Back to School

I was on the phone with my college-aged niece the other day, and she said the funniest thing: “Uncle Brandon, I went to the Luke Combs concert the other day. And let me tell you, he sounds as good in person as he does on my phone.” For a moment, I thought she was friends with Luke Combs, and my next thought was how I was going to make him a client. It took me a second to realize that for her Luke Combs had been an abstraction until she saw him in person.

Our theme this month is going Back to School. One thing I remember about going back to school was being offered and accepting a credit card from a woman at a pop-up table with a printed cloth tablecloth. My first credit card was a Citibank Visa. I graduated with $5,000 in debt on that card and a burgeoning understanding of compounding interest rates and the difference between concrete and abstract money.

Although compounding interest is factual and mathematical, money is not. I think about how it all started with bartering physical objects, like eggs, fruits, or vegetables. From bartering with concrete items, money systems jumped to abstractions, coins and paper, then to paper checks (IOUs),then to credit cards, and now, for my niece (and me), the phone.

When I am working, I work with large abstract numbers. With so much abstraction in my life, it’s good to see something concrete. This week, I toured Covenant House of Atlanta—a seven-acre site that supports youth and young adults aged 16-24 who are homeless and/or in transition. Beyond creating an atmosphere that allows them to calm their nervous systems and feel safe, Covenant House provides the education and tools for these young adults to go back to school, learn the basics of financial literacy, vote, and engage in workforce development. For these young people, the journey is not linear. They may go to school, drop out, enter a GED program, quit, and then find their way to a workforce development program. The Covenant House offers a welcoming, loving space where youth can go back to school or pursue their goals as often as they need.

No matter how abstract things get, the fundamentals of financial literacy remain concrete: How do you bring in and keep more money than you spend? Conscious Wealth’s financial educational programs, designed for our NextGen clients, truly focus on this one question. Of course, there are two levers here: spending and earning. Long gone are the days of teaching kids to balance a checkbook. What’s a check? More important now is teaching how conveniences—like debit cards, credit cards, Apple Pay, and buy-now/pay-later programs—can abstract money away as quickly as you earn it, and introducing the tools you need to use to track your earning and spending.

Here are some things to consider this month:

- How are you talking to your children and adult grandchildren about money? How are you protecting them from schemes that could impoverish them?

- Look into Covenant House. There are independent chapters in many cities. I was impressed with their work and humbled by my own fortune:www.covenanthouse.org

To date, Luke is not a client. But he did just have a new child and really should start a 529. If you know him, please give him my number.

In gratitude,

On Behalf of Conscious Wealth Investing

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