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Financial Literacy 101 - Part 1

• American Gutter Monkeys, LLC • Season 1 • Episode 5

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This episode of Monkey Business Radio explores the power of compound interest and how financial decisions made early in life can have a massive impact over time. The Rule of 72 shows how money doubles at a consistent rate, while the Rule of 64 highlights how financial choices in your 20s can multiply 64 times by retirement. These concepts illustrate why starting early is one of the most powerful wealth-building strategies, whether through investing, saving, or avoiding high-interest debt.

The podcast covers topics like debt management, long-term investing, and financial literacy, using real-world examples to break down how money grows—or disappears—over time. With a focus on practical, easy-to-understand insights, it explains how small, consistent financial habits can lead to long-term stability and wealth.














Chris:

Every once in a while someone comes along, shocks the establishment with a new innovation and a tired industry From the movie Moneyball. Here's how Boston Red Sox owner John Henry put it.

Dennis:

Really, what it's threatening is their livelihoods, their jobs. It's threatening the way they do things and every time that happens whether it's the government, a way of doing business, or whatever the people who are holding the reins they have their hands on the switch. They go batshit crazy. Hello.

Chris:

I'm Chris Collins, your host. In this podcast, we dive into stories of innovation, resilience and what it takes to shake up an industry. Joining me is my co-host and resident small business expert, dennis Siggins, or, as he's known on the Cape and Islands, bobby Downspout. Dennis, along with his college roommate, andy Brennan, founded the Cape Cod Gutter Monkeys and transformed the humble task of gutter cleaning into a thriving, multi-million dollar business that redefined the game. Together, we'll uncover the strategies, lessons and inspirations behind building and growing a successful business. So, whether you're here for business insights, inspiration or just a great story, you're in the right place. Grab a cup of coffee, sit back, relax and welcome to Monkey Business Radio. Hello everyone, welcome to Monkey Business Radio. Today we're talking about financial literacy 101, and it's part one of a two-part series we're going to be doing, and this is basically the stuff they should have taught us in school, but for a lot of us, we had to learn the hard way. So here we go, little Dennis how are we doing?

Dennis:

I'm doing good, Chris. How are?

Chris:

you Good good. Today we're diving into some of the most important financial principles you need to know.

Dennis:

One of my favorite topics financial literacy yeah, and if you're in your 20s, this episode really could make a big difference in your life.

Chris:

So starting early gives you a massive edge when it comes to building wealth, and even if you're not 20, you're 25 to 55, there's always time to get involved in your financial education, and this is a good show to kind of learn the basic rules if you haven't already experienced them in your life.

Dennis:

This is a good show to kind of learn the basic rules if you haven't already experienced them in your life. So you mentioned the earlier. The younger you are, the earlier you get started, the better. So let's take a trip back to the 1970s. Chris and I grew up in the 70s. We've known each other since we were teenagers. The 1970s was an interesting time in this country Huge recession, a 10-year recession that oftentimes gets ignored. The 70s was a staple of hyperinflation. We impeached a president. Our soldiers returning home from Vietnam were being assaulted in airports. 52 Americans were taken hostage in Iran and it took us a year and a quarter to get them out. There were mile-long gas lines. I remember those gas lines.

Dennis:

That was brutal All across the country.

Chris:

That's crazy.

Dennis:

Gas prices more than tripled over the decade. In 1970, American average gas prices were $0.36. By 1980, they were up to around $1.20, $1.22.

Dennis:

That was the Arabba, that was oil embargo right, right, well, and that's if you could get the gas, yep, right, our parents would go down. My dad had a, a friend, mr harrington, down on the four corners, who had a gas station and he had a hand-painted sign if you're not on a first name basis, you, you can't get gas here. And he took care of the neighborhood, no one else, and he was open from like four to five in the morning, regular customers only, and my dad was a salesman, he lived in that car and he would have to cover New England and Mr Harrington would gas them up and then he would fill two or three more of the five-gallon canisters and cap them and put them in the trunk. In case my dad found himself in Lewiston, maine, or Trumbull, connecticut or wherever, and he can't get gas, he'd be able to get home. If you want to cripple an economy, remove the gas and the economy will fold like a lawn chair and it did, yeah, it did, and the economy will fold like a lawn chair.

