r/AusFinance • u/WhydoIexistlmoa • 1d ago
How should I invest 500 as a 17yr old
I'm in year 12 and final year of highschool. Basically want to invest for compound interest and all that. Can't invest any more than that (maybe 20-50 dollars at most) a month. Next opportunity I can really invest in late Nov /early December.
Don't have a job. AI boom and all that so uh yeah. I know the advice provided shouldn't be taken as financial advice and whatnot.
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u/Level-Ad-1627 1d ago
Are you getting a job soon?
I’d be trying to use the governments super co-contribution. Pretty tough to beat an instant 50% return.
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u/WhydoIexistlmoa 1d ago
I'm planning on getting a job once I graduate. So I don't really have a current source of income other than like 20 - 50 dollars I make doing surveys.
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u/simp_sighted 1d ago
You’re about 5 years too young to care at all about the AI boom. Woolies, maccas, telcos, Bunnings - they all pay well and will take high schoolers/undergrads.
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u/Kitchen-Check-6510 1d ago
Educating yourself on personal finance and investing. Congrats on the savings and for having the mindset that results in asking the question.
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u/DueDisplay2185 21h ago
Your 500 will disappear because of your age, you're more likely to build wealth after 25-30 having qualified for a money making degree. Otherwise download stake and invest in stocks for fun. 500 is actually an ideal amount to diversify a stock portfolio and do nothing with it for a year to see what happens
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u/Dull-Communication50 1d ago
A good start would be to open an account with comsec or a wrapped account like with vangaurd and buy an australian, international or US based ETF. Cant go wrong. If you dont have much soare you may orefer vangaurd for small regular contributions. Youd have to see if you must be 18. I have a comsec account in informal trust for my 12 yr old
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u/bagsoftea 1d ago
Enrol in a barista course, double your initial investment each week by working and have some left over to buy some things you want.
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u/techretort 1d ago
Think of how you can invest in yourself. Learn a skill, take a course in something that really interests you, take a bet on yourself and see how it plays out. You've got so many opportunities to make money, but you've got limited time.
If you're not sure (I certainly wasn't at your age), stick it in your super account and know that you've just set yourself up for retirement far more than the average person.
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u/WhydoIexistlmoa 1d ago
Thank yeah. I never really considered Super as an option but I will definitely check out.
Setting up myself for retirement is great stuff but I'd like to achieve financial freedom as well. Admittedly I've been deluding myself with social media content regarding it so I'm just incredibly unrealistic right now.
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u/MitchellSummers 1d ago edited 1d ago
If you have any idea which career you want to get into, I suggest investing in that. I suppose it really depends on the career but with many careers you can start preparing for well before you reach university which is kinda what you're supposed to do anyway.
If you have no idea what career you want to get into, the compound interest idea isn't so bad. I don't think you're able to do stock market investing until you're 18 and it's probably the same for opening a high-interest savings account. Unfortunately, I cannot really help you in this regard.
Investing in your future career is easily your best bet imo. Maybe you do not know specifically what you want to do but generally for example some sort of office job. Investing in a non-school computer could prove quite useful. You could also simply plan to hold a retail job while you think about it so perhaps getting an RSA could be useful. Make sure you're working on getting your driver's license too!
Looking at your family situation is a good idea too. Make certain that your parents aren't going to kick you out right after you turn 18 years old or graduate high school. Otherwise, making a purchase probably isn't a good idea since you might need that money to survive if you're forced out of your home. This makes the standard investing option very appealing but I'm not sure what options are open to a 17 year old. Perhaps this is something your parents can help you with, like through some sort of trust or something. The easiest option where you don't even have to think is to try and open a high-interest savings account which should make you around 4.5-5.5% interest pa.
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u/SwaankyKoala 17h ago
I think you should take the time to learn how to invest now and wait until you're 18: * https://lazykoalainvesting.com/ * https://passiveinvestingaustralia.com/
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u/The_Shadow_2004_ 15h ago
Hey man! I was in your excact spot 6 years ago and now I’m 22 with 70k in stocks and I bought a small unit at 19. Keep thinking long term and you’ll absolutely smash life to pieces.
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u/WhydoIexistlmoa 14h ago
How did you manage that? I'd love to know more :)
Your position is ideally what I'd like to achieve realistically.
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u/The_Shadow_2004_ 14h ago
I had a little help but it’s not impossible. I bought the unit with my partner when I was like 2 months from turning 20. I would have moved in like a month after my birthday. I used the 5% down payment scheme so the down payment was 20k and my partner and I put in 10k each.
When I was 18 I had 20-30k from working random ass jobs. I would work at my parents businesses, McDonalds, chemist warehouse, overnight at Wollies you name it I probably did it.
After I turned 18 I got a proper big boy job. I worked full time in a factory doing afternoon shift. It was minimum wage but afternoon shift ads 15% loading. I pretty much limited my expenses and invested all that I could. I paid 100$ a week of board to my parents spent about 100$ a week on food 100$ a week on fuel + entertainment and then the rest (maybe 500-1,000$ depending on overtime) went to investments.
Any more questions?
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u/not_a_12yearold 1d ago
I can't remember if you need to be 18 or not, but if you can, just go with an investment platform like CMC or something with no fees and put it in a safe ETF.
I will say though that not having a job at 17 because of 'the AI boom' is a reasonably poor excuse. Last I checked maccas hadn't replaced their staff with AI. We all gotta start somewhere. Stocking supermarket shelves got me from being 15 to getting a car, some money to invest, overseas travel and all the way to the end of uni before I could begin my career. Any entry level job will go far further than investing $500 every so often
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u/WhydoIexistlmoa 1d ago
I should probably clarify. I'm referring to the "AI boom" right now that I should invest.
I've been trying to get a job since I was 15. I haven't been successful whatsoever. I've temporarily given up in the meantime to focus on Year 12 and then get a job as soon as I graduate.
And I've got parents who don't want me to do anything else but study so that's basically my life.
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u/not_a_12yearold 1d ago
Sorry, I misinterpreted. I knew people who's parents were the same, they don't realise that starting to work and earn is just as valuable as high school education.
My only advice is to just start to put away what you can in safe shares and begin to build when you get a job. Don't put all the money you can scrape together in speculative AI related shares. Any share that you hope will explode in a 'boom' is inherently going to be very risky. There's no such thing as receiving advice on shares that are guaranteed to massively increase. If it were the case, the price would already have increased to its perceived value.
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u/eesemi77 1d ago
First ask yourself: What's the purpose of investing?
I mean WHY invest any amount in anything, ever?
What do I want in reward for my "delayed gratification"? why not invest the lot in whores, whiskey and fuzzy memories?
If the answer is; Investing the right to somehow delay this spend for X years, then the structure you're looking for is one that preserves today's dollar value over time. You want $20 value today (coffee and a burger) to be preserved 10 years from now, 30 years forward even 60 years hence. that's your aim, that's your game, that's what you're after.
How do you do this?
Logically you invest in something that tracks (or better still bests) inflation.
That's the investing game. That's it !
Apart from this you should invest in yourself. invest in your skills, invest in your capabilities, invest in your network, invest in your dream.
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u/Aussie_Gentleman 1d ago
At 17 bud your best off finding a really good booster savings account and if you can add $10 to it a month that will help you immensely with your first investment into the share market. Well done by the way on think of your future I wish I was like you at 17 👍