I'm a big fan of table top RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons. One of the prototypical themes in these games of fantasy and adventure are the search for wealth and for knowledge. Not all characters and stories are after both. Some characters and stories may be after neither. However, it's hard to deny the underlying human desire to pursue the two both in fantastical fiction as well as real life. The 19th and 20th centuries saw an explosion of relic and adventure seekers traveling to far off places to find the wealth of a pharaoh, or tomes from the lost libraries of Alexandria and Timbuktu, or the remains of some great state or civilization like Troy or Atlantis, or the riches of far flung hidden wonders like El Dorado.
In 16th and 17th century Europe, it was fashionable for the affluent to have an entire room dedicated to treasures and curiosities to demonstrate one's dedication to the pursuit if knowledge. These wunderkammers (wonder-rooms) or kunstkammers (cabinet of curiosities, also called kunstkabinett) were essentially privately held, museums, and served from much of the inspiration for the modern museums. I've long been enraptured by the idea of having my own, and it remains one of the day-dreams (as opposed to actual goals), that I keep as a inspiration for my own pursuits. I would one day love to be wealthy enough to have my own study with a private library piled high with books, and a wunderkammer featuring many weird and fantastic pieces of curiosity. Were I to become independently wealthy, I could see the majority of my time and money spent on a Biltmore Estate level conservatory and library. While we oft times use these epic tales and day dreams to satiate our desire for the same pursuits in our own lives, my goal has been to find a way to take my pursuit from the realm of fantasy and escapism, into reality.
I'm beginning the final week of this school session at CTU. This session has featured a class that somewhat embodies one of the big topics that I want to spend my time studying and perfecting: Financial Literacy in Today's World. Many of the topics covered in the class are not new to me, but that's because I spent nearly the entire past year seeking out that information for myself. The class covered, in basic, much of the content that had found lacking in my traditional education, and then in my general path through adulthood up until now. It's a finance class, but the more I ponder it, the more I wish this were a core gen ed class for all college students. I would also love for this to be high school curriculum, too. It goes beyond the basic level stuff like how to balance a check book (which is about the level of financial education that I had in school), and it expresses the need and importance of budgeting, how to construct a budget, understanding debt and interest, understanding investments, savings, and interest, etc. It was the discussion on investments and interest that I think was the most sorely lacking in the education of people my age (back when I was in school). I'm not saying that the information wasn't available, but that it wasn't taught in any depth so as to stress its importance. Second only to budgeting, investing should be one of the most important topics, teaching the power of time and compounding interest, but also teaching things like cash flow, and the various types of investing: stocks, bonds, annuities, real estate, and even investing in your own financial education. That final point is key. We teach students that debt for a degree is a good investment. What we don't teach is that there are degrees that don't warrant good paying jobs, and there are good paying jobs that don't require a degree.
This has served as the impetus to pursue my own financial education, and also to share what I learn. I want to be able to teach my kids (and others) how to make sound financial decisions, and to set them on the path to building some real wealth. I'm not saying that I'm trying to ensure they become multi-millionaires. While I'm not opposed to them doing so, what I really want is for them to understand how to avoid becoming indebted. That doesn't mean avoiding all debt. While I have endeavored to abide by Dave Ramsey's principles, I have found them to be somewhat, unnecessarily limiting. I find it compelling to look for investment that provide cash flow that pays for debt: like real estate. I find that investing just in mutual funds may not be the best investment. Finally, I find that operating without a credit score may be unnecessarily burdensome. However, Dave is quite correct in that: credit cards are in business to make money. If they weren't making money, then they wouldn't be in business, which means that there are enough people out there leveraging credit they can't afford to pay for things they can't afford, which shackles them to an untenable debt burden. I think this is an imperative lesson for my kids to understand, and more importantly, how to avoid poor choices that will lead them down this road.
This quest for wealth goes hand in hand with the quest for knowledge. In fact, there are some interesting allegories between the two. For instance, in wealth building, you want assets that produce cash flow to acquire more assets. You want the same in learning. I want to acquire knowledge and educational assets that generates the opportunity to acquire more knowledge. I've pursued this in my professional life, where I've been working on becoming an EMS educator, an that as opened up opportunities to advance my education and my teaching skills. However, I've started overextending in some areas, and I'm going to have to scale back. That means I'm going to have to start choosing between things like medical education, and business education. While I do want to study and advance in medicine, I believe that I and my family would be better served if I master my business and financial education, so the medical education is going to play second fiddle to business for the next year.
My efforts going forward this year are going to be geared towards acquiring assets with positive cash flow, and how to pass along the information I learn. For acquisition of cash flowing assets, one of the main places I'm looking at is real estate. The housing market is starting to see a downturn, and I'm trying to be diligent and look for potential investment opportunities. This has involved learning a whole new genre of math such as calculating gross rent multiplier, capitalization rate, and cash-on-cash return. Moreover, I'm having to build a new skill set in real estate market research. As I start mastering the knowledge, I will start sharing this more. Other cash flow assets can include dividend paying stocks. Although the amount of money in vs money out is not super impressive, this has still allowed me to start practicing asset acquisition that begets more assets by dividend reinvestment.
For passing along information, I have this blog where I can share mythoughts and experiences, but I've also been working on podcasting and even how to start an internet radio station. I've already been working on a prehospital and paramedicine podcast with an old partner that we entitled The No Shock Advised Podcast. This has been a very tough, but somewhat rewarding experience. I've not only deepened my understanding on some topics, but I've also been afforded the opportunity of opening up some communication with other people that I may not have otherwise. We'll actually be having our first guest episode on our next installment. In addition to that project, I've been speaking with a colleague that is also an entrepreneur, and that has kids that he wants to pass along this education to, and we have tossed around the idea of a podcast focusing on financial literacy. With both of us being extremely busy, that hasn't come to fruition yet, but I'm hoping to see it start making some traction. Then finally, I've been considering having my own podcast where I discuss the topics that I find fun and fascinating, and I invite friends and family to do the same. My goal is to turn that into an internet radio station talk program, purely for the experience of doing so.
We shall see how things shape up for the coming year. With any luck, we will start our first steps down the road of wealth building as I continue learning. I'm excited to see what this year will bring.
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