The Real ROI of Education: Teaching Kids Wealth Literacy – Episode 648

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[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. Prosperity thinkers, in today’s topic, we’re gonna be talking about the real ROI of education, teaching kids wealth literacy. Kim, you grew up in a household of teachers. You are an educator in the financial space. You might be a little bit qualified. We’ll just plug that in a little, there we go. What is the ROI of education? Let’s start there. And then we gotta talk about wealth literacy. And you probably need to define that as well, because this is how we think and act. Absolutely. Well, it is so cool in today’s world how easily you can become educated. And so it’s super critical that you figure out how you learn best, like no matter how old you are. And I guess it could shift over somebody’s lifetime.

[00:53] But I think generally, like for me, always been a reader. I was taught how to read early. I read all through kindergarten, all through all of my classes, and I continue to absolutely adore reading today. Other people prefer to listen, of course, watch, you name it. And there are programs out there for all of the above. Also for kinesthetic learners, right? There are schools that teach by getting your hands on. There are companies like ours and like Tuttle Twins that create card games so that you can learn by getting your hands on. There’s various programs that are like apprenticeships where you can really get your hands on. Financial literacy and more importantly, financial competency are so critical

[01:40] because we all deal with finances in our lives. No matter what your career is, you really want to also have a heavy focus on proper finances. Because money may not be everything to you, but money affects everything in your life that is important to you. And so as you grow in your skills and whatever those are, the way that you create value in the world, the way that you typically get paid, that’s important. You want to put some time in the learning there, but you also want to put time in the learning around money and how money serves you in your life and how it helps you. And it’s so important on this ROI of education that we realize that it never ever stops. We want to be lifelong learners because this is what allows our lives to progress

[02:33] and us to continue to do good in the world because we’re growing and growing is a part of learning and vice versa. And so I think really, if you looked at the ROI of a typical college education, you could have a serious debate of whether that’s zero or even negative. We all know people that are PhDs and fill in the blank and haven’t worked a day in their lives because they’ve chosen not to or maybe they don’t want to or don’t have to. Nevertheless, obviously lots and lots of money was spent. Even if it wasn’t their own money, there was money spent on that education and that would literally be a negative ROI. And then we know people that are able to take a college degree and turn it into a job that requires a college degree,

[03:22] like an engineering position or something like that. And of course there’s people that get medical degrees and then go on to become doctors and that’s valuable as well. And those have higher ROIs. But I think each person, as it relates to monetary education or personal financial education and as it relates to their own education of a human being, becoming a better leader, becoming a better parent, becoming an even more effective communicator, those types of things literally have an unlimited ROI on them. Oh, so good. If we take the things you’re talking about, the communication, the way that we operate in the world, I typically bucket those into two categories, which is soft skills and then I’ve got the hard skills.

[04:11] So call it soft skills, taking the kids to the grocery store and them to analyze what’s the best item to purchase according to the ounce or size or whatever. Hard skill, math or whatever that would be. Being able to hold a conversation with the person at the checkout line, soft skill. In a very fractured world where we have people that have become so good at consuming the free MIT, Stanford, Harvard classes online but don’t have the soft skills to be able to communicate. And then we have people that have such amazing soft skills but they never developed the hard skills that will lead them to somewhere. How have you seen the most effective families operate, Kim? Well, I love your distinction of the soft skill and the hard school and the hard skill

[05:03] and school is something that families have to really be purposeful about today. When I was growing up, my parents are public school teachers and everybody went to public school and it was perfectly acceptable. Yeah, you had some schools that were better, some were worse, but essentially they all did a good job. Today’s world, not so sure that’s the case. And we have more families homeschooling or at least doing a part of the children’s education in a homeschool environment, which I love and I’m super supportive of and I am so grateful that again, Tuttle Twins is out there. Prager U, which I actually think Tuttle Twins just bought. Can you confirm that? Do you know? Well, Prager U was started by just a guy

[05:47] making YouTube videos and they got some amazing advertising and they were just able to, gosh, talk about up level and grow and learn and they just kept getting better and better and communicating these ideas and then whether Tuttle Twins bought them out or not, they’re out there on YouTube and available and people can really learn amazing things from them, the Prager U videos and you have other groups out there. I mean, even again, Kiyosaki, I think Rich Dad Poor Dad has homeschool material. I think even Complaint Free World with Will Bowen. I think they have homeschool material and these types of things can be taken advantage of even if you are not full-time homeschooling, which I mean, I don’t know

[06:28] how I would have pulled that off. We had a nanny when the kids were younger and then they went to school and I worked and I loved my work and I wanted them in school so that I could work. So again, every family has to navigate this, but it’s so nice that we’re in a position in our society today when there is literally an endless number of ways that you can move forward and help your family grow and learn and attack the skills that are necessary. It’s gonna be different for different children, right? Some children could do super, super well in a public school and a child in the same family in the same school may not do well in that space. It’s an okay time to be very purposeful, very unique, slow down a little bit.

[07:11] And I know that’s hard. I can’t stand it when people tell me to slow down, but it’s so important that we just slow our lives down enough to be purposeful in our decisions around this arena to get the highest ROI in the space around the education of whatever it is that we’re seeking. And so much of that education can just happen in day-to-day life. I just was at the grocery store yesterday and I don’t go to the grocery store very often. I’m very grateful we have family members that like to go and so I don’t have to. Yet I went, I was by myself, can be rather task-oriented and not very nice sometimes in the soft skill department especially of things like talking to clerks. But the gal that scanned the things

[08:00] just did quick and happy and nice and fast and efficient, right? And then the gal that was packing them was the same. I have a long drive because we live in the middle of nowhere so I always want the frozen items packed separately because I put them in a cooler otherwise they’ll be melted when we get home and she was happy to keep them all separate and help me shove it all back in the cart and I thanked them both. Well, I got out to the car, which was a ways from the store and the gal that was bagging came running with my receipt which I had forgotten. Well, I had a particular set of circumstances on this purchase that really made me want that receipt and I’m so grateful and I was effusive in my gratitude to her

[08:49] and she was equally gracious back. So it’s so cool when we can get out of ourselves a little bit and just be nice to the human beings in front of us and that is unlimited ROI. Totally unlimited ROI. You’ve done a great job at networking, be it in person or networking with your mind, the right people and the right things to do that will help families. Meaning when you wrote the book, Perpetual Wealth, there was a lot of research in there and you had to put your antenna up and find the right people. You have a community now for parents that are helping kids and that’s something that is incredibly valuable and we can’t peg an ROI on that because that’s helping kids and we’ll have to watch what the generations are.

[09:48] Do you wanna add a quick injection of how they can find out about that community before we end this one? Yes, because we’re overhauling it to make it even better. So you can go to prosperityparents.com today and get on the wait list so that you become alerted to the upgraded community which I would like to say is gonna be out mid December but no promises. It is a space where parents can learn, grandparents can also learn some fabulous methods helping their children with their personal finances and helping them gain that financial competency that we’re talking about. It’s fairly narrowly defined in the personal finance both education slash learning and implementation space. I love it, it’s so good.

[10:43] And it’s a, I hate using the word. I’m not gonna use it. I am gonna use this word, okay? It’s a safe space and I don’t use that in this weird, weird term but here’s what I mean. The name has prosperity in it. It’s for parents, it’s for families. We know by design what you’re gonna get on the outcome on the other side of it. More prosperous children, soft skills and hard skills. So check it out. Kim, great conversation today. Thank you for sharing. Thank you, Spencer. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast. To take control of your money and have it work for you, visit prosperitythinkers.com.