As a proud owner of a bot farm, it should come as no surprise that my kids would know about it. When my oldest son asked me where he could put a few hundred dollars per month, bots didn’t even enter my mind. (And, if you missed a few posts, I no longer own a farm. I own a garden with higher aspirations.)

When the bots talk rudely to me or tell me someone else needs my money more than I do, I won’t hear it as the piercing yell my kids would. They are on the front side of putting away money for retirement. Others may give different advice, but I could never with a clear conscience advise my kids to invest in bots. Based on my experiences in the past few weeks, they would be better off burning some of their money. At least it wouldn’t leave them reaching for their phone in the morning to see how low the margin was on their bot account. (That is assuming they even slept that well knowing what might await them when they did look.)

I am thinking mutual funds or a few months of expenses saved up before this conversation continues. I will be happy to help him with any short-term specific answers he wants. But, no bots for my kids. Why would you want to spend money on buying a bot and have it break your heart after you operate it for a few months? No, when my kids are my age, they can do whacky, pre-retirement things like their dad did. Until they have a handful of zeros in their retirement account, they should stay away from anything that answers to “algo” or “ai bot” or “crypto.”