Dennis:

And it did. Yeah, it did. Personally, I grew up an average kid in a middle-income family. Both my parents worked full-time. We didn't take vacations, we took family trips. Disney was on TV on Sunday night it wasn't a place where anyone was going.

Chris:

That was the Magic Kingdom.

Dennis:

You remember?

Chris:

that Because I'd never been there. It was magic. It was magic.

Dennis:

I was like my parents have six kids, you're one of seven, one of seven. Between our two families, we had 13 kids and everybody worked. Yeah, cut lawns. Yeah, per order of my parents, I started delivering newspapers at eight and then we were cutting lawns by 10, 11, and 12. My parents had a rule Half of all your money that you brought in goes into the big bank and the other half goes into the small bank. The big bank was for college, right, Wasn't that the goal?

Chris:

That was the main goal back then. Yep, all the lawn cuttings that I did everything else was basically for college education. Right, my dad got employed. He actually brought a family of seven from Detroit out to Boston area, went to work for Honeywell, laid them off a year later. Seven kids Just moved brand new house.

Dennis:

It was a tough time old is that my parents recognized that despite this crazy economy I mean we were insulated as kids from the economy we had three meals a day and a roof over the head. Life was good. But CDs certificate of deposits at the bank were starting to earn 10%, 12%, 14% interest, to earn 10, 12, 14% interest. So by the time I was about 12 or 13, all my brothers and sisters and I started putting our money into CDs instead of regular bank accounts and I remember my mom used to have us doing 12-month CDs and it would turn over Christmas week and we'd work all year long cutting lawns, shoveling driveways whatever we were doing, we were always making money. And Christmas week we would be really excited because all that money that was now in our bank account was going to go into the CDs and we were checking out what the guaranteed interest rate was and maybe last year it was 13, and this year it's going to be 14%.

Chris:

How many kids do you know spent their pre-Christmas run-up? Looking at bank CD rates.

Dennis:

Oh yeah, I mean, I was 12 years old, I was talking strategy with the banks. I was 13 years old, making bank deposits and I was putting money in CDs. We didn't have access to Wall Street back then, mutual funds, index funds they really weren't available yet to the average person, but CDs were In fact CDs by 1980, 81 peaked out at about 18%. That's guaranteed, and that's where our money was going all through our elementary, middle, high school years, even into college. Our money stayed in CDs and actually CDs were outperforming the market back then. Oh sure it was crushing it, right? If you look at what the stock market produced, the Dow averaged 3% 3.25% over that decade. The NASDAQ, which was brand new, came in in more of the late 70s, was actually averaging about 9% and the S&P was averaging 5% and CDs were pushing anywhere from 12% to 18% and our parents had us just putting all our money in CDs.

Chris:

And what a great opportunity to start our lives All right, great lesson as well as making some money on the side. And I'm kind of amazed by those numbers too, especially some of the Dow and the NASDAQ numbers, because that would be if you were fully invested through that entire period. Right, If you came in in some other areas in that period you were wiped out.

Dennis:

You could lose your shirt Absolutely.

Chris:

Yeah, so that was a rough period.

Dennis:

There were a couple of years in the 70s where the average of the Dow, NASDAQ, all of Wall Street, dropped 19% one year and 26% another year. I mean it was a hard decade.

Chris:

Actually we're going to touch on that later on, I guess about being consistent in your investing, staying the long term, keeping the focus on long term. That's a perfect example. If you got in the wrong time and during that period of time, you could really have gotten wiped out or pulled out too early, or vice versa.

Dennis:

Or bought too late.

