In 1942, an 11-year-old in Omaha bought three shares of a company called Cities Service for $38 apiece…
The price then sank to $27.
His older sister Doris, who had bought shares alongside him, reminded the boy about it every day.
When the stock crawled back to $40, he sold and booked a profit of about $2/share… then he watched as the stock kept climbing to around $200.
The boy was Warren Buffett, and the lesson he took from it was patience.
What most people miss about Buffett is when his money actually showed up…
In 2020, the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Zweig estimated that over 95% of Buffett’s fortune arrived after his 65th birthday.
Buffett has a name for this…
In a 1965 letter to his investment partners, he called it “The Methuselah Technique” - a long life paired with a steady, attractive return.
He bought that first stock 84 years ago. The decades did most of the heavy lifting.
Now picture two teenagers who each put $1,000 into an index fund. One starts at 15. The other waits until 25.
Assume a 7% yearly return…
At 65, the early starter has about $29,500. The late starter has about $15,000.
Same $1,000, same fund.
Yet the extra ten years roughly double the result, because compounding means your gains start earning gains of their own, and that snowball needs time.
You can’t give a 15-year-old Buffett’s temperament, but you can give them those ten years.
That’s the idea behind Investing for Teens, which comes out tomorrow.
(After I started work on it 2.5 years ago, and then scrapped the whole thing to rewrite it from scratch last year)
It’s written for 13 to 17 year olds and follows the life of a dollar… earning it, spending it, saving it and growing it.
It starts with the unglamorous material on purpose. Budgeting. Credit scores. How credit card interest eats a paycheck. Why so many athletes and celebrities with enormous incomes went broke.
Because a teenager who skips those lessons will struggle to hold onto money long enough to invest it.
Then it gets into how the stock market works, index funds, custodial accounts (investment accounts an adult opens and runs on a minor’s behalf), Roth IRAs, and Junior ISAs for British readers.
Crypto, property and gold are covered too… (and yes, I talk about risks)
Every chapter ends with an action step because I’m competing against TikTok and YouTube so it’s the least I can do…
So if there’s a teenager in your family, it’s a Christmas present that can keep working for the next 50 years…
I’ll send the links tomorrow :)
Oliver
P.S.
Ivy turned two in July… she’ll be 13 in 2037… and I already know what she’s getting for that birthday.