In my opinion, one shouldn’t receive a single cent from parents, unless it’s, for example, child benefits invested over 18 years or other funds simply invested for the child that haven’t strained the parents’ finances during that time, but have allowed for a nest egg to be accumulated for the offspring. Few parents will dig deep for tens of thousands in the spirit of assistance when the child is already an adult and wants their own owner-occupied home.
And the second point is that if one doesn’t have sufficient savings for a down payment for a home, then one should save until they do. If acquiring a dream home is delayed by a few years, that’s the price one must be willing to pay for it. The “I-want-everything-now” mindset is dangerous for young people at the beginning of adulthood, so there’s no need to acquire that dream home with a huge loan just yet, but everyone makes their own loan decisions and hopefully also ensures that things are under control, no matter what life situations arise.
It’s good to learn sensible financial management already as a young adult, so that one masters this important skill for the rest of their life.
Some, on the contrary, consider it sensible financial management for parents to help with acquiring a first home, as long as the parent is capable of teaching the child to think for themselves, regardless of wealth. Then, children may someday help their own children, and the chain continues – it might even facilitate the accumulation of wealth across generations.
It hasn’t happened that way for me, but I’m hardly in a position to advise others on what a child should not receive from their parents, given how little I received compared to what one might expect.
Reflecting on the “I-want-it-all-now” mindset is a useful skill for surviving in life. Yet, I still wonder how, in a Kekkoslovakian-style (kekkoslovakialaisesti) manner, people admire the idea that one’s own child must, like Scrooge McDuck (Roope Ankka), collect their first coin from Klondike as a nest egg for their money bin. This is certainly pedagogically effective, but it also creates the temptation to outsource the desired upbringing process to the bears and winter of the wilderness. In the light of history, however, early wealth accumulation has not always been an obstacle to the development of sensible financial thinking. It’s also good to remember that, unlike Scrooge McDuck, here in real life, there is no objective correlate to correct the story so that gold is found in the wilderness and those who suffered most in the recession rise biblically as the greatest winners.
Despite a good education system and a peaceful society, Finland has, however, succeeded quite well in keeping young people safe from acquiring their first home. If that effectively teaches that in life, one must acquire everything for oneself through one’s own work, then we’re doing quite well.
As a disclaimer, it’s probably appropriate to mention that I also pay for my own home.
It’s quite a point of pride to boast about how one only got a 50-meter head start from home.
If I were blessed with children, I would want to give them better starting points than I had, and remove the stress I experienced when I truly had to count pennies.
It would be nice if my children and grandchildren remembered me more as the one who started accumulating this wealth for us, rather than boasting about how, at 18, I was thrown into the swamp with an axe and a hoe to build my future from scratch.
I am even grateful to my parents that they largely forced me to move out on my own right after the army at 19, with nothing, from that began a tremendously fast independence and financial management simultaneously got in shape, thanks to that 50-meter head start. My siblings have received financial help, and their financial skills still seem to be struggling even on the verge of thirty; I don’t know if there’s a connection there or not.
But truly, if I were to have children myself, I would accumulate a buffer for my children for adulthood, that’s clear. The child would receive such investment and financial education over 18 years that I would expect the buffer to be used wisely.
This mindset probably encapsulates the reason why Swedish-speaking Finns fare better from generation to generation than Finnish-speaking Finns, who laugh at “pappa betalare” at the same time as every generation’s son grinds their butt raw into the middle class.
The same was done to me, and everything turned out for the best. Now that I am a parent myself, it no longer feels like a good idea. No matter how well one raises their children, at that stage, they are still so immature that a lot of pure luck is involved in what influences enter their environment and how they take hold. When I recall my own age group from back home, surprisingly many have sunk to the bottom in one way or another or already ended their days, even young people from respectable, normal families.
