To get my teen 17 year old a Financial Advisor?

[Ischial]

I want to DS to know how money works and to help him set up a plan. I am hopeless and I want him to learn whilst he is young.

I am a bit nervous about how to find legitimate Financial Advisors.

I personally don't think this is unreasonable.

Who is teaching kids finance? Usually people who honestly don't have a clue.

Educate yourself and him.

I went to a top private school and they had Young Enterprise but so did my kids’ comp. They didn’t even offer A-level Economics but it wasn’t a pre requisite for getting to LSE.

There’s lots of great personal finance resources online. My kids didn’t do qualifications involving personal finance but learned about things like ISAs from their friends. They researched what they were and opened their own accounts when they turned 18. If you son is on TikTok and watches personal finance stuff, the algorithms will teach him more.

Financial Advisors make money by coming up with plans to invest people’s money. They aren’t there to teach others how to become a financial advisor like a tutor. It sounds like your son might be better off getting work experience from an actual financial advisor rather than to hire one for a chat.

Maybe a financial tutor. To get a financial advisor you need actual money for them to advise about (unless you do have that)

Also not trying to be unkind, but you seem to have a fair bit of learned helplessness around finances, investments, etc

There are some really good finance content creators on YT which might be worth a look, they do videos on the basics as well as getting into more complex topics. Damien Talks Money, James Shack and Toby Newbatt are all very good, and very much not the "get rich quick" crypto bro types

I was always interested in finance as a teenager, when I hit late teens I read the older version of this book
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Motley-Fool-Investment-Guide-Streets/dp/1501155555

At the time they had a wonderful forum with people all of a like mind trying to help improve one another's wealth, this was just before Moneysaving expert launched - and even though a lot of the people migrated a lot stayed with the original forum. They were the ones who came up with the original idea of Stoozing, and how to make mortgages basically net zero cost.

The forum has since closed and archived but the posters moved and started there own forum here

https://www.lemonfool.co.uk

Another thing that will hold him in good stead is a basic understanding of company financial statements, many great company hide the nasties in plain site on their statements.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Financial-Accounting-Dummies-Steven-Collings/dp/111855437X/ref=sr_1_25?crid=KF6UT67CBCFO&keywords=understanding+financial+statements&qid=1707070047&sprefix=understanding+fi%2Caps%2C145&sr=8-25

If he wants to dip his toes in this article gives a good grounding of Sharedealing Services and there fees

https://monevator.com/cheapest-stocks-and-shares-isa-hack/

Good luck, and yes those books really did work I managed to follow the advise and I moved out of stocks and shares into what I wanted long term which was my own small patch of land and animals. The land itself is another form of investment they really don't make anymore and good quality farmland is always in demand.

I also chat to my kids about our household finances as now my eldest is a teen, she's seen our credit card statement and knows about compound interest. We've discussed the snowball method I'm using to pay off two credit cards. She also has an allowance but she has to buy her own extras (make-up, extra clothes, cinema tickets etc) which has allowed her to practise budgeting.

So definitely look at info on the banking websites. I know Barclays did something too. But consider getting your kids involved in household finances too.

Edited for typos!

@JanesTeddy I loved reading that! What a fantastic outcome you had too. Thank you.

Now I need to look up stoozing!

@MsMcG Great I haven't heard of those ones. I'll take a look too.

@cheesehouse I think it's because I'm so frightened about what's a scam I have avoided it all. The idea of of investing being gambling etc is worrisome. For instance if I don't understand something inside out I avoid it. I find it all very confusing.

That's why I want my DS to have a good grounding, as he's shown interest.

@SlidingInto2024 I wanted someone more knowledgeable than me to give him better advice tbh!

If he has any money you could start a pension for him. My dad did when I was 16 and paid in £50 a month for me

My kid is in private school and absolutely does not get taught this stuff or shown Investopedia; there is a lot of misinformation at the moment about private schools!

