I’m 17 and I want to be able to retire at a younger age and live the life I want to so I’m just wondering what I can do at my age to set myself up for the future. I’m currently looking into a couple things like getting a high yield savings account, putting money into a roth, getting a credit card, and opening a brokerage account to invest into some stocks. I’m currently laid off and am gonna take unemployment pay soon and I think I want to get into trucking in order to save a lot of money while working. Just curious if theres anything else I can do.
How can I set myself up for financial success as a teenager?
byu/Proper_Score9094 inpersonalfinance
Posted by Proper_Score9094
11 Comments
DO NOT FINANCE A VEHICLE. Get a secured credit card . Only use like 10- 20% of it a month and pay it immediately
Start here: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics.
Don’t screw up college or trade school and get employable skill set
Go to college or get a high paying trade apprenticeship. Then read the common topics wiki. Find a field where jobs are in demand, pay well, and can’t be replaced by AI.
IN MY OPINION… The best thing you can do at 17 to guarantee financial success is to figure out how to get into an officer position in the military, do that for 20-25 years and retire at around 40. Use the skills and contacts you gained in the military to become/work for a government contractor in whatever area you want to spend the rest of your life, do that for 10 years and retire fully at like 52-55.
Buy at least one house on every military move and rent it out to other military personal when you leave. Live below your means, invest in retirement accounts, don’t buy expensive super financed vehicles, and stay out of trouble.
If I could go back in time!
Were you born rich? Then it’s unlikely
Focus on school and get a good education so you can get a high paying job. That is more important than trying to exponentially grow a small amount of money.
Don’t waste your money. Starbucks and Door Dash don’t need your money. Hotel’s and theme parks chew up money that could be on a short cycle to doubling or more. Get to know the Investors Business Daily growth stocks better than you know your parents. Buy low, on the dips. Learn to understand the charts. Consider your financial health part of your daily routine. Wake up at least 30 mins before the market opens and watch CNBC. Learn all you can and keep learning after that. You’re 17, do these things and you’ll be very well off by the time you’re 30, with some luck you can do what you really want to do before you get old. Good luck.
It all starts with living on less than you make. No matter how much money you earn, be it $50k a year or $500k a year, if you spend everything you make, you will never build wealth. This is what kills most people. They want a fancy car, or a nice house, or cool vacations, or refuse to live within roommates and run up debt to chase those things.
Obviously, it’s way easier to live within your means if you have decent income. There are minimums that you have to spend just to survive. You simply can’t live on $10/hrs and build wealth. You need to come up with a viable plan to get into a career that has decent pay and a strong job market – becoming a pro athlete is not very likely.
Take advantage of time – it’s your greatest asset for wealth building. The rule of 7 says, at average market returns, your investment should double every 7 years. So, waiting 7 years to start investing means you end up with 50% less wealth at the end than you would if you had started today. Anything you can put aside today is just so valuable because you are so young. Even $50/ month into a Roth IRA is totally worth it.
Investing is all about consistency. It’s basically a participation game. You don’t have to be an expert stock picker or try to time the market. It’s a long-term accumulation game. Just buy low cost index funds consistently every month, regardless of what the market is doing at any given time.
Finally, it’s all about delayed gratification. The more you can give up today, the more you’ll have tomorrow. Don’t stretch yourself for that thing you want. It will still be there later. Wait until you are in a good financial place so you can comfortably make that purchase. Don’t try to keep up with the Jones’s. They are broke and up to their eyeballs in debt.
Bogleheads Guide to Investing, like a 8-9 hour read on audiobook.
TLDR; invest in Index Funds.
Education is the absolutely best investment you can make. That’s true at any age, but it is especially true when you are relatively less training.
If you look at increased wages – over a lifetime – as your return on investment, you’ll find it doesn’t get much better. That said, I strongly disagree with taking on loads of debt and agreeing to any price just to get a deeee-greeeee. The less you spend now, the better the returns on investment later, right?
I’m not sure why you are working at 17, but on the off-chance you dropped out of highschool… you may still be able to go back since you are a minor. (And/or get a GED. The rest of this assumes you are still in school but still applies for after getting a GED)
Think about college: Look at majors that are likely to produce better incomes (engineering, finance, math, Comp SCi, etc) Do any of those sound interesting to you and/or a good fit for your talents?
Spend some time researching return-on-investment for college on sites like this one:
[https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/](https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/)
Spend time on Khan academy doing SAT practice tests (for free!) and then take it.
Fill out the FAFSA – like this week – with your parents help.
Look for scholarships tied to your major. There are also scholarships for all sorts of things: First gen to go to college, certain demographics, even sometimes memorial scholarships for playing a specific sport at a specific HS
Also bargain shop: Look at community colleges in your area. Most CCs have programs to facilitate transferring to a state school. Many have scholarships or financial deals specifically for transferees.
If college is just not going to work for whatever reason… education is STILL the best investment you can make. Look into HVAC or electrician or plumbing trade schools, these are all pretty decent paying jobs.
There’s also the military, which has a lot of opportunities for on–the-job training for all sorts of things, like airplane mechanic.
Trucking can be a decent paying job, but NGL, it can be rough schedule-wise. If you really enjoy it, by all means consider it. But just make sure you aren’t sorta falling into it.
Taking some time to really research and evaluate other options before committing will, at a min, help assure yourself it’s your preferred option.
Learn needs vs wants, which sounds simple, but it’s easier said than done for many people.
Work on building up your credit early, when it comes time to purchase a new car, house, etc you’ll get better rates. Before you do this, first take the time to understand how credit/credit cards work. Never use them unless you 100% know you can pay them off at the end of each month. The goal is to have your credit work for you, not lose all your money in interest, carry a balance, or go into debt.
Save everything you can, first save enough to pay all your bills for a month or two in the event you lose your job, this is an “emergency fund”, don’t ever touch it unless it’s an emergency.
Next open a HYSA, put whatever you have extra in this account, and forget about it. Keep adding to it, but forget about it in the sense of don’t withdraw from it. Act like it doesn’t exist. Let your money grow over time.
If you are luckily enough to get a full time job with decent benefits, a good 401k program, & an employer who will match your contributions, take advantage and put in the full % they’ll match you on. Don’t contribute over the match %, you just want to get the employers max match, any extra contributions over the match % could be used better in the HYSA, or other investments, if you choose to do so.