company I didn't actually like last week so i could buy booze and a computer. When I get my first house, nearly all of it will be paid for with sold stock.
Probably my favorite reason for investing is that it forces you to not waste money like an idiot. When cash is in my bank, I feel compelled to spend it. After all, what else is money for? But as soon as I convert that cash into stock, it's no longer mine to spend.
Some of my friends "save money" by just letting it pool in their bank and that baffles me. With no plan and no added value, that "saved" cash is one simple step away from being blown on a vacation or a new TV. I don't need that shit; watching my money grow is a lot more fun.
Juan Wood
Ok, maybe 10x was a little high, but definitely 3-5X.
Michael Robinson
I'm not sure I fully answered your question.
With buy and hold, the general plan to is to continually buy stock, and have your investments grow and snowball so that you end up with a shit ton on saved money by the time you choose to retire.
Once you retire, the goal is to slowly withdraw money from your investments well enough so you can support your way of living without needing to work, but also slowly enough so that you are matching or at least not badly surpassing the rate in which the account is increasing on its own.
So lets say you have ten million when you retire. A good goal would be to withdraw a half million each year, but also have your account grow five percent so as to "replenish" that amount. Hard mode is keeping that up until you die still rich AF at age 102 and leave your many grandchildren from your half-dozen smokin-hot wives a bunch of money each to invest themselves/spend on cocaine.
There will come a point where it behooves you to realign your investments to minimize risk, but that's far, far away for you. Just buy shit and learn as much as you can before you start making real money.
Christian Torres
Fuck all this advice on your money. Most important thing right now is making sure your degree is worth a shit. If it's not engineering or business or you're guaranteed to get into medical or dental, etc. you should rectify that right now.
Jose Taylor
Lol to be fair a major reason I forced myself to learn investing so early was that I'm a writer and need to make the most of any money I make.
Julian Rodriguez
Well I hope you're not taking loans on that education. Why even get one if your dream is writing?
Landon Foster
Cute. I work as as a copywriter in San Jose. As long as you're willing to mold your skills to fit what the company needs, there's lots of work (at least in the Bay Area) for writers at tech companies.
Kayden Bell
Good fucking luck getting a writing job with no degree. I sure as shit wouldn't hire you.
Why does every idiot think the only job for writers is writing shitty fiction novels like its 1822?
I do fun passion stuff on the side (I write for Cracked.com, for example), but when it comes to a living I write what companies that pay want me to write.
Matthew Lee
OK, well that's fine I guess. My buddy was in tech writing in San Diego but still ended up becoming a lawyer. Was just making sure you didn't want to waste money to be a novelist or something.
John Murphy
Fair enough. And I still wouldn't call writing work easy to get or super well paying. I do really like feeling like I made it doing what I love, tho.
If I cluld do it again I would have gotten a tech degree and beone a computer tech writer. Those guys get paid out the ass to wtite shitty manuals and stuff. Stuff I could already do, but you need the right paper to get the job.
Tyler Cooper
Sure, kid. Take 20% of what you earn a week and put it in your savings account. Now pretend you only make 112 a week. Spend less than you make, and make more than you spend. Take $600 from that account and put it in MNKD and risk losing 15% of it, and potentially double or even triple it in September. Or take all $1000 and put it in VOO because vanguard funds are nice for long term holds like that. Gradually add money to the fund you choose to invest in and don't take any money out of it until you're 40.
Jacob White
Youve pretty much answered it here, I was just a little confused. Sorry I took so long to reply, I fell asleep last night and honsetly thought the thread would have been pruned by now.
Im majoring in Electrical Engineering but might switch to Mechanical Engineering depending on how my opinions of the two develop ovee the next semester or two. Gonna try to stay in college for as short a time as I can though because I dont want to drown in debt.
Definitely going to look into all the reccomendations in this thread, especially Vanguard which I researched a little last night.can you explain what you mean with what you said about MNKD though? Are the numbers you mentioned just kind of from your own experience?