@DistantDiamondSky I was trying to be tactful and use inference, but it seems I will have to spell it out. I saw it with my own eyes and it is the type of school that only people with enormous wealth attend - not your bog standard private school. The type that would not break a sweat if VAT was added to school fees, as their money is abundant. Perhaps that's why the teach them young! How to keep your wealth 101!

That is lovely that your father did that for you. I hope that means you can retire early should you wish to.

@Hankunamatata

Again, I genuinely am not trying to be unkind, and I understand your intimidation. I think you're glamorising and placing it on a pedestal a bit. Investopedia is free to use, just like Mumsnet and other sites. It's even a bit outdated as far as paper trading apps/sites go – lots of apps you could download on the app store this very moment come with more updated bells and whistles.

I grew up in East Asia and we were taught finances & investing young as very average children in very average schools.

If you're interested, I suggest learning along with your son! There's no need for an FA unless you're a HNW individual, but even then not all HNW individuals use them. FAs are not gods – and depending on appetite risk, some "finance bros" aren't even trustworthy beyond bull market runs or sunrise industry bandwagon results they use as proof of "competence".

You might want to start with looking at value investing, dollar cost averaging, blue chip stocks, and indexed ETFs. These are all fairly old school, conservative and safe.

Get him to watch/read Ramit Sethi. Great financial advice about index fund investments, saving for a house/car/rainy day fund etc responsibly, how to use credit cards. Brilliant resource and most of it is free. He has a book on amazon and a YouTube channel. I've learned so much from him.

@Ischial the financial advisors I know studied economics at uni, and then got onto graduate schemes and got trained more on the job.

Your DS might enjoy economics at university if he is interested in business/investing. DH studied it and is still in touch with lots of uni mates and they mostly seem to have reasonably interesting and well paid jobs as adults.

Parents have to take the lead on this I think. As per PPs. Teach him how to read a payslip. Do basic budgeting. Find a good savings accounts. Talk about ISAs. Reinforce the importance of pensions.

If you know about other investment strategies talk about them or highlight he needs to learn more when he has more money to save.

@cheesehouse I don't think you're being unkind at all! I'm really interested in what you have written. I do find it interesting myself and have been trying to learn too. All I keep thinking is that I'd like to invest in gold for some reason! Probably because I know what that is!
I think a step by step guide would be good. I'm looking at the links and books others have suggested.

I do think it's fabulous that they teach this in East Asia to youngsters.

He is 17.
Surely if he is interested and engaged in the topic, he is more than capable of researching and reading about it himself and given it is not an area you have expertise to share with him? Particularly if that is what he is studying or planning to study?

Really at this point he should know how interest rates work and how much debt costs (credit cards, overdrafts and student loans) so that he doesn't run up any more than he really needs when studying.

Everything else is fairly abstract for another ten years until he might be earning enough to actually save some of it and not spend it all on rent, food and commuting.
So the only key message at this point is don't overspend and know what you are paying on your debt.

(I work for a large investment fund and accidentally fell into a career finance after studying something completely different and managed to grasp it all fairly quickly, although obviously always more to learn. And all I do with my own money is stick most of it in a very vanilla and low cost index tracking stocks and shares ISA. You can't really beat the market over the long run.)

@Weegie91 Love You Tube. I've found him and I'll show my DS. Thanks for that.

I suggested he do Economics if he wants a finance career, but most of the class including him did badly at only GCSE level. I know the teacher was absent a lot then left and they couldn't get a replacement but most of the kids found it hard in general and flunked it. His friend's dad who's a chartered accountant ended up having to teach his son and wouldn't let him stay on in 6th form because of the horrendous lack of teaching in Economics.

@MojoMoon Yes he knows that part of finance. I'm talking more about the investing part. Yes, I could tell him to research in his own but I like to have conversations with him about things and staying connected. He's learning to drive and we talk about that too!

How to be good with money is an excellent book, written by Eoin McGee. It's Irish, but the principles are transferable. He also hosts a TV show on rte of the same name that has been used in secondary schools as part of business studies.