The sad truth is that in the new millennium, government-funded school systems are simply not teaching children about the real world of money.
That’s Steve Forbes, Editor-in-Chief of Forbes magazine. Forbes points out that the public school systems teach nothing about personal finance. Thus, we’re left to figure it all out for ourselves.
But here’s the thing – ever since the 1980s there’s been a concerted effort to push what I call a “piecemeal” approach to money and investing. It’s the idea that we should always be chasing that hot stock or exchange traded fund (ETF) that’s set to soar in value.
Therefore, we tend to think about growing our money in a piecemeal manner. You know what I mean here?
We tend to make investments in a vacuum. We hear about one idea… and we follow it. Then we hear about another idea… and we follow it too.
Of course, there are all kinds of television shows and movies that glorify this model. Jim Cramer’s Mad Money… Shark Tank… all the movies about Wall Street – they each feature the piecemeal mindset.
The problem is, no single investment is likely to move the needle for us. And if we’re not rooted in a foundational system, we’re likely to buy and sell things on a whim… always looking for the next big thing.
This isn’t a winning approach. I learned that the hard way.
Like many of us, I started with nothing. I had no assets, a small income, and $30,000 in student loans to pay.
Now I know that may seem like small potatoes compared to student loans today. But at the time it was a big deal for me.
And I started my career in corporate banking… but I hated it. Every Sunday afternoon I’d just get this sense of dread knowing that I had to go back to work the next day. It was awful.
But that’s what I went to college for. That’s what I had experience in… so I figured the only way out was to invest hard and grow my money so I wouldn’t need the job anymore.
Needless to say, I made a bunch of mistakes.
I took some huge risks hoping to hit it big. And in the end I lost over $50,000… which was an enormous amount of money to me at the time.
But there was a silver lining. This caused me to slow down. To think. To read. And to do some research.
And I realized I was going about it all wrong. Instead of trying to find piecemeal investments hoping to hit it big, what I needed was a system.
That is to say, I needed consistency. I needed to start doing small things that would turn into big things down the road.
And that’s how I developed, among other things, the two simple habits we’ve been discussing all week.
One of those is buying a little more Bitcoin every single week, regardless of the price. This fits into a larger asset allocation model.
The other is adding notes to my crowdlending portfolio each week. If done correctly, this approach can turn $500 into $50,000 in just four years’ time.
And that’s not hypothetical. Unlike, the stock market, we don’t have to deal with price volatility within our crowdlending portfolio. With the right approach we’ll maintain a consistent rate of return.
The key point is this: when it comes to financial success, forming good habits and sticking with them consistently is the winning recipe.
And here’s the best part – this approach is simple. There’s nothing fancy or complicated about it.
Plus, we can get started with any amount of money. There are no barriers to entry.
You know, I read a book back in 2003 that completely changed my life. It’s called The Instant Millionaire by Mark Fisher.
It took about a decade for the ideas in that book to truly sink in. But once they did, my life took an entirely different course.
So I would like to leave you today with my favorite passage in that book. It’s an idea that hooked itself deep within my mind… and completely changed my worldview. Here it is:
External circumstances are not really very important. Keep this well in mind: all the events in your life are a mirror image of your thoughts.
Words of wisdom…
-Joe Withrow
P.S. Don’t forget that we’ve made The Financial Consistency Bundle available through Saturday at midnight Eastern. That means there’s just over 48 hours left to claim it.
This is the very first bundle we’ve ever put out. It allows people to get two of our top financial courses for the price of one.
The first course is Finance for Freedom. It’s our flagship course on how to build a robust asset allocation model.
And the second is The Income Snowball Strategy. This one lays out our approach to building a crowdlending portfolio. Here we share the strategies that can turn $500 into $50,000 in just four years.
We’re trying out the bundle idea really just as an experiment. Is this something people might be interested in? I’m not sure.
That’s why we’re going to pull the offer on Saturday evening and see where we are. So if you are interested, please give it a look before then.
More information right here: The Financial Consistency Bundle