Chris:

Yeah, that period of time you could really have gotten wiped out, or pulled out too early, or vice versa, or bought too late. Yeah, absolutely.

Dennis:

Absolutely.

Chris:

You ready to kind of dive into your four rules and start talking about the things you learned early on in your career?

Dennis:

your investing career. My whole life, my whole financial life, has been centered around these four rules the rule of 72, the rule of 64, the 80-20 rule and the 20-minute rule. And today we're going to start with the first two the rule of 72 and the rule of 64. The rule of 72, it's just a simple mathematical formula and here's how it works. If you take the number 72 and you divide 72 by your investment's annual return, the result will produce the number is 9. At 8%, your money will double in 9 years.

Chris:

And just for people who are listening along, we're going to throw up some of the spreadsheet and the charts for these different rules we're going through. We're going to throw those up on our YouTube channel American Gutter Monkeys on YouTube. So if you want to come back and take a look at those, we'll have the actual charts up for you, okay, I want to talk about the rule of 72 and how it applies yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Dennis:

If you take the stock market the stock market that we all invest in, that you watch on TV every day in any 25-year segment of the history of the stock market, the lowest the stock market has ever produced was 10.2%. The annual average typically is 11 to 11.7. The last 10 to 15 years it's been up into the 13, 13.5% range. But money invested in the stock market is almost always likely to produce roughly 11% and at 11% your money is going to double every six and a half years. And that's been. My rule of thumb is money invested in the stock market, in mutual funds, index funds not individual stocks, but in mutual funds and index funds is generally going to produce roughly 11% minimum and it's very likely your money is going to double every seven years. So let's talk about what is a mutual fund. Chris, do you invest in mutual funds, index funds, that type of thing? Yep.

Chris:

All sorts of different things. Yep, yep. I'm not a stock picker by any means no, I'm not either Done a few, dabbled in a few different stocks and things like that, but it's definitely not my strong suit and I know my investing style and I'm too emotional about investing, so I try to keep an arm's length from my investments through a broker and through a CFP, a financial planner.

Dennis:

A stock represents ownership in a company. So if you purchase stock in Tesla, you actually own a small piece of Tesla and if that company does well, then your stock will do well. If that company doesn't do well, then your stock could lose money. That's a single stock. That's a single stock. But if you're not sure, like most people are not overly educated in the area of stocks so what we do is we invest in a mutual fund.

Dennis:

A mutual fund is a group of similar stocks. So if you don't want to invest in Tesla or Ford or GM, you can invest in a mutual fund, a group of stocks that represents all automobiles or the transportation industry in general. You're not investing in Ford. You might be investing in transportation in general, in general. You may not want to invest in Xfinity or other utilities, but you may want to invest in the utilities. So you can buy utility stock. You can buy utility mutual funds. You can invest your money in Pacific Rim stocks, technology stocks, but these are in the form of mutual funds, a mutual fund. You're not betting on an individual company. You're betting on the industry, and the industries are less likely to boom and less likely to crash. They're just going to earn their steady hopefully 11% a year and that's how a lot of Americans invest. Yeah, and it's diversification.

Chris:

that's so important when you start getting into these mutual funds, and you can even diversify against across a broad range S&P. You can buy an S&P mutual fund and invest in all the S&P across the board, so it gives you some diversification as well. I think Warren Buffett said it, why diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they're doing. I would probably modify that and say why diversification is required by investors. It's just a rule.

Dennis:

So, just to recap, investing in mutual funds is a much more conservative and, I view, as a safer way for the average person to invest in Wall Street. And the average stock market growth in the last 10 years has been 13.9%. In the last 30 years has been 10.7%, the last 50 years has been 10.9% and the overall industry average the Dow, s&p and NASDAQ over their group of lifetimes is 11% 11.7%. So 11 is the number that I generally go with and that can vary a little bit one way or the other. But at 11% growth, your money is going to double every seven years. So I can focus on my business, on my company, on my own personal interests, while my mutual funds are protected by the size and the diversity of them and I don't have to study them like I would have to study stocks. So the rule of 72 works this way you take 72, divide it by 11, we're at six and a half. So money invested in mutual funds will show a great likelihood of doubling every six and a half to seven years, as long as you leave it there long enough, and typically we use a sample of 25 years. So if you start investing when you're 12 or 13 or 14,. It's so dynamic. It's so dynamic because by the time you're 20, 21, 22, you not only have money that you've put into the bank and transferred it into CDs and mutual funds, you not only have that money, you also have the benefit of interest compounding over many years.

