Is it even worth trying to invest $15K?
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My brother-in-law gave me $15K for my 19th birthday and called it “pocket money.” I’ve never invested before, so I’m not sure if I should put it somewhere or just enjoy spending it.
Someone else posted about making an investment and I think, as an elder millennial, this is the right answer. However, they took a prudish and boring take on the matter, one which will almost assuredly back fire as youl get bored of it sitting in an IRA and probably lose it trying to "invest" your self in the rigged casino which is the stock market. Just, having been 19 myself once, I do remember what it's like to have that kind of psychology. I strongly DONT recommend this form of investment for that age group, because it's just not a good fit for most 19 year old personalities, and what matters the most is finding a good fit between your personality and what you want to do.
But you can expand your vision on what it means to "invest" that money.
15k is enough to start a small business. Not a big business mind you, but something. A pool cleaning business can be run out of the back of a used car or small truck. People also require the services of power washing, and while a high quality power washer isn't cheap, it's also not monumentally expensive either. Landscaping also fits this billet. 6k in tools, a 9k truck, and you've got a business that can sustain you. It also teaches you to manage yourself, your time, your customers and potentially other people as employees.
Another way to invest this money would be to buy land. I don't know where you live, but you can buy 15k parcels of land in plenty of places: https://www.zillow.com/pahoa-hi/ . You could buy a lot, and go live the jungle life off the grid. Or build a cam ground for your family to visit. Or buy a yurt and live in it. Or buy it and do nothing and sell it later. Or buy it and build a house. Or whatever your hearts desire.
Owning a bit of land that you can develop into your own vision can be highly motivated, and there is still plenty of it if you know where to look. Places like Arizona, and new Mexico also have some really amazing deals for land. And don't be afraid to look internationally. 15 k can get you into some interesting places in South America, Africa, Europe (Italy in particular) and Asia. This could be the start of a whole new adventure! And one that ends with you still owning a piece of land you could then sell at a later date as your goals and motivation changes.
Speaking of adventures.. 15k isn't infinite money, but with a frugal mindset and a spirit of adventure, you could easily travel the world for around a year on that much money. But ding dong, how is that an investment? By spending the time to travel or have meaningful personal experiences you are investing in yourself to find out who you really are. Having clarity and really finding out who you are, these things develop the kind of character that prevents you from making bad decisions down the line. Spending the time to find out what really motivated you, to develop friends from all over the world, to build stories and an identity that will last you a lifetime: these have a strong return on investment. And no one has ever said, "boy I sure do regret those years of my youth I spent tramping around the world when I was young and beautiful".
So yes. Invest the money. Don't waste it on groceries or a car that's going to need gas and insurance and maintenance. Go big. Use it all for one thing, to express one idea. But also, consider a bigger vision of what that idea can be. There is no need to only listen to accountants who only ever plan in living for the brief period of their lives after they reach 65 years old.
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Holy shit yes. Compound interest is a hell of a thing.
Find a financial advisor that is a fiduciary, not just some rando on a bus ad or trying to do Bitcoin yourself or using a buddy’s friend or whatever. A fiduciary is legally obligated to work in your best interest, even if it means they lose money themselves.
I would also recommend using someone not related to you or in your social life at all. It’s someone you meet with once a year and their only job is to make you money as fast as possible because they get paid based on how much their clients invest.
Then you can just watch the line go up.
And if you can, make a monthly contribution to that account as well. Even like $50 a month makes a huge difference over the 40-50 years you’ll be investing.
This. I was going to throw out some advice in support of investing, but this is better than my plan of sharing anecdotes of my investing adventures.
Find a fiduciary, explore your options and do what makes the most sense and feels comfortable to you.
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My brother-in-law gave me $15K for my 19th birthday and called it “pocket money.” I’ve never invested before, so I’m not sure if I should put it somewhere or just enjoy spending it.
Holy shit yes. This is a peak 19 y/o question, and I say this with no disrespect intended.