Furthermore, regarding that housing loan discussion. If the criterion for taking out a loan is that one can keep the apartment even during long-term unemployment and with a stress test interest rate, then one can straight away forget homeownership as an option, at least as a family person and in growth centers. Living alone or especially as a couple somewhere more remote, one can scrape by with almost any income, but quite many have to take out a substantial loan if they want to be a homeowner at all. Or rather, “have to” and “have to,” historically, acting this way has also been a wealth-building factor for many.
Boasting about a fifty-meter head start feels a bit ridiculous, especially since many of us have truly received much more from home, even if we feel we haven’t received anything. We’ve had high school/vocational education, central heating, school transport, healthcare, child benefits, social welfare… a long list that doesn’t need to be written here. For example, my late mother left her home farm for high school studies in a nearby village with the instruction that there was no returning if she wasn’t interested in farming. Her mother then secretly sent her “material aid” and rarely money with letters, hidden from her father. My mother earned a master’s degree and had a long career in government – and always remembered to emphasize the importance of one’s own will and determined progress. And the main point: She was always ready to support the achievement of our own goals, both financially and otherwise.
A traditional generational experience of that time, familiar to many, I’m sure. Of course, it doesn’t mean that everyone should start from scratch and muscle their way into the middle class, but it at least makes me averse to the other extreme that gets everything for free, from whom only a little knowledge of natural sciences is required, and who, after this, with their hundreds of thousands in portfolios, consider themselves the most important citizens of our country. What exactly is there to value, strive for, or merit in that? Perhaps nothing more than an easy life, which, of course, interests us all. The class society, long since buried, was once exactly this: one was born into better circles. If someone finds meaning in life from that idea, then be my guest.
I’ve heard credible rumors that Inderes’ internationalization was delayed because Rautanen couldn’t concentrate at the office due to Verneri’s loud laughter, and that special attention has been paid to this as Inderes moved from one office to another. Unfortunately, this reason was not publishable from Inderes’ perspective, so it was left out of Mikael’s book. @Verneri_Pulkkinen a biography to be published sometime in the future can then confirm whether the rumors are true
Fortunately, most people are not from either extreme. Anecdotes and caricature fables enhance the ethos and pathos when discussing the matter, but ultimately, people can be good or bad, smart or foolish, regardless of wealth. And critically realizing this has been a cornerstone for the equalization of class society and the improvement of individual opportunities.
We will soon have our traditional spring forum moderators’ “kampawiineripalaveri” (sausage party, perhaps also beer) at the office. This could be a good topic for discussion there.
Initially, I personally think that this is a forum community where investors help investors. Does sharing vague AI writings on the forum help investors? No. But as stated above, certain summaries of longer content, such as earnings calls, might be okay.
Even here, I’m a bit on the fence. What happens to our own learning if AI summarizes and picks out everything essential? It can be good for personal use, sparring, and checking things that one already masters but whose memory is failing.
Addition. Personally, it is a matter of honor and self-evident for me to write everything here myself (excluding quotes, of course), articles myself, and Vartit (Quarterly Reports) myself, etc. I use AI a lot to help with the aforementioned things, such as checking certain facts or seeking new perspectives, but I find it more meaningful to produce the final content “organically” myself. This way, the reader and viewer also know that I respect their time and that every matter has been thoroughly considered by a human. Even errors are then completely original.
Addition 2. Another problem with AI is that it gives pretty much similar answers to everyone, depending on the question. Investing is often about seeking alpha, i.e., returns better than the market average. Why read a company’s materials for hours if you can get the same return with a couple of seconds of clicking (and a slightly longer wait) with an index fund? Human-produced thinking is genuine and original. We often make mistakes because investing is difficult. But in human discussion, genuine insights about companies and discoveries can emerge that others don’t yet know outside the forum! If AI knows it, everyone will know it soon.
Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers, those who wish to be mothers, mother figures, and other warm-hearted people!
And it’s good that Ituhippinen reminded us of these too - warm wishes to those whom Childless Saturday and Simpukka Week concern!