Dennis:

But the other thing is you've gained financial literacy. The amount of financial knowledge that you have at 20 years old is so much greater than other people who've never invested money. And it's not like a video game where you're just playing with pretend money. When you're out cutting lawns, shoveling driveways, working in restaurants, you're investing your own real money. This is hard-earned money and as a 15, 16, 17-year-old kid, you're going to follow that money. It's not play money, it's the real deal and you're going to track it and you're going to pay attention to it and the stuff that you're going to learn. This is why, now, chris, you often say, hey, they should teach this stuff in school. It's hard to teach that in school because in school you're reading a book or a pamphlet.

Dennis:

In real life, you've cut lawns. My brothers and I used to cut anywhere from 25 to 30 lawns every week. So after cutting 8, 10, 12 lawns, then you're on your bike, riding down to the bank. This is real. You're in the bank. You're depositing that money that you worked your fanny off for. That's why financial literacy must be learned, and yet it's hard to teach. My parents gave us the seeds that grew into it, but my parents can't monitor my every activity. They can't teach me how to cut a lawn. They can't be riding over my shoulder or helicoptering over me and micromanaging my activities. No, they're sending me out the door to cut lawns and I take it from there.

Chris:

Yeah, which is probably an important part of what's happening today is that people aren't going out. The kids of today, you know so much, aren't actually ending up working those jobs anymore, and I think part of it is because costs, especially for colleges, so insurmountable. They kind of throw their hands up in the air and say, well, what's the point? But you can see from this, you know from what we're talking about here, is the earlier you get started, it's not insurmountable. You know, if you start at 12 and 13, starting, with money, you can do it.

Dennis:

It's dynamic it does get insurmountable.

Chris:

the longer you wait, it gets tougher and tougher.

Chris:

So, again, getting as early as possible, getting involved in this, getting involved, getting your financial literacy up and then finding an avenue for investing. Then there's some great ones out there today. You don't have to be. We talk about stocks and mutual funds. It might not be your thing, but there's some really great apps out there today. I don't know, I'll talk about one. It's called Wealthfront, which is basically a robo-investor for you and you just put your money in there and it invests it for you Wide diversification, bonds, stocks based on your risk appetite and my kids use it. Very, very, very low fees for doing it and you can check on your stocks and check on your bonds, but you don't actually have to pick them. It does it for you. I highly recommend looking into those sort of things if you're interested in starting getting started.

Dennis:

Well. So to wrap up, the rule of 72, albert Einstein once said the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest. Over time is compound interest over time the earlier you start investing, the greater growth that your money has, or the greater potential for growth that your money has. But it also works the other way. And let's say, for example, you carry a balance on your credit card over to the next month and let's say the interest that the credit card company is charging you is 18%. If you divide 18 into 72, the rule of 72 says that credit card company is going to double their money at your expense over four years. So the rule of 72 can work in your favor and it can also work against you. So anytime you're paying any level of interest, whether it's a mortgage or a school loan or especially credit cards, it could be that the rule of 72 is working against you. So just be aware of that, just be aware of that.

Chris:

Yeah, With a large number of people carrying over. Nowadays I forget what the numbers were, we kind of went over them last week but a large number of people carrying over debt month to month. I think you made a good point last week. If you're going down to McDonald's or something and putting that on your credit card, you're paying the highest interest allowed by law.

