'The discipline of thrift'
MAUREEN DOLAN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 13 years, 3 months AGO
<p>Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy sophomore Hayden Shapiro asks Nick Murray, financial guru and author, to signs his book "Simple Wealth, Inevitable Wealth," Monday after the financial advisor of 45 years spoke to Dr. Bill Proser's honors European literature class.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - The word "discipline" came up again and again, as Nick Murray spoke Monday to high school students at Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy.
A financial advising expert of national renown, Murray spoke about the principles detailed in his book "Simple Wealth, Inevitable Wealth." It is one of 11 texts on finance authored by Murray, and has been the subject of study in some of instructor Bill Proser's classes for the last few weeks.
"Great investing is not about being smart; it's about discipline," Murray said while speaking in Proser's third period class.
After a discussion about compound rates of return on stocks and bonds and the net effects of tax and inflation, Murray pointed to one of the concepts in his book: "Be an owner, not a loaner."
"The issue here is time, and that's what you've got the most of," Murray said.
He illustrated the value of time in investing by reminding students that if they, as teenagers, started putting away $10 per week on a consistent, long-term basis; and a 60-year-old put away $100,000 all at once, the teens would come out ahead.
"It wasn't the amount of money that went in, it was the time that it stayed in. It was the discipline of putting it in. It was the discipline of thrift," Murray said.
Murray also advised students against chasing trends and panicking.
"There is always going to be an apocalypse du jour," Murray said.
He used his own birthday, Oct. 11, 1943, to make a point about the Dow Jones index. When he was born, it was 11.7, and 68 years later on Monday morning, it was 11700.
"It's up 100 times exactly in my lifetime," Murray said.
Mercedes Rennison, 15, said studying Murray's book has helped demystify finance management for her by providing easy to understand examples. She said it has helped her understand the importance of investing.
"I think a lack of financial literacy is what's wrong with our country," Proser said.
That is why he decided to bring Murray's work into his classroom.
Teaching the importance of wealth planning to today's generation of high school students is crucial to the financial health of the nation, Proser said.
"It would turn all our problems around," he said. "We don't do enough to teach our children about capitalism."
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