The theme week of involuntary childlessness, Childless Simpukka Week and Childless Saturday, remind us that parenthood is not a given. The week organized by the Childless Association Simpukka is celebrated annually in May. (simpukkary.fi)
The story below is from 2021 and it fits today’s theme
That has been the aim. My wife and I have saved some kind of nest egg for each of the children’s accounts, just as my late single mother once did for me from her modest cleaner’s salary with the help of child benefits. In addition, each child has a fund at a traditional brick-and-mortar bank, into which the wealthier part of the family has made donations on festive occasions such as Christmas, birthdays, and graduations from school.
Now I’m getting to an age where I need to secure my own old-age security. As one doesn’t dare to trust those pension promises. So they can buy their own homes, but if life hits the children hard, they can always come home for safety, and a reasonable sum of cash will be offered if it helps them overcome difficulties.
My idea would be to put child benefits and gift money into a fund, which they can then access for their own use. As an inheritance, they would get their own portfolio, if there is one, and the hope is that the child can grow the assets and pass them on.
I also dislike the idea that shrouds have no pockets, or being the richest person in the graveyard, etc. I myself don’t get any pleasure from excessive spending, and I can’t imagine that in my final days I would feel the need to splurge everything that might be left with the thought of “let’s enjoy the money.”
Of course, it might be frustrating if you’ve tried to raise a child to take responsibility for their own life, create their own life, and manage their finances wisely, but once they get the portfolio, they just celebrate. It’s a bit of a confused thought, but hopefully, you get the idea.
I read the same news a moment ago and I’m doing everything I can to be in the same shape at fifty as I am now.
I received a clean bill of health a few weeks ago from occupational health, just shy of 41 years old. They even praised my electrocardiogram (ECG) as that of an athletic person’s heart, even though I only do daily incidental exercise. Moving with pure muscle power, both in the past and in the future, which even electric assistance won’t interfere with, let alone driving a car. I consider leg muscles the most important muscles when thinking about old age, and my will is to keep my lower limbs in shape until the crematorium oven door closes behind me.
In my opinion, staying in shape doesn’t even require much effort; with just incidental exercise, proper eating habits, and mental balance, one can go a long way, I believe.
Quite a blunder has slipped into the article, or it’s a case of laziness. The share price developments have been calculated according to the closing price of the first trading day, not the listing price.
The goal should be that a 70-year-old is in the same condition as a 40-year-old. At 40, I wouldn’t have been able to do a 30km Skike session, but now it’s normal.
Many investors seem to engage in heavier exercise as a counterbalance. Professional carpenters, however, probably do the same every day as part of their job. Over 60-year-old investor Peter Friis runs a marathon once a week. On Skike sessions, people like Vesa Puttonen and Karo have been spotted on their running routes. Even Vili Värttinen, presented in the ‘Rich and Poor’ (Rikkaat ja köyhät) TV show as a younger generation investor who supposedly got rich through investing. He ran so seriously, perhaps there was some losing trade in crypto just then
Weight loss drugs have also emerged, so maybe it’s a bit exaggerated, but it’s good to stir things up.
That Kesko’s Permanently Affordable campaign is amusing. The example product is Pepsi max 1.5l 2-pack, and the store is K-Supermarket.
A “Permanently Affordable” label appeared next to the product, and the price was lowered to €2.99 about 2 months ago, or whenever they launched that campaign. It was a good price, as the next cheapest were Prisma and Lidl at €3.79.
Now, in recent days, they’ve been heavily promoting in TV commercials that prices will stay low. Dialogue from the commercial: “Customer: Will that price really stay low? Seller: Yes, it will.” And it didn’t stay low, at least for this product, because a few days ago the price had been raised to €3.79 and the “Permanently Affordable” label was gone.
Even that price would be okay, as it would be the cheapest on the market, but then yesterday the price was raised again to €4.29, which is essentially back to the rip-off prices of K-stores before the campaign. So it was just a temporary, clownish discount campaign. I’ll definitely send an inquiry to the store owner just to be a pain, asking what’s going on.
Have others encountered similar situations with other products?