Chris:

For a cheeseburger and fries For a cheeseburger and fries For a cheeseburger and fries. Think of it that way.

Chris:

I read another thing that was really kind of interesting too, as you think about it, especially carrying debt not to kind of get off topic a little bit, but carrying debt over month to month on your credit card. I don't know about you, but basically we use our credit cards all the time. We kind of use it to track expenses and we pay them off at the end of the month. But we bank a lot of the points because we have a Southwest card and so we do a lot of flying, so we basically bank it to Southwest. And the way the article put it is basically, if you're carrying over your debt month to month and paying these fees, you're basically paying for my points to go flying, basically. So what's happening is those points that they give to for racking up come out of those fees, and so you can think of it in that terms if it gives you a little bit more impetus not to carry your expenses over month to month on your credit cards.

Dennis:

Keeping the rule of 72 in mind. My next rule is the rule of 64. And this is one that I've sort of created on my own over the years. The rule of 64 is a general guideline that I've developed and it looks something like this Everything we do in our 20s is magnified 64 times over in our retirement years, in our 60s, and it's based on the rule of 72 and the low average expectations of the mutual fund market 11%. Money that's invested will be worth 64 times over 42 years later. Let's talk about that If you're 18 years old and your grandparents give you $10,000 for your high school graduation, If you put it in mutual funds and it earns approximately 11%, it's going to double every seven years.

Dennis:

So when you're 25, it's going to be worth 20 grand. Seven years later, at 32, it's going to be worth $40,000. Seven years later, at 39, that $40,000 doubles to $80,000. $160,000, $320,000, and when you turn 60, that $10,000 investment that you made at the age of 18 is now worth approximately $640,000. Approximately 640,000. Over 42 years it went from 10,000 to 640,000. It increased 64-fold, and there's the reason for my rule of 64. Everything we do in our 20s is magnified 64 times over in your retirement years.

Chris:

So amazing. I wish I had seen this or known about this when I was investing. It's just amazing.

Dennis:

I have a niece that one time just recently had a conversation with her and she was a travel nurse during COVID and she made killer money.

Dennis:

And this is another thing about financial literacy is it's always learned on your own out in the real world.

Dennis:

She began earning money and she had to do something with it and she obviously somehow set up with a financial planner who got her putting money into mutual funds and she opened up IRAs and SEPs and other such investment processes.

Dennis:

And we were talking about a year or two ago. And she said you know, I'm at the point where if I just make two more years of contributions, at that point I'll be 34 years old and if I crunch the numbers, I don't have to have to put any more money in there and my financial portfolio will be fully mature when I hit 62. Wow. So she knew that at the age of 32, or however old she was at the time, she could look at the and I didn't teach her this. She just learned this on her own because she has her own financial planner, she has her own people around her. But she knew at the age of 32 that if she just makes two more years of contributions and I'm assuming she's heavily contributing to her IRAs, then she doesn't have to put any more money in and that will grow to full maturity what she wants at 62, and she will be able to retire comfortably at 62, and she knows this at 32.

Chris:

So what kind of?

Dennis:

attitude. Do you think she can go to work with?

Chris:

Life is easy, it's good yeah, right, a lot of opportunities now are available to her, that's exactly right.

Chris:

Maybe she works hard as a traveling nurse, maybe she wants to change her job up, maybe go do a little more charity work or something like that. It gives her all these different options that she can actually go and do. And I think the other important point of that whole thing was also that you did seek out a CFP, a certified financial planner. They're available all over now. Your bank, your average bank, has them. You can go online, find them. The earlier you get one now is really important.

Dennis:

You want to start early? Get one at 20.

Chris:

Go down to your bank. They have a CFP down there. Sit across from your banker and your CFP and find out.

