I gave a speech to more than 250 highly motivated K-12 teachers yesterday morning at the first ever National Educator Conference, presented by Jump$tart. What a privilege to share the same stage as Sheila Bair (Chairperson of the FDIC) and Janet Bodnar (the editor of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine).
During the Q & A after my presentation, a teacher from Ohio asked me what financial lessons I hoped my kids would learn at school.
“What a great question!” I explained.
Although I have no intention of moving to Ohio (Remember, I went to the University of Michigan, so I’d be welcomed in Ohio as well as the Yankees are in Boston.), I knew that my answer would be heard by teachers from nearly every state in the country.
I told her of my fortune in having a teacher go “off syllabus” for an hour when I was 19 years old and that in so doing he had changed my life forever, as well as the thousands I have subsequently shared his words with.
You: What could be so important and life-changing?
The miracle of compounding interest. Let it change your life too.
Tags: compounding interest, jumpstart
A wonderful coincidence, I just wrote a post with the EXACT OPPOSITE view (sorry!), called the Myth of Compounding Interest:
http://7million7years.com/2009.....-interest/
… but, it really all depends on how long you want to be working and how much you want to walk away with.
@AJC: Thanks for the comment. Having read your post, I agree, it depends on how long you want to be working and much you want to walk away with. It also has to do with risk and how much you can reasonably afford to take. As someone who has counseled people at all income and wealth levels, I can assure you that the two are far from perfectly correlated. No matter one’s income or source, taking advantage of the miracle of compounding interest is the first important step towards creating/increasing wealth.