I'm in my 30s now and I really wish I had invested 15k when I was 19. I would be sitting a whole let better than I am now.
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My brother-in-law gave me $15K for my 19th birthday and called it “pocket money.” I’ve never invested before, so I’m not sure if I should put it somewhere or just enjoy spending it.
You're 19 and shits about to go south with the economy...
Put it in savings in case you need it for school/housing/whatever.
getting used to having availabile money and not blowing is a very valuable lesson. And when you do need something, you don't have to buy the cheapest option, you can afford the best value.
Start watching the market now, pick some stocks, pretend to buy them, and see if you'd have been right or not.
In 6-12 months prices will be a lot cheaper, when you see a big dip and feel ready, buy in. But don't buy 15k at once, definitely not all the same thing.
Sprinkle out 3-5k and see what happens, then slowly increase you're percentage. But you're going to want to just get used to having a 5k emergency fund. For bonus points start using a credit card instead of debit, and pay it off via your phones every couple days. That way you're building credit.
Don't chase short term gains, you're 19 it's going to be every instinct you have. But you have a shit ton of time and a great headstart
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My brother-in-law gave me $15K for my 19th birthday and called it “pocket money.” I’ve never invested before, so I’m not sure if I should put it somewhere or just enjoy spending it.
It depends on your goals. But I think $15k is a lot of money, and I would invest it.
How old are you and how much do you make a year?
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Without knowing more about your situation, the standard advice would be something like:
- Pay off any debts, credit cards, etc that you have.
- Top off your emergency savings. This should be somewhere between 3-6 months of expenses.
- Put the rest if any into retirement, probably an IRA.
Two points though:
- Take some and have fun with it, maybe $2k-4k. Get some nice clothes, laptop, take your SO to a very fancy restaurant.
- $15k as pocket money for a 19yo?!? That’s a generous brother in law.
wrote last edited by [email protected]This is about the best advice you're going to get here. The only thing I would add is that it should be a Roth IRA. Chances are you're in a low tax bracket (I guess assuming you're an American, if not...look into the equivalent in Canada, etc.) so it could be really helpful when you're older and retiring.
Doing the math, if you put $15k in a Roth IRA (you can't do that in one year, but bear with me) when you are 19 and just let it sit, at a 6% average interest rate you'll have $265,303.41 by the time you're 67.
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My brother-in-law gave me $15K for my 19th birthday and called it “pocket money.” I’ve never invested before, so I’m not sure if I should put it somewhere or just enjoy spending it.
There is a lot of risk when it comes to investing. The stock market is a lot of guesswork and sheer gambling in of itself.
$15k to me would be a great savings foundation that will grow overtime.
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No sense paying off debts early if their interest rate is lower than the profit you would get by investing. This is dependent on timescale though.
Unless it's an auto loan or something, most debts have a higher interest rate than 9%.
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My brother-in-law gave me $15K for my 19th birthday and called it “pocket money.” I’ve never invested before, so I’m not sure if I should put it somewhere or just enjoy spending it.
Buy bitcoin, write down the private keys, and mail it to yourself in 20 years like doc brown in BTTF2
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It depends on your goals. But I think $15k is a lot of money, and I would invest it.
How old are you and how much do you make a year?
OP said they're 19...
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My brother-in-law gave me $15K for my 19th birthday and called it “pocket money.” I’ve never invested before, so I’m not sure if I should put it somewhere or just enjoy spending it.
Definitely save it somehow. That could be a down payment for a house.
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Definitely save it somehow. That could be a down payment for a house.
$15k? In this economy?
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I don't have any big purchases in mind. My sister got me an apartment and car last year for my 18th birthday with her husband's money. We're Swedish (he's Chinese and my sister lives with him in China) - so free university for me; I don’t have any debt or anything like that. Sister has retired our parents and is supporting our family financially. But this is the first time he gave me money directly.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Sweden in particular has a really low income inequality but a really high wealth inequality. Swedes are underestimating how much they should invest, basically.
