Discussion

Hi Robert,

I grew up in the Philippines and went to a Private Chinese School.

The most they taught us about money is an accounting class. But it's mostly how to do accounting with no real world basis on how to make money.

The only time I really recall having something related to finance is when I went to University taking up Engineering and we had one subject called Engineering Economy which taught us the concept of Time Value of Money, Amortization, etc. which lead me to a change of career in the financial industry.

The rest of my knowledge came from reading book like Rich Dad Poor Dad which lead me to other books on the subject matter.

My knowledge about money came from the fact that I grew up in a Chinese community in the Philippines where we were taught to value money and to save half of your income.

Sadly, the younger generation seems to have forgotten this and have been more and more like the baby boomers of the US where they spend on luxury goods as a status symbol.

Hello, I'm Brandon from South Korea.
here, education is almost same with what you said on your book.
We can't get education about money.
They don't teach us stock, bond, interest rate, real states...
in addtion, there's old saying "when you see gold, feel it as a rock"
that means do not have desire on money.
I think this is one of the reasons why middle class are getting poorer.
If I can be a president of Ministry of education,
I'll add a new class called 'money'

Schooling in Northern CA, private until high school, then art school. There is NO financial training at all in the private or public schools I attended.
What I learned was from books and seminars when I was in my 40's. I still don't have a large handle on finance but I am head and shoulders above most people I know.
I get so tired of the smoke and mirrors, names and convoluted explanations on how to make your money work for you. Rich Dad Poor Dad was such a breath of fresh air.

Hello Everyone,

I'm from Australia, Melbourne, Victoria. I was born in 1983 and arrived to Australia in 1985. Up until 2002, I taught myself literacy and numeracy skills because in Kindergarden to High School I was not given the proper attention and tuition. Robert's books (this one included) are a great read purely because of its simplicity. I highly recommend it folks! The only schools I believe that are doing a good job teaching this incredibly important subject to its students are either online or from seminars by entrepeneurs.

Thank you so much this Robert and Team!

If you are not an accountant or in a business management you will not learn about Financial matters. The school don't teach Financial Education as a common subject though it's part of our everyday life since our birth in this world.There was a time when I was in grade school in the Philippines they taught all kids in that school to save money in the Bank but after that no more.They didn't say anything about the money you save or the option your going to do about the savings.If you don't have Financial education the last thing that you will do to your savings is spend your savings of course. But,if you have financial education definitely you will invest that money.Even in high shool and in college I never hear anything about financial education.but now in the Philippines they are planning to educate student about financial matters and that is a good move...

Hello Everyone,

I'm from Australia, Melbourne, Victoria. I was born in 1983 and arrived to Australia in 1985. Up until 2002, I taught myself literacy and numeracy skills because in Kindergarden to High School I was not given the proper attention and tuition. Robert's books (this one included) are a great read purely because of its simplicity. I highly recommend it folks! The only schools I believe that are doing a good job teaching this incredibly important subject to its students are either online or from seminars by entrepeneurs.

Thank you so much this Robert and Team!

I went to high school in a small town in Arizona. While there, I took some elective business and bookkeeping courses. Certainly nothing was taught about personal finance or investing. Everything I currently know about personal finance and investing has come from newsletters, books, and online courses.

I had no financial education in public school and very little in College. I had a basic economics class. We read "The Richest Man in Babylon" and I think your Rich Dad books would have been a better choice. You are right Mr. Kiyosaki, the education has failed us in this regard. Thank you for educating the rest of us! Chris

USA, East Coast

As far as I remember, my school did not educate us on financial matters, apart from the basics of the various moeny denominations, taxes costing money, and getting a job pays money.

On the other hand, I had the benefit of working in a family store and learned a few valuable lessons about money and finances there.

A few lessons I learned were:

1. Charge Interest - As a young teen I was given the responsibility of sending out the credit card bills (aka accounts receivable, though at that time I was not aware of this terminology). Being a bleeding heart, I felt that if people attempted to pay their bill each month they should be given a break and should not be charged any interest. I sent out many a bill without charging interest until somehow the light went on that the interest I charge is actually helping to pay for me to work in the store.

2. MAIL the bills - I'll never forget the look on my father's face when I approached a customer with a freshly typed bill. In my mind, I thought I could save my father money by not mailing the bill, instead handing the customer the bill. Luckily the icy daggers that were shot from my fathers eyes, at that very moment I was handing over the bill, were enough to wake me up to the lesson that if you have a paying customer in a store NEVER remind them they owe a balance.

3. Where do I stand - I distinctively remember that at the end of each night my father would count all the money in the cash register. Each denomination, including coins, would be counted separately, then tallied. I still have a vivid picture in my mind of my father counting coins. He would put them in a pile on the counter and then, using his index and middle fingers, grab two coins at a time and move them into a 'counted' pile. It taught me to know your cash position at all times.

4. Marketing counts - Nothing brought people into our store like the balloon promotion. Once a year we would write discount amounts (10%, 15%, 20%) on a piece of paper and insert them into balloons we would blow up and place behind the cash register. Paying customers selected a balloon, which we would pop, to reveal their discount. People loved this game of chance and were always happy to save something, even if they weren't the big winner. I learned that fun promotions generate business.

5. Cut your losses - Not all lessons ended as well as the balloon promotion. In fact, the family business ended up bankrupt. My parents marriage fell apart. Communication was impossible as there were only two emotions expressed 1. anger and 2. resentment. So, as great as the experience of growing up in a family store was, I learned a hard lesson that sometimes you have to cut your losses before things get too bad.

6. Know yourself - After all these years, the one lesson that stuck with me more than any, is the realization that I have an entrepreneurial spirit. Though I may not be living up to my full entrepreneurial potential yet, it's still a very valuable lesson to know who I am.

I'd be hard-pressed to believe young people can learn financial lessons like these from a text book, but who knows... maybe "Conspiracy of the Rich" which change all that!

Currently taking graduate classes in health economics in MI, prior a Bachelors in pharmacy administration in OH. During my time as a undergraduate earning a pharmacy degree, I quickly realized that college is all about educating people to work for others except for the Lawyers, Doctors, Pharmacists, and Engineers. While I was unemployed, I found out how little control a person has after college graduation. As a graduate student in MI, Economics is the closest subject when it came to money and those people who understand it can harness its power and foresee catastrophes in the making. Those people who understand economics will not be afraid in its ever changing climate since they will know the incentives and intuition behind corporate and personal actions. Unfortunately there is not really one school that does a real good job however, taking up a subject of economics can achieve the benefits to question assumptions and create for themselves and other ever changing models that synthesize ever changing assumptions which then tested over a clean slate each time. It is the understanding of economics that the understanding of how money really works is truly understood.