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The College Investor: Road Maps To Flipping Debt Into Wealth Plans

  • (1:30) - Robert Farrington: The Millennial Money Expert

  • (5:10) - Learning To Invest at a Young Age: Where Should You Start?

  • (9:45) - How Much Do You Need To Save Per Year To Reach a Million Dollars?

  • (14:20) - Never Too Late To Start Investing: Balancing Now and Your Future

  • (19:30) - Creating a Plan That Works For You: Understanding Needs, Wants, Goals

  • Podcast@Zacks.com

 

Welcome back to Mind Over Money. I'm Kevin Cook, your field guide and storyteller for the fascinating arena of behavioral economics.

In a recent episode, I featured a gentleman who has designed what I believe is the ultimate personal finance software. It's better than anything I've ever seen.

That episode which came out on May 12 was titled Get Your Money Game In Top Shape With Mark Harvey, The MoneyPlan Coach.

What I loved about Mark Harvey's approach was the comprehensive nature of the platform for all areas of your financial life. And all the calculations were well connected so you could create scenarios for anything you wanted to see.

Mark is also big on getting the message to people when they are young and impressionable -- but also flexible in their habits -- with financial education and tools like this.

Be sure to catch that episode if you haven't yet because it's packed with good perspective from a guy who was cutting his teeth in the mortgage market over 30 years ago and he's now an RIA and has the highest fiduciary role with the IRS to serve his clients, that of the Enrolled Agent.

Meet the College Investor

As I was helping Mark look for other podcasts to visit and spread the word, I came across another gem of a teacher, Robert Farrington of The College Investor. The website is a dynamic hub of information, resources, methodologies, and platform, institution, and technology reviews for new investors. Here's the quick overview...

The College Investor is on a mission to help you escape student loan debt so that you can start building real wealth for the future.

They help you navigate your personal finance decisions - so you can escape debt, earn more money, learn how to start investing, and more.

The College Investor has been providing expert guides, reviews, tutorials, and more for their readers since September 2009. What started out as a personal finance blog by founder Robert Farrington has evolved into a financial media brand reaching millions of readers per month - across their website, podcast, and video channels.

In the podcast, I talk with the very enthusiastic founder Robert Farrington, America’s Millennial Money Expert® and America's Student Loan Debt Expert.™

After talking a little about Robert's early experiences with money, debt, and investing, I dive right into asking him about three benchmark articles for his wide audience, including the up-and-coming Gen Z...

How To Get Started Investing In College
How To Get Started Investing In Your 20s
How To Get Started Investing In Your 30s

What impresses me about Robert's approach to early investing education is that it basically "flips the script" for a college grad from "saddled with debt" to a mentality of "proactively crushing debt and building lifetime wealth."

That headstart at 20 vs 30 is powerful!

And what I also love about getting to high school and college kids is that if you can teach them to budget for saving and investing, you've taught them one of the most powerful skill-habits that will serve them tremendously in their prime earning and spending years.

One question I forgot to ask Robert was this: I've started to see a mini-revolt online (YouTube influencers) toward the 401k as if it is some type of giant scam. If you as a reader or listener have a view here, please share in the comments, or when you share the podcast and article on social media.

The $100 Billion Cult Doubles

In 2018, I talked about "The $100 Billion Cult: Video Gaming and Youth Culture" and now that market is going to cross $200 billion this year. Microsoft thinks it's such a big part of what I call the "ET Squared Economy" (Exponential Technology X Experience + Transformation) that they were willing to bet $68.7 billion to swallow up Activision Blizzard.

Millennials and Gen Z are working, earning, creating, and spending in this new ET Squared Economy that allows them to individually build wealth as they partake in massive global wealth generation.

Last week, my guest was Zechariah Schaefer of the Advice-Only firm Ascent Personal Finance where he focuses on helping Gen Z and Millennial investors with financial planning. Catch that episode for more insight on what drives the youth fascination for games, tech, crypto, and the new rules of a new economy.

And if I had to recommend five stocks for those 45 and under right now, I'd go with NVIDIA NVDA, Apple, Shopify SHOP, Block, and CrowdStrike CRWD. Maybe I'd throw in MongoDB too as a robust and innovative database technology platform that offers a new ecosystem outside Google and AWS for developers.

Why NVIDIA? The #1 provider of advanced technology for machine learning/AI, gaming/creating, medical diagnostics, and automation/robotics capabilities.

Why Apple AAPL? The juggernaut will continue to dominate in devices and software, even for what comes next in augmented reality (AR) after the iPhone.

Why Shopify? As Robert Farrington recommends, all young investors should be building multiple streams of income, and Shopify will be a magnet for learning the ropes of e-commerce.

Why Block SQ? The premier ecosystem for small business is dedicated to serving all kinds of independent creators and staying in tune with the Blockchain economy.

Why CrowdStrike? A top cybersecurity platform specializing in endpoint threats at the edge of the cloud. This is vital in a world of IoT, 100 billiion connected devices, and remote work.

College Investor Audio Show

Finally, I want to highlight the genius of Robert Farrington with his alternative podcast mode. Instead of long, rambling interviews (I feel seen), he publishes short episodes of the College Investor Audio Show every week that highlight new research, reviews, or recap an existing article.

Sounds like I could learn a few things from Robert and his team.

Be sure to listen to our "shorter" chat and get the goods from a mission-driven investor who's been working over a decade to help Millennials (and now their kids) sketch their roadmap and get the vehicles for a life of wealth building.

Disclosure: I own shares of all the stocks mentioned in this article.


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