The universal advice for money you don't need right now is pay debts, then plan for emergencies (your family would help you, sounds like), then invest.
At 19, mathematically, you should invest mostly in equities (aka stocks) - they go up and down but earn like 10% a year on average (compounding), and you don't really have a deadline. The one trick is you can't panic sell when it goes down. You should diversify as much as possible, unless you can predict the future, and possibly nobody can.
Usually managing taxes and taking advantage of government programs is the third ingredient. I have no idea what that would be in Sweden.
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The short answer is: any amount of money is 'worth' investing.
$10k at 6% for 40 years is $100k. That might let you retire a couple years early. Conventional wisdom, among people, let's say 40+ years old, is going to focus on retirement, wishing they'd started saving earlier, and the incredible power of 40 years compound interest.
At 19, though? You've probably got college and the potential for student debt coming up. Your first car. The down payment on a house. All of those things can be considered "investment," too. They might have much better benefit to you, both in the short term and the long term. Or, if your BIL is ready to drop $15k as 'pocket money,' maybe you have enough family support that none of those things will be a concern. Hell, maybe you have enough family support that working a job from which to retire isn't even a concern.
This is a marshmallow problem. Do you want to buy a car, take a fantastic trip somewhere, or just gamble like a big shot right now, or would you rather have less college debt, buy a nicer house, sooner, or retire earlier? Nobody else can tell you what you'll enjoy more.
To be fair, 100k 40 years from now will have the spending power of about 50k. The real power is in continuing to save as it compounds.
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$15k? In this economy?
How much is a typical mortgage downpayment?
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My brother-in-law gave me $15K for my 19th birthday and called it “pocket money.” I’ve never invested before, so I’m not sure if I should put it somewhere or just enjoy spending it.
40 years ago, in 1985, $15,000 was worth $5,000. The S&P 500 was valued at about $185/share. 5000/185 = 27 shares. SP500 today is about $6,664. 27*6664 = $179,928.
Go ahead and ask every 59 year old in your life if they'd feel better about their retirement with another $180k sitting in an S&P 500 ETF.
Open an account on Vanguard or Fidelity or Schwab or whatever, buy an S&P 500 ETF, and leave it the fuck alone.
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How much is a typical mortgage downpayment?
20% of the price is typical and horribly out of reach with how expensive housing is
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The short answer is: any amount of money is 'worth' investing.
$10k at 6% for 40 years is $100k. That might let you retire a couple years early. Conventional wisdom, among people, let's say 40+ years old, is going to focus on retirement, wishing they'd started saving earlier, and the incredible power of 40 years compound interest.
At 19, though? You've probably got college and the potential for student debt coming up. Your first car. The down payment on a house. All of those things can be considered "investment," too. They might have much better benefit to you, both in the short term and the long term. Or, if your BIL is ready to drop $15k as 'pocket money,' maybe you have enough family support that none of those things will be a concern. Hell, maybe you have enough family support that working a job from which to retire isn't even a concern.
This is a marshmallow problem. Do you want to buy a car, take a fantastic trip somewhere, or just gamble like a big shot right now, or would you rather have less college debt, buy a nicer house, sooner, or retire earlier? Nobody else can tell you what you'll enjoy more.
wrote last edited by [email protected]The short answer is: any amount of money is ‘worth’ investing.
Well, there's usually an upfront cost to investing, and always a cost in time and thought. Opening an investment account just for the change you found in your sofa would be dumb.
That's a nitpick, though. Unless OP was in China themselves (where there's tons of rules and barriers) it would be worth it for 15 grand.
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Buy bitcoin, write down the private keys, and mail it to yourself in 20 years like doc brown in BTTF2
I dont think Bitcoin will survive the next 20 years as its becoming more and more unprofitable for miners as the reccource costs double every few years.
I dont say it will crash this year or something but 20 is a bit much -
How much is a typical mortgage downpayment?
More like 100k
