It's the summer, so we all have time for longer form videos and articles. Look for these periodically over the next few month. Morgan Housel is quickly becoming one of my financial faves after I heard him on this podcast recently.  Then I came across his article simply titled Psychology of Money in which he lists 20 examples of "bad behavior" with money that he has witnessed first-hand. He's a great story-teller and provides great examples that you can share with your students. See how many of these examples can be sabotaging your own finances. 

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Morgan starts by comparing the financial situation of the unassuming secretary with the secret stash of wealth with the profligate banker who had a $66,000 mortgage, that was the monthly payment, and filed for bankruptcy. He astutely points out the unique nature of investing...

In what other field does someone with no education, no relevant experience, no resources, and no connections vastly outperform someone with the best education, the most relevant experiences, the best resources and the best connections?

Some of my favorite quotes/stories from this article:

• Rich man in the car paradox: "The paradox of wealth is that people tend to want it to signal to others that they should be liked and admired. But in reality those other people bypass admiring you, not because they don’t think wealth is admirable, but because they use your wealth solely as a benchmark for their own desire to be liked and admired."

• Anchored-to-your-own-history bias: Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world but maybe 80% of how you think the world works. Has this great chart to show how birth years impact how stock market returns during your formative years probably how impact how you think about the stock market. 

• Love his definition of optimism and how the late Hans Rosling, a best-selling author and statistician (I highly recommend his book Factfulness which I just finished):

Optimism is a belief that the odds of a good outcome are in your favor over time, even when there will be setbacks along the way. The simple idea that most people wake up in the morning trying to make things a little better and more productive than wake up looking to cause trouble is the foundation of optimism. It’s not complicated. It’s not guaranteed, either. It’s just the most reasonable bet for most people. The late statistician Hans Rosling put it differently: “I am not an optimist. I am a very serious possibilist.”

• As for the power of compounding he describes our inability to grasp its consequences until it's often too late:

There are over 2,000 books picking apart how Warren Buffett built his fortune. But none are called “This Guy Has Been Investing Consistently for Three-Quarters of a Century.” But we know that’s the key to the majority of his success; it’s just hard to wrap your head around that math because it’s not intuitive. There are books on economic cycles, trading strategies, and sector bets. But the most powerful and important book should be called “Shut Up And Wait.” It’s just one page with a long-term chart of economic growth. Physicist Albert Bartlett put it: “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”

• In a consumerist society, it's easy to forget that wealth is often what you don't see:

It’s the cars not purchased. The diamonds not bought. The renovations postponed, the clothes forgone and the first-class upgrade declined. It’s assets in the bank that haven’t yet been converted into the stuff you see. But that’s not how we think about wealth, because you can’t contextualize what you can’t see.

Singer Rihanna nearly went broke after overspending and sued her financial advisor. The advisor responded: “Was it really necessary to tell her that if you spend money on things, you will end up with the things and not the money?”

Happy reading!

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.