With luck, many of the principles in this book will become part of a mandatory high school curriculum. People want to learn this. When I taught high school personal finance, it was one of my school’s most popular electives. The school had class-size limitations and wasn’t supposed to break those limits. But I couldn’t, in good conscience, refuse any of the students who wanted to enroll.
Routinely, well-meaning counselors allowed my class sizes to swell beyond the maximum. I’m glad they did. One year, 40 percent of my American students opened index fund portfolios with Vanguard.
Those kids, and their parents, wanted to learn about money. They also wanted to teach. Many of my students recorded screencasts that they uploaded onto YouTube. They wanted to show how young investors could get started right away. I linked a few of them to this blog post at andrewhallam.com: andrewhallam.com/2013/04/high-school-students-open-investment-accounts/.
These students learned what we all should have learned in school:
Think and spend like a millionaire if you want to become rich.
Start investing early—after paying off credit card debt and any other high-interest loans.
Invest in low-cost index funds instead of actively managed funds. Nobody can consistently pick “winning” actively managed funds ahead of time.
Understand stock market history and psychology so you don’t fall victim to the craziness that infects every investing generation (often more than once).
Learn to build a complete, balanced portfolio of stock and bond index funds that will beat most professional investors after fees.
Create an indexed account no matter where you live.
Find low-cost financial advisory firms that build portfolios of index funds.
Learn to fight an adviser’s sales rhetoric.
Avoid investment schemes and scams that might tickle a greed button.
Live long, prosper, and please pass on what you learn.
Thank you!
Andrew
About the Author
Andrew Hallam was a high school personal finance and English teacher. He writes investment columns for The Globe and Mail and for AssetBuilder, a US-based investment firm. He was also a columnist for Canadian Business magazine. His work has appeared in a variety of publications, including MoneySense magazine, Reader’s Digest, Personal Money, Malaysia’s Sun Daily, and L’actualité.
Andrew and his wife, Pele, are Digital Nomads. They give public talks about money and investing around the world. They love to explore hidden (and not so hidden) corners of the globe—while avoiding cold winters whenever they can.
Index
A Random Walk Down Wall Street
Actively managed bond funds
Actively managed mutual funds/unit trusts
12B1 fees
expense ratios
futility of trying to pick top funds
global fund fee comparisons
morningstar five-star funds
odds of beating indexes
percentage in
sales commissions
survivorship bias
trading costs
Adviser’s sales rhetoric
American Funds
AssetBuilder
Automobiles car-purchasing strategies
cars purchased by millionaires
Backfill bias
Balanced allocation
Behavior of investors
Betterment
BMO Smart Folio
Bogle, John
Bortolotti, Dan
Brokerage fees
Burns, Scott
Cars, buying and leasing
Coca-Cola
Common Sense on Mutual Funds
Corporate bonds
Couch Potato Portfolio Canadian couch potato
during market declines
global couch potato
Currency hedged funds
CXO Advisory
Dimensional Fund Advisors
DIY index fund investing in Australia
in Canada
in Great Britain
in Singapore
in United States
Dollar-cost averaging
e-Series index funds
Exchange-traded index funds (ETFs)
Fidelity
Forecasts
Gilder Technology Report
Global economic crisis
Globe and Mail
Gold, poor long-term returns
Growth stock funds
Hedge fund returns
Hulbert Financial Digest
Human emotions sabotage returns
Index funds American
Australian
British
Canadian
Singaporean
Infinity Investment Series
Inflation
Insta-Cash Loans
Internet technology stock madness
Investing early
Investment magazines
Investment newsletter performance
Investment newsletters
Ignition Wealth
Journal of Portfolio Management
Kahneman, Daniel
Kelson Financial Services
Large-Cap
Madoff, Bernie
Market timing
McGugan, Ian
Mid-Cap
MoneySense magazine
Morningstar
NestWealth
New York Times investment contest
Nobel prize winners support indexes
Nutmeg
Orman, Suze
Pension fund performances
PE Ratio
PlanVision
Proadviser
PWL Capital
Qtrade
Questrade Portfolio IQ
Quietgrowth
Raymond James
Rebalance IRA
Rebalancing
Reinvest dividends
Robo Advisors in Australia
in Canada
in Great Britain
in United States
RW Investment Strategies
S&P 500 Index
Samuelson, Paul
Schultheis, Bill
Sharpe, William
Siegel, Jeremy
SigFig
Singapore American School
Small-Cap
Smart Beta or Factor Based funds
Smartly
SmartMoney magazine
Solin, Daniel
Standard & Poor’s Persistence Scorecard
Stanley, Thomas
Stockspot
Swensen, David
Tangerine
Taxable US accounts
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing
The New CoffeeHouse Investor
US stock market average returns of
Value stock funds
Vanguard Canada
Australia’s Life Strategy funds
target retirement funds
UK
Virgin Money
Virgin U.K.
Wasilewski, Robert
WealthBar
Wealthfront
Wrap fees
Zurich International
WILEY END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
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Millionaire Teacher Page 25
