NikolopoulosJohnPodcast

The podcast discusses the abundance of personal finance advice available online, with Dave Ramsey being the most popular figure. The host, Andrew Kikala, is the source of inspiration for the educator teaching personal finance to high school students. The course aims to teach students about saving, budgeting, investing, and living a stress-free lifestyle. The first step is to start saving 20% of each paycheck, which can be easier for high school students with their higher starting wages. Budgeting is also important, with the recommended 50-20-30 plan for bills, savings, and fun activities. High schoolers have the opportunity to save more money than previous generations. By budgeting correctly, they can make smart decisions for their future and consider investing in assets like stocks, index funds, IRAs, and real estate. The next episode will cover creating wealth through investments. Hello everyone, welcome to the podcast. As an educator who is teaching managing personal finance to high school students, there are hundreds of different expert opinions that use their own personal finance advice and share it with others through podcasts. The internet has become a wide array of content over the personal financial advice topic. There are hundreds of smart investors, salesmen, and some financial advisors that talk about managing money. The most popular of these is Dave Ramsey, who has become a celebrity writing books and telling his story. He has used podcasts as a way to share his message of how he became successful using his famous baby step method that so many others have copied and applied. Although he may be the most notable, Andrew Kikala, the host of the personal finance podcast, is the resource that I chose to gain my inspiration on some of his ideas. Managing personal finance is a course at the high school level designed to teach students the correct way to save, budget, invest, and live a stress-free lifestyle. If I were to share anything over a podcast and preferably teach the students that take the course, I would look at the following, a specific plan that will help them be the most financially savvy individual they can be. This would take place with the first step, which is to start saving money. All experts suggest saving 20% of each paycheck. This would allow students to start building an emergency fund and prepare them for their next part of their life, whether that is going to college or joining the workforce. I tell students they are in a better situation today than most generations before them. Most of these high school kids are getting starting jobs in Iowa at $15 to $20 an hour. Crazy, right? That high of a starting wage in high school can lead to major savings at an early age, especially for those students that are living at home and getting the ability to stockpile their cash. If students also incorporate budgeting, they will have a lot more success than the generations before them who were working their first jobs at a lot less per hour. The budgeting technique that students should live by is the famous 50-20-30. That means 50% of their income should go to bills and mandatory expenses, 20% goes into their savings, and 30% goes into fun activities. I really like this because it is a budgetary plan that gives you money to spend on fun activities. Not all do. The cool thing about budgeting is that this would be something they can start incorporating at any age. As mentioned, high schoolers now are making more money in their starting positions and still living at home than they have ever before. They have the power to save more money than just 20% of their paychecks. On average, if we take a kid who works 20 hours a week, let's say the expected pay is $15 per hour, that would be an expected $1,200 a month pre-tax. Understanding this means kids could have the power to roughly save up to $800 to $1,000 a month. This money could go to their first couple years of college, a down payment on a home, or a new car so they don't have any loans that follow them into adulthood. Budgeting correctly will help their future selves by making smart decisions now. Along with helping their future selves by saving and budgeting money, we could talk about the correct investments to make at an early age. If you stick around until the next episode to hear us talk about creating wealth through investments in different assets like stocks, index funds, IRAs, and real estate, that will be what we will cover next.