Valuable — and free

Dan Green is a former timber industry business owner and Kootenai County Commissioner.

Now 63, he’s active in the community, a philanthropist whose time and treasure have blessed numerous local nonprofits. Apparently still not fully satisfied with the good life, Dan has branched out into another arena altogether: Financial literacy. That’s different from financial advising. His is an educational role with no remuneration, just satisfaction from helping people.

A few weeks ago, Dan mentioned a fact and a frustration: He (and others) have made themselves available to teach financial literacy through North Idaho College, targeting the 20 to 50 age range, but no students have signed up. The classes are designed for two sessions, about an hour or hour and a half each.

I made a proposal on the spot. If the students won’t come to you, Dan, why don’t we take the classes to students via the newspaper? The idea was that Dan would conduct the classes in The Press conference room on successive weeks. I’d write up some of the highlights from each class, and the students — four young, smart, healthily skeptical staff reporters — would share brief but honest critiques.

Knowing that many of the people reading today’s and next Monday’s installments will not be Green’s target audience — sorry, but he says if you’re over 50, you simply don’t have time to reap the great rewards of long-term investing if you’re only starting now — we recommend you pass this information along to your under-50 children and grandchildren.

• • •

“I had a plan by the age of 30 to retire.”

With those words, Dan Green set himself apart from many of us. Over the next 33 years, he’s actually exceeded the goals of that plan.

“Consistency, diversification and time are the keys to long-term financial success,” he said.

Green talked about a friend who invested in stocks and has done very well.

He mentioned another friend who invested in real estate and has also done very well.

“I did both,” he said, “putting eggs in the basket and letting time give its help.”

According to Green’s research, 50 percent of Americans have no retirement savings; 40 percent of people 60 and over are still paying on their first mortgage.

If readers take just one thing out of all these words, it should be this, according to Green: Get out of debt as soon as you can, and stay there.

“No debt makes retirement planning really easy,” he said.

Even if you don’t make much money (but it’s got to be more than minimum wage, Green believes), you can start building for your financial future. First you have to do a little self-assessment.

“Much depends on your nature,” Green said. “How risk-averse are you? How entrepreneurial? Stop and think, ‘How am I wired?’”

Green was highly entrepreneurial and willing to take smart risks, understanding early on that by simply putting cash aside, inflation would nibble away at it and he’d lose money.

“You have to put your money to work,” he said.

Green noted several times that this first class was a “30,000-foot presentation” and that the next class would drop down to 15,000 feet.

He walked the reporters through the history of the stock market, the damage consistently done by debt (“Debt makes you do things you don’t want to do”), the objective of being able to invest when prices go down and, if you’re wired a certain way, to sell when prices go up.

He dove deep into the concept of economic cycles happening about every seven years, which is why a) those over 50 are too late to start playing the long-term investment game now, and b) even small but disciplined investment now can pay terrific dividends down the road.

“Time will take care of almost all bad investments,” he said.

He gave reporters a book called “The Millionaire Next Door,” by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko, and asked them to read it before the concluding class. But he left the quartet with a potent assessment from the book:

“The person who shows off [with his or her purchases] is probably not that millionaire,” Green said. “Saving and spending less than you make: It’s that simple.”

• • •

Luckily, I’m at an age when I still have a few financial cycles to look forward to when I can experiment with investing, trying my hand at stocks and getting serious about retirement.

But a little voice inside my head is reluctant to believe I’ll ever be debt free. Student loans, car payments, mortgage and credit cards make saving for the future seem impossible.

I’m a bit cynical, yes, but I am really looking forward to learning more about how to be fiscally responsible and taking some of Dan Green’s advice on how to grow my wealth.

Time is my ally — I think I’m ready to accept that and put my money to work.

I listened intently to two similar lectures on planning for financial retirement this week. The most recent came from Dan Green, former Kootenai County commissioner and retired lumber magnate. Green was kind enough to offer reporters from the Press a weekly sampling of his financial planning seminars in an effort to understand why he was having trouble filling seats for his free seminars. His lectures — which he said he markets to people ages 20 to 50 — covers wide-lens views of investing in stocks, real estate and bonds.

Some of his information I wish I’d absorbed in my 20s. (When seeking out a loan from banks, for example, “Don’t take no from one place as the only answer.”) Some of the information felt harsh. Some felt exacting. Some felt wrong. All of it was financially sound.

I heard a similar financial lecture last Sunday from someone who also stood at a podium in front of reporters and gave essentially the same information with the same passion and heart Green gave. I’m holding Green to a much higher standard because of this, but regardless, I found myself lowering my guard with that Sunday speaker more than anyone. Both financial planners were absolutely right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rovt9mF66iI

(Editor’s hint: Craig is referring to Marshawn Lynch, the Seattle Seahawks running back. The advice from “Beast Mode” is definitely rated for adults.)

I don’t consider myself especially savvy when it comes to finances — I’m not knowledgeable about investments (whether in stocks or real estate) or how to “make my money work for me.”

For that reason, I was interested in Dan Green’s class. He offers the kind of information and insight that I wouldn’t normally have access to, laid out in a clear, understandable manner.

I’m especially curious about the utility and accessibility of Green’s methods for “regular” folks who are not already reasonably high earners.

Though his philosophy seems sound, I’m not yet sure if it would make sense when applied to my individual circumstances. I look forward to learning more from Green and seeing what elements might work for me.

One of the most successful stock market investors in the world always said “you want to be fearful when people are greedy, and greedy when people are fearful.” While Warren Buffett’s sentiment works — the time to invest is when the market is sluggish — it doesn’t account for a new generation’s sense of ethical investment.

How do young people participate in a market that they believe jeopardizes the health and well-being of the planet? How do they break the cycle of intergenerational poverty by providing access to investment knowledge? How do you coach people with alternative lifestyles to invest even if they aren’t making other traditional choices? Unless Dan Green has answers to these questions, I’m unsure how his financial advice will help those who don’t already follow the Dow Jones.