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IT’S TIME TO PAY IT forward.
That’s a phrase I often use when talking about helping the next generation. But my efforts have been mostly focused on my children and grandchildren. What about others in future generations, especially those from less affluent families?
Welcome to the Jonathan Clements Getting Going on Savings Initiative and the accompanying book, The Best of Jonathan Clements: Classic Columns on Money and Life.
The savings initiative aims to get young adults started in the financial markets with $1,000 contributions to Roth IRAs, with those contributions funded by both direct donations and the royalties from the book. The book consists of more than 60 of my old Wall Street Journal columns.
I’d love to take credit for all of this, but my involvement has been modest. After my cancer diagnosis, there was a move to establish a journalism award in my honor. I suggested the savings initiative instead.
The heavy-lifting was then done by five luminaries of the personal-finance world: Christine Benz, Bill Bernstein, Karen Damato, Mike Piper and Allan Roth. I consider all five to be friends, and all have some involvement with the John C. Bogle Center for Financial Literacy. Also working on the initiative are two other groups: J-PAL North America and the City of Boston’s Summer Youth Employment Program.
Meanwhile, the fine folks at publisher Harriman House assisted with the book’s design, and The Wall Street Journal allowed my old columns to be reprinted at no cost. Indeed, the program is being supported by both the Dow Jones Foundation and News Corp., the Journal’s publisher.
You can read more about the savings initiative here, and also in Jason Zweig’s Wall Street Journal article from earlier today. Just to be clear, I’m not making any money from the book, and nor are any of the other participants. Want to pitch in? There are two ways:
I don’t know of any other program that takes young adults and gets them so directly involved in the financial markets, providing not just the money to get started, but also the investment vehicle as well. Will it lead some of these young adults to become regular savers and investors? If it does, lives will have been transformed. How cool is that?
Jonathan Clements is the founder and editor of HumbleDollar. Follow him on X @ClementsMoney and on Facebook, and check out his earlier posts.
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This is really interesting and I’m looking forward to reading more about it. One question: what kids will receive the donations?
The program is going to be piloted in Boston this summer and, fingers crossed, expanded from there:
https://www.povertyactionlab.org/page/building-retirement-savings-young-adults
As you’ll read, “the Boston Summer Youth Employment Program has aimed ‘to reduce inequality of opportunity by increasing access to early employment experiences for disadvantaged youth’.” My assumption is that most of the kids who benefit will be from poorer families.
Thank you. What a great idea!
Looking forward to adding this book to my shelf of personal finance favorites. Jonathan, thank you for what you’ve done over the years. This site has given me knowledge, advice, and often entertainment. Thank you. Would there ever be an avenue in which someone could buy a signed copy the book? It may prove to be successful.
I’ve offered to sell signed copies of my books in the past, and it was reasonably successful, but I just don’t the energy to deal with the frequent trips to the post office. Sorry!
Thank you for continue paying it forward, Jonathan! Your kindness is amazing and we appreciate you! (I just made a small donation.)
Many thanks for donating!
For the past four years, I have been pursuing a comparable concept with with members of Congress. Today, trying to get it into the reconciliation bill (“one big beautiful bill”) because it requires no taxpayer funding and results in no budget revenue losses.
Please contact your members of congress if you agree that Roth IRA is the way to go.
It is titled: “The Ben Franklin Child Roth IRA”. The concept is simple. You just change the tax code to incorporate for minor children of households with qualifying income by adding the same provisions that have applied to a spouse for spousal IRAs for 45 years – but limited to Roth.
This is the low- and middle-income solution that is comparable to the 529 to Roth IRA transfer likely to be used by higher income households – which was incorporated in Section 126 of SECURE. The Ben Franklin Child Roth IRA would be superior to using the 529 account – although, today, anyone can contribute to a 529, and the Roth is only available to a child with qualifying earnings.
Chris Carosa and I worked on this about a decade ago. https://fiduciarynews.com/2016/08/exclusive-interview-with-jack-towarnicky-child-iras-will-make-middle-class-millionaires/
I am presenting my own family’s experience, 529 to IRA, and the Ben Franklin Child Roth IRA next week at the World at Work Total Rewards Conference in Orlando, Florida. The presentation is titled: Ben Franklin’s Last Bet – “Bank for the Future”. I’ve incorporated the recent book written by Michael Meyer … on why Ben Franklin, based on his testamentary gifts in 1790 to the cities of Philadelphia and Boston. For my children, born in 1984 and 1987, we used the Uniform Gifts to Minor’s Act.
Here is a related post from 401kSpecialist.com:
https://401kspecialistmag.com/let-ben-franklin-create-middle-class-millionaires-eradicate-poverty-in-america/
If you like the idea, you might contact Ashlea Ebeling at the WSJ who recently wrote extensively on Roth IRAs. Happy to pass along the a white paper summary of the Ben Franklin Child Roth IRA.
Great Idea!
Thanks. If you want a copy of the white paper on this topic, you can find my personal gmail address in various 401kspecialist.com articles.
Ordered a hard copy – for my 1 year old grandson. My two grown children seem to have picked up my frugal ways well enough, but I have less control over the next generation.
Done and done, Jonathan! What a great idea! When my daughters (now 35 and 40) started having earned income, I had them open Roth IRAs and have since gifted them the amount of their earned income up to the Roth limit (with the proviso, of course, that they actually put it into the Roth). It has not only put them in a better financial situation than they would otherwise be in, but it has connected them to me and led to an avenue to financial education and discussion that I doubt we would otherwise have engaged in.
great idea!
Absolutely brilliant initiative!
