As a 15 year old, how should I use/invest my money?

[Arri]

I would throw that money into a savings account and then use that money to purchase a car when you capable of having a job.

 

If you want to continue to be smart with your money. When you're 18, open up a Roth IRA and begin saving for retirement. 

[NinJake]

29 minutes ago, jasonwj322a said:

I'm not paying for the laptop. I also have 7 pairs of shoes.

I only meant having some money for something that may come up that you need to spend money on. An emergency fund of sorts. However, just because you aren't paying for the laptop doesn't mean you should get one that's so expensive. Why not talk to your parents about a cheaper laptop 300-450ish for school, and then let you use the remainder towards a desktop pc build?

 

If you think your first smartphone is crazy cool, just wait until you build your own pc.

[Mug]

Advice on being an adult:

Rich people are rich because they don't spend their money. I learned this when I used to be a charity mugger, someone who goes round knocking on doors looking for donations. When we went to the posh estates, we found that people didn't give out money but the poor estates did.

So what you should definitely do is stop spending right away on non-essentials. Only invest in something that'll get you a return or something that you need. This laptop is a bad idea, it'll be out of date in a couple of years and you'll be out of a grand. Wait as long as possible to buy a new computer or just shove an SSD in your old one. Simple.

 

Saving it is the best idea right now. Find something that'll give you a good return like a 3-year bond and invest, reaping the reward at the end.

 

Now, after 3 years you'll probably be at university so you may want to use your savings on going out and stuff but that's not a good idea either, going out is an expense that should be coming out of your day-to-day maintinance fund (however you're getting that). However, things that I would consider spending money oninclude holidays, maybe find a few people and jet off to Europe or build a toilet in Africa or something. Experiences are exerything, but generic experiences that you can have every day like the cinema are a bad use of your money.

 

How should you save? Go on the internet and look for banks that do long-term bonds and put your money in. Even though $1000 isn't much, it's a start.

Why long-term bonds? They get higher rates, generic saver accounts get really bad rates (like the worst) but other ones get much more substantial rates.

[HughMungusCynicalAnarch]

5 minutes ago, Mug said:

Advice on being an adult:

Rich people are rich because they don't spend their money. I learned this when I used to be a charity mugger, someone who goes round knocking on doors looking for donations. When we went to the posh estates, we found that people didn't give out money but the poor estates did.

So what you should definitely do is stop spending right away on non-essentials. Only invest in something that'll get you a return or something that you need. This laptop is a bad idea, it'll be out of date in a couple of years and you'll be out of a grand. Wait as long as possible to buy a new computer or just shove an SSD in your old one. Simple.

 

Saving it is the best idea right now. Find something that'll give you a good return like a 3-year bond and invest, reaping the reward at the end.

 

Now, after 3 years you'll probably be at university so you may want to use your savings on going out and stuff but that's not a good idea either, going out is an expense that should be coming out of your day-to-day maintinance fund (however you're getting that). However, things that I would consider spending money oninclude holidays, maybe find a few people and jet off to Europe or build a toilet in Africa or something. Experiences are exerything, but generic experiences that you can have every day like the cinema are a bad use of your money.

 

How should you save? Go on the internet and look for banks that do long-term bonds and put your money in. Even though $1000 isn't much, it's a start.

Why long-term bonds? They get higher rates, generic saver accounts get really bad rates (like the worst) but other ones get much more substantial rates.

Ahahahahhahahaha buying government securities as an investment.

good one.

[Mug]

1 minute ago, HughMungusCynicalAnarch said:

Ahahahahhahahaha buying government securities as an investment.

good one.

 

Didn't say that it should be government bonds.

[jasonwj322a]

3 hours ago, Mug said:

Advice on being an adult:

Rich people are rich because they don't spend their money. I learned this when I used to be a charity mugger, someone who goes round knocking on doors looking for donations. When we went to the posh estates, we found that people didn't give out money but the poor estates did.

So what you should definitely do is stop spending right away on non-essentials. Only invest in something that'll get you a return or something that you need. This laptop is a bad idea, it'll be out of date in a couple of years and you'll be out of a grand. Wait as long as possible to buy a new computer or just shove an SSD in your old one. Simple.

 

Saving it is the best idea right now. Find something that'll give you a good return like a 3-year bond and invest, reaping the reward at the end.

 

Now, after 3 years you'll probably be at university so you may want to use your savings on going out and stuff but that's not a good idea either, going out is an expense that should be coming out of your day-to-day maintinance fund (however you're getting that). However, things that I would consider spending money oninclude holidays, maybe find a few people and jet off to Europe or build a toilet in Africa or something. Experiences are exerything, but generic experiences that you can have every day like the cinema are a bad use of your money.

 

How should you save? Go on the internet and look for banks that do long-term bonds and put your money in. Even though $1000 isn't much, it's a start.

Why long-term bonds? They get higher rates, generic saver accounts get really bad rates (like the worst) but other ones get much more substantial rates.

