hey y'all happy wednesday sorry i can't be of school with you today but i thought that this would be a really good opportunity for me to start reading this book to you um it is a book that's written for people just like you it's for high schoolers and college age students and um and beyond so um i am only going to read the preface to you today i figured each day that i have to be out because i have a few trainings like this um i would read a little bit to you and let you kind of think on it and respond or maybe even if there's a day that we wrap up early i could go ahead and read some to you so um here is the preface it's called never too young when i was a young adult personal finance was not always top of mind i was busy worrying about who i was and who i wanted to be i wondered do i fit in am i doing well enough in school for my parents to be proud of me am i doing well enough in sports i didn't have time to worry about personal finance i wish i knew then what i knew now i was lucky my parents knew about personal finance they didn't buy me everything i wanted nor could they i had to save my own money for things like sports equipment or clothes my parents could not afford some of my parents sorry some of my friends had it easier their parents bought them everything they wanted this frustrated me then but i'm happy now because i learned important money lessons even before i was a teen my parents had me open a savings account at the local bank and called it my christmas account this is a way to make sure you have enough money to buy christmas presents my mom said i didn't know it at the time but the account was really for a much bigger reason when i started working my parents made me put at least half of everything i earned into the account having that account taught me how to save and what it took to buy things for myself and for others it forced me to make decisions with my money and face the subsequent consequences to be honest i didn't really miss the things i had to give up in order to save it just became a habit and it was fun to watch my savings grow by mowing lawns working at mcdonald's i swear we're always talking about mcdonald's in this class and saving half of everything i want i earned i saved more than five thousand dollars in the christmas account by the end of high school doing this on my own felt great and my guess is it made my family feel great too did any of y'all have like a 5 000 savings account i know i didn't by the time i was done with high school and it's probably too late for some of y'all to do that now unless you have a really good job or are really good at saving but um even if you can't save 5000 before the end of this year maybe you could save a thousand i mean everybody's got to start somewhere by working hard in school and at my part-time jobs i was able to go to college the first few years of college went well and i was on my way toward getting a good job but i was always looking for ways to earn more money one day in my junior year of college i heard about the stock market it sure seemed easy enough to me i just invest my money in a company and i figured after a little while it gives me back more money than i had when i started easy money i like the sound of that but i didn't know enough about the stock market my parents didn't use the stock market much this wasn't a topic we discussed i thought i could do it on my own unfortunately i invested in very risky companies and after a few months i had lost all of my money my entire five thousand dollars in savings that took me many years to save was gone and it was never coming back i didn't know the risks of the stock market and that got me into trouble personal finance difficulties can come in many forms for me it was losing my money in the stock market for others it can be credit card student loan or other debt that they did not know enough about before they agreed to it if you or a family member has lost their job or are working two jobs and still don't have enough money debt can feel like your only option at times or it can be as simple as having financial struggles later in life because of not understanding how important it is to start saving as soon as possible no matter how much money you have these difficulties can also come in many levels of intensity i had a five thousand dollar problem for others it can be much much more and impact them their entire lives starting as a young adult since college i have spent most of my life learning and applying financial concepts still today i see too many people young and old making mistakes similar to the five thousand dollar mistake i made every day including those close to me i sincerely hope this book empowers you to take control of your financial future for yourself and for those around you so i wish i had read this book when i was younger i have some questions for y'all um to respond to in terms of just that little bit that i just read because i'm curious to know more about you and your finances and maybe even a little about your families i don't want to pry too much so um don't feel like you have to share anything that you're uncomfortable with but please know that anything you do choose to share with me will just be between us i certainly would never share that information with someone else it's kind of like your grades and everything else that's anything you share with me um is almost anything you share with me is confidential information so um please make sure to respond to those questions as honestly as you feel comfortable and thoughtfully don't just like try to race through it and i look forward to reading your responses i'll see y'all tomorrow