FOR THE YOUNG: Painless Financial Future....2ways

Let's say you are an infant. If mum and dad put away just $1 per day into an account for you [or $400 per annum], and roll it over at about 4 per cent, by retirement that fund will have a few million dollars.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Say you are about 15 or 16 with a part-time job, put away $1 per day and roll it over. If your job pays $50 per week then it can be a little hard to save $7 to $10 per week. But when you have full-time work, it will be easy. Later on, you can increase the saving to $15 to $20 weekly. In 10 years the average wage will be around $1500 per week, so this saving will be painless. Even at 50 yrs. of age you will pick up a million dollars or so.  If you are in your twenties, work out how much you need to put away and roll over to give you the lump sum you want at what age .  Yes, super will go into an account for you, which you generally can't touch until you retire, but don't place total faith in super. My neighbour had made contributions over 25 years in his super fund but on checking it last year he only had $5000 out of the $45000 that had been paid in.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               WANT a hobby or an interesting investment that will make money in the future?  DON'T have enough funds for the usual investments, shares, land, etc? Don't laugh as I know stamp-collecting appears too nerdy, BUT, snail-mail will soon be a thing of the past. Stamps will be a curio or a rare item. A few dollars per week will soon buy you all issues of Australian stamps and the number of issues printed each year is already declining quickly. The future value of a stamp [and mostly everything ] depends on its scarcity. Many of the issues of 1920 are today worth $30,000 each, but you don't have to wait that long for scarce stamps to appreciate in value. I know of no stamp older than 25yrs. that is worth less than its original value. You don't have to be a "stamp collector" to indulge in this investment.  But you will need advice.... e.g. never handle stamps, and they need special storage conditions.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Why didn't I do the saving trick? Nobody told me and I was too dumb to think of it. But I still have a small stamp collection that is not worth a lot now, but will be in 15yrs.