That laptop is something I need though. I currently don't have one.

[Mug]

2 hours ago, jasonwj322a said:

That laptop is something I need though. I currently don't have one.

Well it's a no brainer then... Just make sure your parents are paying for it.

And get a 13" laptop, 15" is way too big to be practical if you're actually using it as a laptop ie: taking it about with you. You're going to probably go through college with this laptop so best get one that you can actually carry. What I'd get if I was a teenager is a 13" laptop with an ssd, an i3/i5 and 8GB of ram. If you're gaming then what the fuck are you doing buying a laptop? The XPS 15 might play current games on medium now but in a couple of years time it's going to be obsolete, better to spend your money on a playstation imo. There are some great laptops for ~£400 (so ~$450) that deliver everything that a teenager would possibly need with the added benefit of an ssd.

[jasonwj322a]

1 hour ago, Mug said:

Well it's a no brainer then... Just make sure your parents are paying for it.

And get a 13" laptop, 15" is way too big to be practical if you're actually using it as a laptop ie: taking it about with you. You're going to probably go through college with this laptop so best get one that you can actually carry. What I'd get if I was a teenager is a 13" laptop with an ssd, an i3/i5 and 8GB of ram. If you're gaming then what the fuck are you doing buying a laptop? The XPS 15 might play current games on medium now but in a couple of years time it's going to be obsolete, better to spend your money on a playstation imo. There are some great laptops for ~£400 (so ~$450) that deliver everything that a teenager would possibly need with the added benefit of an ssd.

I'm fine carrying a 15 inch laptop especially with the smaller chassis on the XPS 15. My parents wouldn't buy me a laptop again/or in a long time so I'm going all out with the specs.

[Heesleemer]

retirement, i'm serious, compound interest is a thing 

[MadyTehWolfie]

1 hour ago, Mug said:

Well it's a no brainer then... Just make sure your parents are paying for it.

And get a 13" laptop, 15" is way too big to be practical if you're actually using it as a laptop ie: taking it about with you. You're going to probably go through college with this laptop so best get one that you can actually carry. What I'd get if I was a teenager is a 13" laptop with an ssd, an i3/i5 and 8GB of ram. If you're gaming then what the fuck are you doing buying a laptop? The XPS 15 might play current games on medium now but in a couple of years time it's going to be obsolete, better to spend your money on a playstation imo. There are some great laptops for ~£400 (so ~$450) that deliver everything that a teenager would possibly need with the added benefit of an ssd.

Laptops can be good for gaming especially now with the 1060-1070-1080 chips are full fledged GPUs now. Pretty sure Asus, razor, MSI all make laptops that are thin with the 1060-1070. More then enough for gaming. He'll my older Asus 980m laptop still maxes out pretty much every game out right now.

[IOI-655321]

I was in a similar situation at the end of last year. I ended up paying for my rig from a combination of birthday money from various relatives over the course of 2 years, and a minimal amount from my bank account (I'm 14). In the end I was missing various peripherals like a monitor, speakers, etc; but I was in luck because my Grandfather used to build PC's back in the DOS days and he had some old Windows XP-Era speakers which were in pretty good condition for sitting in a box for many years. But in the end I went with a lower end PC. Like most people here, I would rather save money than spend it, but if you still want a CP that bad I would buy secondhand for most components. (See: 

 and

 

)

In the end, good luck with whatever you end up doing and remember cura te ipsum.

[Audio Carnage]

Spend it on pingaZ and have a good time

[Tieox]

I fully agree with a savings account, however you could also buy all the bananas you can eat

 

http://www.freshdirect.co.uk/who-we-are/our-roots/

[SicVisPacem]

I trade the stock market for a living, and I wouldn't suggest putting your 1k towards any investments unless you're willing to lose it.  If you open a brokerage account and follow go risk management principles, you could learn a fair bit before you burn through the 1k.  But that's just the thing - when you first start trading, your first account has to be seen as tuition.  You pay tuition to the market in order to learn how everything works, and you can only become a good trader through experience.

 

Now, if you are in fact willing to lose your 1k, learning how to trade at the age of 15 could give you a serious advantage in a few years.  By the time you have a decently-paying job and can put 10k or 50k into a trading account, you'll already have some experience under your belt.  

 

BTW "trading" is the more general term for "investing" that most people use.  An "investment" is just a very long term trade - one that lasts for a few years, and that is based on macroeconomic analysis and a companies fundamentals.  For instance, you might decide to buy Nvidia because they are projected to be industry leaders in VR, and you don't think we are going to get a market crash in the next 5 years.  Long term investing isn't the only kind of trading, though.  You can buy a stock and sell it in a year, or a month, or a week, or even a few hours.  All you're trying to do is develop a trading system where after 100 trades, you are net positive.  

