When Your Survival Guy was a Survival Kid, my dad brought my sister and me to the bank to open Passport Savings accounts.
This was life changing because after our first deposit of birthday money and allowances, every monetary event thereafter came with a new choice: spend it or put it in your savings account.
Like clockwork, opening a card from Grandma was followed by “You can put that in your savings account.” What’s the fun in that? Welcome to deferred gratification, kids.
When Your Survival Guy and Gal’s children were born, our parents helped them begin their own money journey. My mom, for example, would buy each grandchild one share of Disney stock for Christmas every year (and still does), which my kids recently sold and used for Spring Break. Kidding Mom.
When my kids were little, my mom would talk to them about Walt Disney and what it meant to be a shareholder. How the company paid a dividend, and over time, one share would turn into more shares through dividend reinvestment. Today, each of them owns more shares than their age.
Earning interest upon interest is a wonderful thing. It can compound a dollar into many more if, and only if, you defer gratification and deal with it. Not always fun. But as the late great Richard Russell would say, investing isn’t supposed to be fun. It’s b-o-r-i-n-g. Boring, that is, until you see how time can make you a Rich Man, and then it’s quite fun.
In every issue of Richard C. Young’s Intelligence Report, he would sign off with “Make it a Good Month.” In other words, make good money decisions one month at a time. You do that for a couple of decades, and you see how making money slowly works miracles.
Harnessing time and compounding money is how money is made slowly.
Action Line: Albert Einstein referred to compound interest as the 8th Wonder of the World. Be a miracle worker. You got this. When you’re ready to talk, email me at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com.
Read the entire series here.
Originally posted on Your Survival Guy.
