Did we not actually learn how to handle money in school? No. We didn’t. We learned through teaching and through outside factors that we need to go to school and get good grades so that we can get into a good college to get good grades. After we complete our undergraduate degree, we have to get into a master’s program and if we are lucky, maybe…just maybe, we will get into a doctorate program and some school that we “always wanted to go to.” After all of this schooling is all said and done, we now owe either one or multiple student loan companies tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars so that we can use our degree in psychology telling other people how they should feel about themselves. After 25-30 years, we finally get it paid off and our kids are going to college. We want to do better than our parents did. This time around, WE want to pay for our kids to go to college so that they can get a good job. The cycle goes on and on. After our kids graduate, now we as the parent owe tens of thousands and maybe hundreds of thousands to either one or multiple student loan companies. There is nothing inherently wrong with these loan companies. They are there to serve a purpose and their making bank off of it; no pun intended. Colleges are not bad either. You can make your own conclusions on colleges and universities. What if, instead of paying tens of thousands and possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars to colleges and universities, we take a year after school to learn to invest and make money? What if, in high school, our teachers taught us how to invest and how to balance our checking account? What if, instead of teaching high schoolers how to pass a standardized test, the teachers taught students how to live life? What if our parents taught us how to live life? The last point is the point I want you to think about. If our parents taught us how to live life, then they would have had to have learned some time in their life. I have caught myself plenty of times thinking about what my life would have been like if my parents would have taught me how to invest and how to save my money. But, what if no one taught them and they were living pay check to pay check? There are tons of tools out there that can teach you how to save and how to invest and how to live well within your means. Dave Ramsey is a great example. If you know his story, you know that he had a very successful business. You also know that he did not know how to save his money or how to invest it. So when push came to shove and bills were due, he didn’t know where the money was going to come from to pay up. There are hundreds of apps for smart phones that teach you how to save, how to make a budget and how to invest. You can read books, take classes, learn how to paper trade. There are tons and tons of resources at our finger tips that teach us. Do we use them? Most of us, no. The people that do may try to invest and save are well ahead of their peers but what about the rest of us? I fall guilty to this just as you may as well. I see something that I want, and I buy it. After that, I see something that I need to support myself or my family and all of a sudden, I can’t afford it. Keep reading because I will talk about “can’t affording” later. So wrap this part up. We can’t necessarily blame our parents for our spending, saving and investing mistakes because they may not know either. College is a great way to get a job but if you are going to college to make money later in life, you are doing it wrong. In my opinion, college is meant for finding you dream job. This doesn’t mean that your dream job will include a six figure pay check at the end of the year, and it may not include weekends and holidays off. Doctors for instance go to college for six to ten years and still have to work weekends and holidays. Attorneys go to college for six years and when they are done they work for people that can’t afford attorneys. College is a stepping stone into what you want to do for the rest of your life. I went to college for three years as a church music major. I hated it. I liked the college I was at, and in the long run, if I would have graduated, the pay out would have been crap. I wouldn’t have been able to afford my college loans. I wouldn’t have been able to buy the truck that I wanted. I wouldn’t have been able to travel the globe like I wanted. So what did I do? I’ll tell you. I joined the military. This life is not meant for everyone and I am not promoting the military what so ever. I will tell you that if I was doing any other job in the military than what I am doing now, I would hate my career path. I feel as if many people are hating their career path because they are working pay check by pay check and discovering day by day that this is not what they wanted to do with their life. Now, before I get further off course, lets talk about “can’t affording.”