 

Two rules for new traders:

1. Trust no one; become your own expert.

2. MANAGE. YOUR. RISK.

 

Trust no one, because you can't become a profitable trader by just purchasing whatever stock you see on CNBC or twitter.   Also, the first page of search results when you google "how to trade stocks" will be full of links to snake oil salesmen - people who pay to get their websites in the first few pages of results, because they make a living not on actually trading, but on selling trading programs of dubious value to noobs like you who are looking for the "secret."  Don't get taken in.  Don't buy somebody's trading program.  Don't be a fucking idiot, or the snake oil salesmen will take your money, and then I'll take your money again when you make a stupid trade and I profit from it.

 

Managing risk just means to not allow yourself to lose too much money on any one trade.  With an account of $1k, you don't really have a lot of wiggle room.  A 5% rule would mean that you only allow yourself to lose $50 on any one trade.  If a trade goes against you by $50 at any time, you cut your losses and get out.  This is not an easy thing to do in practice, because you won't want to admit that you were wrong, but you have to develop the discipline to do so.  Good risk management will allow you to learn a lot about the markets before you lose your money.  It's tuition that you have to pay to the market.

 

******

Now, if you don't have any inclination to get into this, then you shouldn't.   But it would really suck to do what most people do, which is basically gamble by purchasing one or two stocks and hoping they make money by some indeterminate point in the future.  If you don't want to get into trading, just purchase a nice ultrawide for $500 to go with that laptop, and put the rest into a savings account in case you really need it at some point in the future (and trust me, you WILL end up needing it, eventually).

[jasonwj322a]

7 hours ago, SicVisPacem said:

I trade the stock market for a living, and I wouldn't suggest putting your 1k towards any investments unless you're willing to lose it.  If you open a brokerage account and follow go risk management principles, you could learn a fair bit before you burn through the 1k.  But that's just the thing - when you first start trading, your first account has to be seen as tuition.  You pay tuition to the market in order to learn how everything works, and you can only become a good trader through experience.

 

Now, if you are in fact willing to lose your 1k, learning how to trade at the age of 15 could give you a serious advantage in a few years.  By the time you have a decently-paying job and can put 10k or 50k into a trading account, you'll already have some experience under your belt.  

 

BTW "trading" is the more general term for "investing" that most people use.  An "investment" is just a very long term trade - one that lasts for a few years, and that is based on macroeconomic analysis and a companies fundamentals.  For instance, you might decide to buy Nvidia because they are projected to be industry leaders in VR, and you don't think we are going to get a market crash in the next 5 years.  Long term investing isn't the only kind of trading, though.  You can buy a stock and sell it in a year, or a month, or a week, or even a few hours.  All you're trying to do is develop a trading system where after 100 trades, you are net positive.  

 

Two rules for new traders:

1. Trust no one; become your own expert.

2. MANAGE. YOUR. RISK.

 

Trust no one, because you can't become a profitable trader by just purchasing whatever stock you see on CNBC or twitter.   Also, the first page of search results when you google "how to trade stocks" will be full of links to snake oil salesmen - people who pay to get their websites in the first few pages of results, because they make a living not on actually trading, but on selling trading programs of dubious value to noobs like you who are looking for the "secret."  Don't get taken in.  Don't buy somebody's trading program.  Don't be a fucking idiot, or the snake oil salesmen will take your money, and then I'll take your money again when you make a stupid trade and I profit from it.

 

Managing risk just means to not allow yourself to lose too much money on any one trade.  With an account of $1k, you don't really have a lot of wiggle room.  A 5% rule would mean that you only allow yourself to lose $50 on any one trade.  If a trade goes against you by $50 at any time, you cut your losses and get out.  This is not an easy thing to do in practice, because you won't want to admit that you were wrong, but you have to develop the discipline to do so.  Good risk management will allow you to learn a lot about the markets before you lose your money.  It's tuition that you have to pay to the market.

 

******

Now, if you don't have any inclination to get into this, then you shouldn't.   But it would really suck to do what most people do, which is basically gamble by purchasing one or two stocks and hoping they make money by some indeterminate point in the future.  If you don't want to get into trading, just purchase a nice ultrawide for $500 to go with that laptop, and put the rest into a savings account in case you really need it at some point in the future (and trust me, you WILL end up needing it, eventually).

Thank you! Super helpful!

[Androob]

I'm 16 years old and I currently have a savings account which I setup with a little twist, I can add money myself and manage the funds, but I have no way of spending it. I'm really bad at saving my money and I can very easily blow money on useless things that seem to matter in the moment. 

 

Setup your own savings account, and give your parents the access card. You can even go a step further and ask your bank about a high-interest savings account, where you would need to have a minimum amount of money in the account to see your funds grow over time.

[Satisfoxy]

Save it for the expensive anti-depressants you'll need when you become an adult.

[Heesleemer]

2 hours ago, Satisfoxy said:

Save it for the expensive anti-depressants you'll need when you become an adult.

as a recent adult out of college. Adulting sucks. Going back to grad school 

[EminentSun]

Vlog brothers did a thing a while ago and found that if you invest about $1000 into a retirment account now you will wind up (after taking inflation into accout) with nearly $200,000.