“Working to help parents raise money-smart kids.”
Hello, friends!
I just returned from Salt Lake City, where I gave a talk about apps to the fine folks of the Credit Union Financial Education Network (CUFEN), formerly known as the National Youth Involvement Board (NYIB).
The collective educational power of those in the room was astounding, as CUFEN attendees have engaged hundreds of thousands of students of all ages.
These individuals spend their days diligently working to improve our nation’s overall money smarts. How impressive!
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Troutwood Time Portal: Speaking of impressive, I highly recommend you take a look at the work keynote speaker (and friend of the podcast) Gene Natali and his Troutwood team are doing. It won’t cost you a cent, and it may even save you and your kids hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars. 💰
Gene and Troutwood are on a mission to bring investment planning to everyone in America. Whoa! Talk about a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)! 😮
To that end, Troutwood has two apps that your high school or college student (And you!) might enjoy.
The first, Troutwood Time Portal, allows you to time travel using the real data of the S&P 500 over the last 100 years. Simply pick a start date, an end date and an investing amount. Then voilà! Real. Life. Magic. ✨
Time Portal is fascinating and fun, and it underscores the power of “boring” investing, a topic I discuss with Chris Browning in this Art of Allowance Podcast video short. (Click here for the full episode.)
If I’m being honest, I wish I had an app like this earlier in my life because, well, I haven’t always followed the simple, boring path. 😬
As Chris reiterates, “This part of [y]our life does not need to be exciting.”
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Troutwood Times Two: Troutwood’s primary app is the planner they’ve created to realize their ambitious mission.
Using this eponymous resource, you or your child can choose a profession, a location and an all-important investment plan, such as contributing a dollar a day and maximizing a Roth IRA. This Art of Allowance Podcast video short featuring Gene is a good reminder about the power of the Roth IRA:
Troutwood’s app pulls from real salary and expense data, including housing and other costs of living. So your children will see what their future selves can enjoy with persistance and patience.
Incredibly, I’ve only scratched the surface of what the app has to offer. But my daughter jumped right in and started looking at where her career trajectory might take her:
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The BBB gets it done!: Over the past two weeks, I’ve shared with you the importance of letting our kids know about invisible money-smart moves we make.
I’d recently been able to leverage the Better Business Bureau to help me with three separate companies that I felt were unnecessarily jerking me around. I wanted a resolution, and utilizing the BBB worked.
I then shared the following correspondence with my daughters and my wife, who collectively make up the “Lanza Ladies.”
Lanza Ladies,
Sometimes just the threat of going to the Better Business Bureau is all you need to get a company to move on a policy.
Take a look at this thread so you can see that company policies are not set in stone.
Your first interaction with a company is typically there [to be a roadblock] to give you the company bulls**t about “policy.” You just have to take a little time (and sometimes more than a little time) to get what you want when you’re requesting something reasonable.
This [going directly to Company A when they claimed policy wouldn’t allow them to refund us] saved us $100. [They processed the refund when I filed a complaint with the BBB.]
I recently got Company B to refund me $650 by lodging a separate complaint with the Better Business Bureau, and Company C refunded us the full amount [for that exchanged phone that was “lost in the system”] (around $800) only after I went to the BBB. Company C’s “Office of the President” called me to settle the problem.
I thought you might like to see that I follow my own advice. Sometimes. 😜
Enjoy the journey!
John, Chief Mammal
P.S. Please consult with a financial or investment professional before engaging in any decisions that might affect your own financial well-being.
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