🌱 Teen Roth IRA
If you earn money — even a babysitting gig — you can open a Roth IRA. Money grows tax-free FOREVER. This is the cheat code most adults wish they'd used.
2026 limit: up to $7,000/year ($583/month) — or as much as you earned that year, whichever is less.
By age 65 if you start at age 16...
$2.4M
All TAX-FREE. You put in $X — the rest is compounding.
What if you waited?
All three save the same money for the same 10 years. The only difference is when they start.
Start at 16
$2.4M
Put in: $X
Start at 22
$1.4M
Put in: $X
Start at 30
$610K
Put in: $X
Starting at 16 vs 30 — same money in — gives you an extra…
$1.8M
…all because of 14 extra years of compounding. Time is the asset, not the amount.
🌱 Roth IRA Cheat Sheet
- You need earned income — a job, babysitting, lawn mowing all count.
- Money grows tax-free forever.
- You can pull out the money you contributed anytime, no penalty.
- For the GROWTH, leave it alone until age 59½.
- A parent has to help open it (it's called a "custodial Roth IRA"). Once you turn 18 it's all yours.
WHY IT'S A SUPERPOWER
Almost no one under 25 has a Roth IRA. The few who do tend to retire wealthy — not because they earned more, but because they had more YEARS of tax-free growth. You can't buy time; you have to start it.