12-Year Old Financial Blogger

You gotta see this. There is a 12-year kid giving financial advice on his blog http://www.funnymunny.ca.

Some of his advice is questionable, like this one:

“Ya, hi, I’m over 150,000 in debt, not including my mortgage. I’m fearing that I’ll have to give up my lifestyle and everything I own. Is there anything I can do?” Well, I do have one piece of very good advice, find a really tall building… No, I’m just kidding! but seriously, the one thing you can do to take evasive action on that kind of debt is to, hold your applause, go further into debt! Ya, as crazy as it sounds, if you go another 300,000 dollars in debt and buy a condo, you can rent it out and slowly pay of that debt, plus the mortgage with the rent. And once you’re almost out of your financial rut, you can sell the condo for a profit and be completely debt free!

That seems like a sure-fire way to make your situation worse rather than better. Especially in today’s housing market. The guy is $150,000 in debt, plus he has a mortgage (let’s say $200,000 left), and he’s suggesting to take on another $300,000 in debt (if you can get approved for that, which is doubtful with the debt load he/she already has). Good luck trying to rent that condo for enough to make up for the mortgage (let alone having extra to apply against the $150,000 debt). And good luck selling the condo for a profit if housing prices tank (which they will).

He sort of explains himself in his next post, but there are still some assumptions I don’t like, like the one where the second house grows from $400,000 to $500,000 (timeframe not given).

Either way, this kid is one smart cookie and I’ll be keeping my eye on him.