Dennis:

Find out what your relationship is with your money and how you think of money and get some advice. Get advice as early as possible. Continuing on with that same rule of 64, everything we do in our 20s is magnified 64 times over in our retirement years. What if you start a simple investment plan at 18 years old? If you make continuous monthly contributions of $250, it's $3,000 a year and you make $3,000 a year contributions towards your retirement at 11% over 42 years will result in roughly a $2.5 million retirement account. It's 250 bucks a month. Can you find that? Are you able to find $250 a month, 60 bucks a week that you can invest? And if you do, that's just one piece to your retirement puzzle and it's going to be worth several million dollars when you get there. It's that simple.

Dennis:

Everything we do in our 20s is going to be magnified 64 times over. Not to piss in your cornflakes here, chris, but it works the same way on the other side of the fence. Conversely, the rule of 64 can work against you. A single $10 pack of cigarettes at 20 years old is $640. That is not going to be available 42 years from now, and I don't know how much do cigarettes cost.

Chris:

I don't know, oh God, I don't know $30 a pack nowadays how much. Like $30?

Dennis:

No no, no, I think it's like $10. I don't know though.

Chris:

I have no idea.

Dennis:

I don't smoke.

Chris:

So I walk into one of these convenience stores and take a look at what's up on the screen there.

Dennis:

Yeah, a $10 a day cigarette habit is about $70 a week, $3,650 a year. Over 42 years this becomes roughly $2.7 million that you do not have available to you in your retirement years. That's amazing. Remember this relates to all discretionary spending, all discretionary income Dunkin' Donuts, coffee in the morning, meals eaten out, meals ordered out and delivered in vacations, anything, anything and everything that falls under disposable or discretionary income. Disposable or discretionary income is the income, the money left over after you've paid all your bills and do you invest it. I mean, you've got to have fun, you've got to do stuff, but you've got to have that balance. And if you get on a savings or investing plan, then that $10 a day or that $250 a month, that becomes part of your monthly process.

Chris:

And again, there's online things to do this, to track these expenses, you know, highly recommend as early as possible to get involved in them. There's a program called Mint which is very popular. Ties together all your investments and your bank accounts and things like that. It categorizes your spending so it really gives you a good idea where your money is going over time and you can start visually seeing. You know the impact of that Dunkin' Donuts or that pack of cigarettes or whatever you've got, also using a debit card Also, some of these debit cards are very good at categorizing your expenses. So when you use this debit card and use it all the time, it categorizes your expenses. So at the end of the month you have a really good view of what you've been spending your money on.

Chris:

And it's a great way to introduce yourself to your spending habits and find that money that's in there to free up to start funding some of your savings accounts and things like that that we've been talking about. And again, you can start as early as you possibly can, the earlier the better. So there's some great things online, like that Mint. I highly recommend taking a look at Mint or any of those other and we're not actually sponsored by Mint or anything, but yeah, I'd highly recommend looking into those.

Dennis:

So, chris, let's take the example of the identical twins at age 18. Let's say one of the identical twins decides to invest $3,000 on his birthday when he's 18, and he does this continuously for eight payments in a row until he's 25. So when he makes a $3,000 contribution at 18, and then again at 19 and 20, 21, 22, right to his 25th birthday, at 11% interest invested in mutual funds or index funds invested in mutual funds or index funds At 25, his small portfolio is going to be approximately $3,000 per year into a very similar platform. But twin number one doesn't put any more money in. And when the two turn 34 years old, twin number one has $84,000 and twin number two has $40,000. So twin number one has a $44,000 lead. Remember, twin number one is no longer contributing money and twin number two continues to contribute every single year for the rest of his life. At 41 years old, twin number one has $168,000 in there and twin number two has $120,000. Twin number one has a $48,000 lead and seven years later that lead has grown to $56,000. And seven years after that twin number one, who's only invested the initial $24,000 many years ago, he has $672,000. And twin number two, who's been contributing steadily ever since the age of 26, and now he's 55 years old, has $600,000. Twin number one has gained another $72,000 lead over his brother because he did his investing early. That's the benefit of getting out ahead of the pack and start investing early. His identical twin will never catch him. He can't because he had the eight year lead. He got an eight year headstart. So wealth building has less to do with annual income and everything to do with good habits and building your net worth.

