“What is something that should be taught in school but isn’t?”
There is a scene in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1986 film “Peggy Sue Got Married” in which an Algebra teacher asks the time-traveling Peggy Sue why she turned in a completely blank paper on a pop quiz.
Her response is that she will have no use for Algebra as an adult and she speaks from experience.
I’m not certain that’s true, but I took four years of math classes in high school and I’m not sure what good taking trigonometry or calculus did, I probably would have been better off taking industrial arts (shop) even though I had no aptitude for it or interest in it.
Classes that don’t exist in most places but would be useful might be called Adult Skills 101 or Introduction to Gullibility.
Another might be Delayed Gratification (and Why It’s a Good Thing).
As difficult as it might be to believe, the concept of using credit cards to buy things before you could afford them is a relatively new one. Several of the friends I grew up with had parents who paid cash for everything except their houses. And believe it or not, people who took out mortgages to buy their homes paid the mortgage every month until the house was paid for.
The basic idea was that people earned the good things in their lives. If someone had a nice car, it was because they earned the money to be able to afford a nice car. And the price they paid for the car was the value of the car, not a lot of extra fees that came with a car loan.
Yes, they waited. But when they had the car, it was theirs for as long as it was useful.
The way things are done now, they get the car right away, but they pay a lot more for it. And too often, right about the time it’s paid for, it is pretty close to being worn out.
Too many people use credit to create the illusion they are living better than they really are. They may think they’re living beyond their means, and maybe they are as long as nothing goes wrong. But if they lose their job, or if they become ill, or just if there’s a downturn in the economy, too often the bottom falls out.
So if rule one that should be taught in school is not using credit to live beyond your means, then rule two has to be making whatever extra effort you can to save money.
Once was the time saving was a priority.
Boy, did that change. We actually reached a point a few years back where the average American’s rate of savings was less than zero.
I read somewhere recently that more often than not, if someone was hit with an unexpected expense of as little as $400, they wouldn’t be able to handle it without going into debt.
Four hundred dollars.
Talk about appalling.
My three closest friends in the world are all past the age traditionally associated with retirement and are still working. It’s not because they love their jobs so much. I’m pretty certain all three would be retired if they could even come close to maintaining their standard of living.
I’m the lucky one. I have a brilliant wife who had a hugely successful career, and 20 years ago we made the decision to live a little less well than we could afford and use the extra money to maximize saving for retirement.
We did have to make one sacrifice. We left California and moved to the Southeast, and as a result we have a house that’s completely paid for and are thinking of buying a second house for vacations.
There is a third important thing that should be taught in school, along with minimizing credit and maximizing savings.
It’s a sad one.
It comes down to this. If you’re dealing with anyone you don’t know well, don’t be trusting. Don’t assume that people will deal honestly with you. If someone can profit by cheating you, never assume that they won’t do it.
If you’re going to trust someone, make certain they’re worthy of your trust.
Those three rules are things everyone should learn.
For the average person, they’re a lot more useful than trigonometry.