The Early Life Investor

A family money newsletter that assumes you are doing this at the kitchen table, that some of the money belongs to a thirteen-year-old, and that nobody is being paid a commission on the outcome.

What it is

One email, once a month, on the first Tuesday. Every issue takes one topic that families actually run into — a first allowance, a summer paycheck, a 529 deadline, a first apartment — and works it through the way an engineer works a problem: what the rule actually says, what it means for a real household, and what to do about it this month.

It is written by one person. I have a degree in personal finance and I am a nuclear physicist by profession. I am not a Certified Financial Planner and nothing in the newsletter is individual advice. What it is: what I have worked out for myself during my early adult life, and everything that changed with a family and raising two sons, written down and checked against the source documents.

Who it is for

• Parents teaching kids. You want your children to arrive at eighteen already knowing what you had to learn the hard way, and you want the scripts and the worksheets, not the theory.
• Teens and young adults learning on their own. First job, first paycheck, first bank account, first Roth IRA, first lease. Nobody sat you down and explained any of it.
• Grandparents and anyone giving money to a young person who wants it to land somewhere useful rather than somewhere convenient.

You do not need a financial background to read it. You do not need money already invested. The money dictionary exists precisely because the vocabulary is most of what makes this subject feel closed.

What arrives each month

Every issue runs about 1,200 words, carries one feature and one ask, and arrives at 7:00 AM Eastern so it is in the inbox before the workday.

When it starts

Issue #1 is the holiday budget: how to set the number the whole season costs before the ads start, and how to run that conversation with the kids in the room rather than at them. Issue #2, on December 1, covers the five year-end deadlines that actually matter and the distinction most year-end checklists get wrong — which accounts close on December 31 and which stay open until the following April. Issue #3, in January, is the family money meeting.

Subscribing before November 3 means the first issue is the first thing you get. Subscribing after it means you get the next one, but you get access to the archive to catch up.

A sample issue

Read a full issue before you decide. Same length, same sections, no subscription needed.

Where to start on the site

The newsletter draws on the education library. If you would rather read than wait for November, these are the places most people start:

• The education library — every topic, sorted by who it is for: kids, parents, teens, young adults.
• Money lessons by age — what to teach when, from the first allowance onward.
• Roth IRA for kids — the questions people actually ask about opening one for a child.
• The family money meeting — the habit behind January’s issue.
• Calculators and worksheets — the printables and spreadsheets the Worksheet Spotlight pulls from.
• The blog — new writing between issues.