Dennis:

So, chris, let's take the next set of twins. One twin chooses college and the other one goes to work. If twin number one, at 18 years old, goes to work, lives at home, he works hard and at 22 years old, he banks $50,000 over that previous four years and he also has a good job, maybe making 60 grand a year. Again, this is 2025. I don't know what people are making out there. So twin number one at 18 goes to work, he stays home, he's diligent, saves his money and at 22 years old, he has a car or a truck that's bought and paid for. He's got 50 grand in the bank and a job making 60,000 a year. Life is good.

Dennis:

His identical twin goes off to college and he lands on the other end of the spectrum. After four years he has a college degree but he doesn't have a car and he's still interviewing, looking for a job. But he has $250,000 in college loan debt. I know that's worst case scenario, but let's talk about it. A monthly payment on $250,000 college loan and this is even at 3.6% Over 30 years is $1,900 a month. So twin number two has to begin paying a loan at $1,900 a month. Twin number one has no such payment. So if he chooses, he can invest $1,900 a month while his twin brother is trying to pay off $1,900 a month.

Dennis:

Irregardless, twin number one has a $300,000 lead over twin number two because twin number two has college debt of $250,000 and twin number one has $50,000 in the bank. So looking back at example number one and the $40,000 lead000 and twin number one has $50,000 in the bank. So looking back at example number one and the $40,000 lead that the twin number one had there and twin number two can never catch him if he performs in that same platform. In the second example high school twin number one has a $300,000 lead over his college-educated brother. How in the heck is college twin number two ever going to catch his brother. His brother has a $300,000 lead.

Dennis:

That is almost insurmountable. And the reason I bring this example up is I want young kids to know the full impact of college and the full financial impact. If twin number two went to college and he didn't go to an Ivy League school or an expensive school, if he went to a state school and he was able to live at home for the first two years and pay tuition only and then transfer, maybe he could have got out of college with $20,000 or $30,000 or $40,000 in debt. That's manageable, that's workable. But when you get into the six figures in debt it's so hard to come back Right.

Chris:

So many kids do it nowadays and they have no idea they're doing it. They have no idea. They don't know about it until they get that first bill from their company. It's rough. Massachusetts actually has a very good. I don't know if it until they get that first bill from their company, and it's rough. Massachusetts actually has a very good. I don't know if you're aware of it, but Massachusetts Community College is now free. Yeah, tuition, that's huge Tuition's free.

Chris:

yeah, it's huge to be able to go in there and get all your standard courses out of the way.

Dennis:

Still got to buy your books, right? Still got to buy your books and stuff, but the tuition is free. That's huge Phenomenal, you know. Take advantage of that. There's other ways to take advantage of that.

Chris:

So, yep, the lesson here is you know be financially aware, Right yeah, we're not saying you know, don't go to college.

Dennis:

No, no, no, college isn't worth doing it.

Chris:

You know that's obviously not true. But to be aware of what you're stepping into Again, talk to an advisor, go down to your bank, you know, get the full picture before you basically are buying into a $250,000, you know loan and and do it with you know some sort of forethought.

Dennis:

You hear me say this a lot and I'm going to say it again. You know, some people go to where the puck is. I want to go to where the puck is going to be when I get there. So, looking at college in this example, look five years ahead. You know, you're 17 years old. 18 years old, You're a senior. Take a look out there. Look at all the options. You know a high school senior has many. He can go military, he or she can go into the corporate world. He or she could go to college or get a job. There's a lot of options for you.

Chris:

There's good online things, especially in the coding world. Now you can go on, get your coding degree. A lot of companies now are using online degrees like that for hiring purposes.