A wise man told me a long time ago that there is a large difference between “I can’t afford that,” and “what can I do to afford that.” If I wanted to buy a top of the line computer, my budget would not let me do this. What if I made sacrifices to buy this? What if, instead of putting this purchase on a credit card so that I can pay it off later with interest, I made sacrifices in eating choices and savings choices to allow me to buy whatever I wanted. To allow me to do this, I first payed off my credit card. I then cancelled it and cut it up and threw it away. What now, you may ask? Instead of opening up a new account, I decided to wait to buy my dream computer and save the money and pay cash. This took a little longer than what I wanted but in the end, I didn’t owe anyone and I completely owned my computer. Now this is a small example of a larger idea. You can do the same with a car if you have that kind of cash flow but not everyone does. So start small and work up from there. If I want to make more money than what I have coming in every month, I start to invest. Now when I started to invest I was 21 years old. When I joined the military after three years of college, there was an option to open something called a TSP (Thrift Savings Plan). This is most like a Roth IRA and it comes directly out of your paycheck every month to support your retirement plan. After I set my retirement up, I opened an investment account through a bank that I banked with and put in $20 to see what would happen. Three years later, my $20 grew to $50. Small amount I know. However, if I would have had the money to put in $10,000, I would have had much more than $50 so use and abuse as I saw fit. This all circles back around to what if our parents taught us.
The last topic that I want to talk about is the difference between investing and savings. Now most of you are going to shake your head and say, “I wasn’t born yesterday” and insult this entire blog. However, how many people actually know how much interest you get with your savings account every year? My bank offers a whopping .01% every year on the amount of money that I have in savings. Wow. (Insert sad face followed by why did I ever put money in savings to grow money). You see, my parents always told me that I needed to save my money. This is a great idea. You always need some money in savings. However, what if I were to tell you that splitting your savings account into two to three different areas could make you an extra $10,000 or more per year? That’s a lot of money. So what I did was I took my saving account and I split it in half. Half of the money I left in savings and half of it I put into an investment. Maybe not something that could give me a huge profit, but something that could give me at least more than .01% every year. So I picked an electronic manufacturer that creates video games and TV’s and video game consoles. You may know who I am talking about. Find something that will stay in business and grow. It may be a slow grower but it will grow. Do your homework and find something that will help you make money. It could be a computer company or a car company or even something small like a kids toys company. All of these things have something in common. They are all goods that will service yourself or someone else. People will always buy and they will always make more goods.
Another way to make money with your saving account is by using CD’s. CD’s traditionally do not give you a lot of return and you have to put a good amount of money in them before you see a good chunk of chain. They also usually require that you keep your money in the CD for over two to three years. You may ask, “I want something to give me money right now!!” If you want money now then go to work. If you want to set yourself up with money in a couple of years, then invest. CD’s are a good way to get more money safely. You may not get a good return but you will at least make a few dollars on your money. I remember I bought a CD a few years back and put in $500. Not tons of money but I wanted to see what it would give me. $500 after two years gave me an extra $150. At the end of two years I only made $150. Not too good but I was able to then take that $650 and put that into another investment.
Lastly, lets talk about moving money around. As I was saying earlier, I had $500 and made $150 in a CD in two years, you can do the same thing with investments. The $20 I had in that electronic account that turned into $50? Yeah. That $50 I put into another account and made another $25. Now I had $75. I kept doing this until I had a good amount of flowing cash. I could move money from one account to another and to another and to another until I had what I wanted. After about 10 years, the small amount of money that I had in investment turned into about $25,000. This was with trading, investing, waiting, trading, investing, waiting. I did this over and over and over until I was comfortable letting my money sit somewhere by itself. What is it doing now? Well that $25,000 is sitting in an stock that may grow but it may not. But, as long as I don’t lose too much, it’ll stay there until the time is right to move it again and wait. It is extremely difficult to make money over night through trading. It is possible, but it is difficult. This is what we call day trading and it takes a lot of studying and practice. At first you will lose more money than what you invested but once you get good at it you can make some good money.
What’s your choice? Are you going to trade? Are you going to invest? Are you going to use a credit card and forever be in debt? Are you going to go to college and pay back loans? Are you going to live a life outside of your means? Are you going to take the time and study how money works? These are the questions that you must ask yourself. Once you figure it out, take charge of your money. Set yourself and your kids up for success. Teach your kids and others around you. Find new ways to make money. There are a handful of people in this world that make more than a billion dollars a year. Why can’t one of them be you?