One very worrying issue…. I am unable to buy either the Kindle edition or the hard copy book because I live in Australia. I can’t even begin to understand why that would be the case.
Not happy!
Tim
I just bought a copy; looking forward to reading this.
Jonathan,
This is such a great idea and a beautiful legacy. I just ordered a copy of the book for each of our 4 grown kids.
I also ordered a copy for myself. I was a devoted follower of your WSJ columns back in the day and likely read most or all of the columns then. But given my 73 year old memory, it’ll probably be like reading them now for the first time!
Congratulations on such a worthy and fitting project.
Andrew
Such a worthy idea. I bought the Kindle right away!
Wonderful idea, and implementation. Will be interested in how it works out.
The book is coming today, and I can’t wait to re-read some of your very worthwhile articles. This is a wonderful project.
My husband and I are working to educate our grand-nieces, and this will undoubtedly help.
Love Jason Zweig’s WSJ article on your “Getting Going on Saving Initiative,” Jonathan. What a worthwhile legacy.
I will buy three copies of your book—one for myself, and two for my college-age nieces (one a very low-income student, the other not) and give them the book with an inscription asking them to read the book sooner rather than later (one can hope!). Maybe my signed inscription will encourage them to keep the book around for many years.
Meanwhile, if there are any funds left over from the 529s I set up for them, I plan to take advantage of the current ability to transfer those leftover funds into starter Roth IRAs in their names. I know I will have to train the two girls to let those invested funds ride and NOT use the Roth as an immediate bank account as they start their working lives.
So, I’ll be following with interest the part of your Roth IRA program that is researching whether giving young adults from lower-income families a Roth early on will “motivate inexperienced investors to stay the course and to add more money as they gain experience.” I hope both my nieces and the fortunate young adults in your program take full advantage of the early helping hand they’re getting!
In Jason’s WSJ article about the program, he shows a beautiful Monet painting from the Barnes Foundation and captions it, “One of Clements’s favorite paintings is ‘The Studio Boat’ by Claude Monet.”
I read on Wikipedia about this famous painting of a painter at work in nature, and wondered if you have a chance, Jonathan, could you share your thoughts about why this is a personal favorite?
I’m a huge Monet fan, as well as the Impressionists generally. With this painting, as with many others, Monet is just brilliant at capturing the sky and the foliage reflected in the water, and he does it with a relatively limited color palette. And, of course, he’s depicting himself at work — a unique self-portrait that I find captivating.
An absolutely amazing initiative from a classy individual who clearly has some amazing friends.
Thank you, Jonathan!
I received my copy yesterday and can’t wait to dive into it.
Awesome and thank you for your continued inspiration and teaching! Donation on the way and books will be bought when available from non-Amazon location.
What a wonderful way to be remembered by so many for many years to come. I just sent a donation from Vanguard Charitable. Thank you, again, Jonathan.
Thank you for the donation! One of the things I love about the program is that it’s under the auspices of the Bogle Center. I’m tickled that the savings initiative has a connection to Jack.
Two of the three on my investing Mount Rushmore. You and Jack Bogle, along with Christine Benz of Morningstar (I did not know she was the President of the John C. Bogle Center for Financial Literacy, but definitely not surprised) who are responsible for me having obtained “enough”, be grateful for such, and to stay calm during market upheaval, by “staying the course”, and following the additional advice of “don’t do something, stand there.”
Just ordered the book. Can’t wait to read about the effect of the project on my nearby neighbors in Boston.
Generosity
Small acts of a single individual, joined by others, that can become life changing turning points for both those giving and those receiving.
Thanks
In the early iteration of the forum you asked what people wished they knew when they were 20. My answer: What a Roth IRA was. Kudos on a great initiative.
Hi Jonathan, just initiated a transfer from our DAFfy fund and buying 3 copies next. Is it available from other booksellers than Amazon? Thank you very much for setting up the JC Initiative – it’s something I’ve always wanted to do but didn’t know how to go about it. I will be sending DAFfy dollars (and eventually QCD dollars) there for a long time. Thanks!
I wasn’t sure what a “DAFfy fund” was and how it worked, and I couldn’t find a simple explanation of it using the HumbleDollar.com search bar. I knew it must have been discussed many times on HD, though, so did a reverse Google search which led to this useful post from Jonathan in 2023, with its comments on Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) and Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs): https://humbledollar.com/2023/03/more-than-enough/ Google listed many other HD.com posts on charitable giving, as well.
I also learned that “Daffy” is a “donor-advised fund (DAF) and a not-for-profit community,” or a financial platform for giving.
Thanks so much for donating — it’s very generous of you. As far as I know, the book is currently only available through Amazon.
Congratulations on completing a project that you had mentioned earlier. I’m looking forward to participating, learning and sharing as you suggest.
Jonathan, what a great idea and a wonderful way to help and educate others in solid financial planning. I’m ordering copies for me and each of my grown kids! Thanks!
This is awesome! I’ll do both.
P.S. It’s awesome that the donation link provides an option to link to your DAF if you have one to make the donation. I’ve never seen that before, and that’s slick.
Glad to see Amazon has the paperback now. I’m putting this post on my blog too.
Purchased the book and look forward to reading it.
What a great thing to do! I’ll be purchasing your book very soon.
A worthy and noble endeavor. So proud of you, Jonathan.
Jonathan,
This is a great idea and a great legacy. And the roster of heavyweight financial authors and entities that are participating is a real testament to your standing in the field.
Well done and I’m in.
Andrew
Cool indeed. Already have the book
Count me in. I think it’s a great savings initiative.
It’s very cool indeed Jonathan. A hard copy of the book is already in my Amazon shopping cart.
Very cool! Well done.