Realistically, there is no age too young to start investing, but up until a certain age, advice and assistance are necessary to make sure that the money is well spent, not simply given away. By starting at a young age, you can help future generations to invest wisely, which is better for them, and also helps the economy as a whole by making smart spenders out of the next generation.
Children, for instance, should have help with investing money into any source, and likely should have their money invested towards important things, like college funds and savings bonds. This will teach them a smart mentality about money and investment, and help them to understand what is important for their future.
As someone gets older, their parents should slowly stop advising their actions as much and start allowing them to make more personal decisions with their money, and how they invest it. The age to start doing so is in discretion, and some people might think that someone in their teenage years is ready to start working a bit more on their own. While this isn’t necessarily a bad idea, physical age isn’t always a good parameter of maturity. When the person in question has clearly learned good habits and smart investing choices, they are ready to start making a few more decisions on their own.
Once this stage of maturity has been reached, the well-raised investor is about ready to become independent. Allowing them to make more decision based on their own judgment will allow them to learn to trust themselves, and give them a better sense of well-being. Achieving that state of trust in judgment will be extremely important later in life, and it never hurts to have such skills in other areas of existence.
By this time, the young investor is probably just past adulthood, possibly in college or having just gotten their first degree. After achieving some kind of higher education and likely having had a variety of jobs, the investor you helped to raise is ready to make decisions purely on their own, and will be able to do so because of the help they received at an early age. Realize that while it’s good to help young people learn about investing and investments, you could offer this kind of advice or help to anyone you know, regardless of age or income. It’s always good to lend a helping hand in this dog-eat-dog world, and the area of money is no exception.
A little pocket change never hurts. Young investment can help to put it there.