Dennis:

Having great financial literacy is like being on financial steroids. As your financial literacy grows and your financial platform grows, you have strength that other people don't have. When you're buying a car, you just have more options. So many times I can look back at myself or people co-workers or associates of mine looking at decisions they made and then, 10 years later, looking where they are and seeing the positive impact of good decisions made. College is a huge one. Today it's a huge, huge decision, and I think that Americans are finally sick and tired of six figures in debt.

Chris:

Yeah, I read an article the other day, I think the Wall Street Journal was talking about how certain colleges are dropping their expenses now their tuitions and things because people aren't showing up at their door. Yeah, so maybe that's what will end up happening. I know it's also kind of compounded by it. There's a lot of the gurus out there. If you go on the internet and whatever and look at them, these guys are all saying your 20s and your college years, and even after your college years, don't go to work right away, go find yourself, explore, do all this sort of stuff which flies in the face of everything that we're talking about here. Because when you come back to it, even if you come back to it at 30 years old, you've lost 12 years of investing potential. And, as we've already talked about here, what happens when you lose that 12 years? You're going to struggle to catch up with someone who didn't, and that's just kind of the reality of it. So, those gurus out there telling you to travel and find yourself yeah, don't listen.

Chris:

Don't listen to them, because you can see this is exactly what your outcome is going to be.

Dennis:

It's pretty clear here what we're talking about today. So you know, given everything we've talked about, let's quickly go back and kind of revisit those 1970s years and, as we look at that now, think of the value that we had back then the opportunity to invest in CDs, which was very conservative, producing anywhere from 12% to 18%, whereas the stock market during that decade was producing between 3% and 9%. So it was just. My parents were hard workers and they were really blessed with good financial literacy because they were both born in the Depression. They grew up poor. They didn't have a whole lot of money, so you learn to take care of your money when you don't have a whole lot of it. And I'm going to kind of wrap up this topic for today. We have two additional rules that we'll talk about in our next show the 80-20 rule and the 20-minute rule.

Dennis:

But just to kind of wrap this whole thing up for today, recent income statistics from the world GDP shows that the wealthiest 20% of people and this is in this country, the wealthiest 20% own 83% of the wealth and the remaining 80% of Americans own the rest of the 17%. A similar study featured on Statistacom and this was in 2016, basically reiterated that, and that is the wealthiest. 20% of Americans own 88% of the American wealth, while the remaining 80% own only 11.7%. And one really shocking statistic that was revealed in that study is that the bottom 50% of Americans own just 1.2% of the wealth. That's amazing own just 1.2% of the wealth. Basically, the bottom 50% own little to nothing and the top 50% own all the rest, but the top 20% own virtually all of the wealth in this country.

Dennis:

I don't think I know hardly any people that became wealthy because they inherited it. I just don't know that many wealthy families. So you know, the choices that we make in our teens and twenties will have a strong influence in determining which of these categories we belong to the top 50, the bottom 50, the top 20, or the bottom 80. Good decisions made at the right time early on in your life have great, great potential. So that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Chris:

Okay Well, that sounds good. Okay Well, we're going to go out on that note. We're coming back with a part two of this. We're going to go through some other rules that we've got here, but yeah, so that was Financial Literacy 101, part one. We'll be back next week, hopefully, with another version of the podcast.

Dennis:

All right, Chris, thank you much. We'll see you next week.

Chris:

We're waiting for it.

Dennis:

No monkeys were harmed in the making of this podcast.

Chris:

All right, I shouldn't have to remind you of that. All right, we'll see you guys later. Bye, thank you for tuning in to Monkey Business Radio. If you enjoyed today's episode, please make sure to subscribe, like and follow us wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us reach more aspiring entrepreneurs like you, and if you've got a question or topic you'd like us to cover, leave a comment or reach out to us on social media. We'd love to hear your thoughts and keep the conversation going. Don't forget to leave us a five-star review if you found the episode valuable, and make sure to share it with anyone who might benefit from our tips and stories. We'll see you next time. This podcast is produced by American Gutter Monkeys LLC. Build real wealth through business ownership. For details, visit us at AmericanGutterMonkeyscom.