<p>We’ve tried to educate our son on financial matters over the years but I wonder if there is a comprehensive website or book you’d recommend? He’s about to start working full time and managing his own money; basic checking, savings, financial planning, etc. Thank you!</p>
<p>When D finished her masters degree I gifted her an hour with an accountant who specialized in taxes for performing artists. He got her all set up with a record keeping system and savings strategy. Best money ever spent.
She is now obsessed with how her money is spent. For her line of work, that’s a good thing.</p>
<p>Oh my God musicamusica, that is genius! I would have never thought of that but I’m stealing your idea.</p>
<p>What Pug did is the best idea ever. I want to do that too. My accountant would be willing to do that.</p>
<p>What I did was to introduce the worm to stock market. His inherited money is in Fidelity/Vanguard. He consolidated his Fidelity money into one fund. When he started working in college, we set up ROTH account at Vanguard. Nothing fancy, one of their date ones. I put a few hundred into it at first, now he has taken over.</p>
<p>I also send him his tax workbook yearly, and have him email accountant with questions. </p>
<p>The OP’s son has real planning to do. The worm’s grant just covers expenses, so not much planning.</p>
<p>This won’t help OP’s son, but a group of accountants in VT have put together a curriculum for financial literacy for our school kids. They offer workshops for teachers too. I was on the school board when they started planning it. Really great idea I think.</p>
<p>We’ve help fund our kids Roth IRAs while they are students … not because it is big bucks … but so they would start the discipline of savings … and so they can work with our financial adviser to learn the ropes about investing.</p>
<p>(PS - when they left for college we set them up with checking accounts and credit cards … so hopefully that is set).</p>
<p>Should a recent college graduate start saving money or contribute to an IRA before paying off any student loans entirely? Or, how much should be put aside in savings before contributing to an IRA? Or, how can a recent college grad be sure a financial advisor is doing what’s best for new grad and not for him earning some kind of commission selling something to the financially inexperienced recent grad?</p>
<p>I don’t know if a financial advisor is the right strategy. But a tax accountant who does not work by commission is another story.</p>
<p>
Recent college grads have a lot of things that may come before IRAs in their financial picture. We gift the kids the money they are eligible to put into an IRA … their money can go to shorter term issues … while we help set them up for long term stuff.</p>
<p>The grad should save up six months of living expenses if living independently if the savings aren’t already there. When you move out, you have to sign a lease unless there’s another living arrangement. This means that you’re on the hook for a year (unless you have a tenancy at will but that has risks too), and you may need cash to keep going if you lose your job.</p>
<p>Learning the financial stuff is a lot of work and a lot of grads don’t care to have to learn it until they are forced to. I’m going to be going through taxes with my son when his documents come in so that he can see the process. He’s already somewhat familiar with the stock market - I gave him $25K to play with when he was 13 and he’s made much bigger trades in my account since then. I’ve gone through balance sheets, income statements and other business metrics on companies over the years. Don’t know how much has stuck but he has the basic idea of how companies function. A lot of this is dinner-table or car-ride talk stuff.</p>
<p>$25,000 to play with? The closest I came to that at 13 was playing Monopoly.</p>
<p>I gave my son $4000 to invest, but he thought it was “to play with” and turned it into $2000 before he stopped “playing”.</p>
<p>Playing with real money should instill a healthy amount of fear and caution. A lot of people do paper trading but I think that there’s nothing like the real thing. Yeah, you take a risk in letting your kid play with money but they may learn more from it than paper trading.</p>
<p>I really don’t have a problem with others having more than me, and I know it is a fact of life that no matter how much I have, there will be others who probably have a bit more! Good for BC E working with his child on money matters!</p>
<p>I think one of the most important basic habits I have developed since opening my first bank account is keeping good records of financial transactions. I always record in a register any checks I write and when back home at night enter into register debit purchases made during day from copies of receipts. I get annoyed when I overhear bank tellers ask customers at teller window if they’d “like your balance?” I like knowing what I’ve got all the time! Floating and not keeping up with my bank account balances is a little too gangsta and foolish for me.</p>