My son has been talking about opening an IRA, as he has several part-time jobs. I told him that we will set up a meeting with the gentleman who handles such matters for his dad and me. All I know is that the boy has not been home two weeks and already, he has just $40 of having the money he needs for his fraternity dues for his sophomore year. I’m quite proud of him. He is outside refereeing youth soccer games for as many as nine hours a day! And it’s hot and humid. He said that he was coming off the field the other day, and one of the dads saw how overheated he was and offered him a bottle of water. My son had run out of water after six or so hours, so he was glad to accept.
While attending a wedding of a former student the other night, we ran into one of my former co-workers who is now in the banking industry. I made mention that my son had applied to this particular financial group for an internship, but he did not get it. She said that she did not think her branch had hired its intern for the summer, so she would check for my son. It would be nice if he could work in the banking industry just to see the opportunities it offers.
Meanwhile, we had a wonderful visit with his girlfriend. He told me that he’d love to surprise her and visit in July. So her mom and I are working to make that happen.
My kids have had a roth ira since they were kids. They both have more money saved in there than most adults. We’d match whatever they earned and put in there for them. You cannot underestimate the power of compound interest.
My daughter goes on her first business trip today. She’s working for us this summer and going with her dad out of state on a bunch of sales meetings. She’s also taking 2 distance classes for school. She had last week off, now it’s time to get it in gear! I took her to the mall last week to get some work appropriate clothes. That was an experience, but she was forewarned not to give me a hard time about needing to wear skirts and jackets. She could choose within my guidelines, but had to trust me that I know what I’m talking about.
Re: Roth IRAs. I showed my D the “miracle of compound interest” in action. If she invests $2000 at age 18 & it earns 8% interest until retirement, she will have $64,000. She was sold & asked if she could invest more.
@momreads, rather than having him meet your gentleman, have him open an account at Vanguard.com. He can do so mostly online (iirc, he has to mail in a signature form), and odds are that he will save thousands of dollars over the years versus any other IRA company (with the possible exception of Fidelity and Schwab). Put it in Total Stock Market or an appropriate Target Date Fund.
A few basis point difference in expense ratio, compounded over years, adds up to a large number. Vanguard’s TSM fund has a cost, depending on how much is invested, of 0.05%, which means that they charge $5 per $10,000 invested per year.
We opened an account for DS at Vanguard last year, which is where we put his “leftover” 529 money. We are longtime Vanguard clients and just had our Vanguard guy do it for us. We joke that this is our way of ensuring that DS will remember us fondly when he’s 50 and heading for retirement.
Shouldn’t have used the word “interest”. Returns would be better. We’ll start her in the S&P 500. I also need to warn her that there will be years where she loses 20, 30, even 40%. She probably won’t like that part as much.
I just told my kids to not look more than once a year at this point in their lives. They’re invested aggressively because of their ages and it shocked me how much they made this year.
D survived her first week at work. By last night she came home and fell asleep on the couch for awhile. She’s also taking 2 online classes as well. One of them was econ - I was an econ major back in the day so it’s been nice talking about the principles with her at the dinner table. Interestingly her calc class she’s taking requires her to get the tests proctored at the community college. She has to go over and figure that out this week. Getting someone else to take that class for you must be a huge deal if they come up with safeguards to make sure it’s overseen.
My daughter got home last night. She survived her first year! It wasn’t an easy second semester for her. I think she underestimate the difficulty and the amount of work needed for her CS and Math classes. She didn’t react accordingly right away and was too stubborn to ask for help. But we told her not to give up on them and fight till the end. Suggested going to office hours and tutorial (What a concept!).
Well she finally listened to us and in the end she aced her finals in her Math and aced her 2 last projects on her CS programming class and got decent final grades on them. Whew! I’m glad our next child is still in 4th grade so that we have time to recover.
D is home and enjoying her life right now. It is so nice to have her at home
D said the second semester was harder - was more homesick, the weather was too cold in the beginning but then got too hot later in the semester and the classes were tougher.
A few weeks in and d goes back and forth with being bored at home and being happy to be home. She’s having a transition! lol Meanwhile she works 3 long days a week, taking 7 credits, sleepovers, dates, going to some parties with us. I really don’t know what to possibly say about her "boredom’ I think she got very used to having friends around 24/7.
I remember being home after college and I was up in my room My mother asked what was wrong and I just said “You people are so LOUD!” I’d returned from my nice quiet apartment to a home with 3 dogs and 2 cats, 3 teenaged brothers and their 9000 loud friends (and cars), my grandfather and my parents. TVs blaring, radios, telephones ringing (remember those?). It was just over stimulation.
Son has been home for 3 weeks now…seems settled in and happy enough…having lots of fun showing his girlfriend “around town” while she is staying with us, so together they can take a genetics class at a local college. Amazingly enough at this very late date, son today was fortunate to receive a letter of acceptance for a paid 8 week internship position working on research related to pediatric hematology-oncology at one of the tertiary care teaching hospitals in town. This opportunity segues nicely to the genetics course which ends in 2 weeks. The letter was sent on his birthday which somehow seemed fitting after getting about 10 rejection emails since spring break.
Wow, @vandyeyes, that’s great news. We’re still hoping for a late breaking offer here. My s14 has only been home a week and he’s not bored yet, but will need to start some volunteering soon if applications and leads don’t pan out.
Congrats, vandyeyes! Glad your son got an internship!
My son has been keeping busy with all sorts of stuff since his girlfriend left a couple of weeks ago. He’s been knocking out his two, online classes in psychology and music appreciation. He wants to get ahead, as he has some travel plans for early July set up.
Lots of youth soccer games to referee – in fact, we found more for later in the summer while looking through the schedule the other night. Each day, since I am still teaching, I leave him a to do list, so he helps with laundry, cleaning a bathroom or running the vacuum. He plans to do a day trip and travel to see his older brother who is interning for a law professor part of the summer. Whatever ills kept him from running and training this spring seem to have disappeared. He’s just ran more than 50 miles this past week as he gets ready for cross country season.
DS has been home 3.5 weeks now and so far no signs of boredom. He’s been busy working full time at his internship, visiting friends, going to sporting events and sleeping in on weekends. He’s also decided to take up golf again this summer. He used to play quite regularly and even played in junior tournaments but gave it up to concentrate on two other sports in high school.
We also took a whirlwind overnight trip to Chicago when DH surprised us with tickets to a hockey playoff game. We were there just long enough to walk the Northwestern campus (DD18 is interested), meet some old friends for lunch at Portillo’s for Italian beef, hit up the Blackhawks store on Michigan Avenue, watch the game, hit Lou Malnati’s for pizza, and then fly back home the next day.
I suspect he will remain busy and not bored the rest of the summer. I already know he has plans to visit a friend in UVA for Midsummers and weekend plans involving lake/beach houses of other friends.
Most of his friends are home for the summer, except for those in service academies and another who is spending 8 weeks in Africa so he is definitely not lonely.
DD will be working at the college dining hall…it’s a 45 minute commute but she’ll take 10 hours at a time so gas shouldn’t eat too much into her earning. Not glamorous, but money is money.
The job doesn’t start for a couple more weeks though, so she’ll be helping me garden and get ready for her brother’s graduation at the end of June. Probably she’ll be REALLY ready to have her own job soon .
All, my d has been home a week and really hasn’t done diddly! She’s attended one work related meeting, got a summer membership at the gym so she can do her track workouts, and slept–a lot. Her room is still a landfill of dorm room stuff. Congratulations to all of you with motivated kids. Mine seems to have gone into major slacker mode.
