Personal Finance Reflection - Sutton Walsh

Sutton Walsh

Dr. Ott

Personal Finance

16 January 2020

Personal Finance Final Reflection

The knowledge I gained from the Personal Finance J-Term course is knowledge I will carry with me, truly, for the rest of my life. Taking part in this class made me realize how clueless I would be starting my adult life no financial foundation or plan for becoming a FIr. I wouldn’t even know that was something to become! From readings to speakers, presentations, and activities, this two week period has changed how I view my future.

“Your Money or Your Life” and “Why Didn’t They Teach Me This in School?” were fantastic readings that consolidated critical information and taught me lifelong lessons. “Why Didn’t They Teach Me This in School?” shared concise and simple teachings that will help me to save tens of thousands of dollars and not make disastrous decisions regarding my hard-earned money. The book paired perfectly with “Your Money or Your Life”, an inspirational step-by-step reading to becoming financially independent, retiring early, and making the most out of your time. 

The speakers that came were professional and compelling. Champ Warren gave an in-depth presentation on the U.S. economy and whether or not we were heading into a recession. He showed us many graphs that, without his explanation, I wouldn’t have been able to interpret. The way he explained the graphs made it super simple to understand, even for beginners like myself. I learned so much about what factors play into a recession and what a non-recession versus a recession period looks like on a graph. His speech was a highlight of the course and I think he should come and give a similar presentation to the entire high school. Alan Ying’s talk differed greatly from that of Champ Warren. It was more conversational and open to questions. He talked about starting a career and critical qualities needed to undergo this process (specifically persistence and a positive attitude). He also talked about how 100% of his friends who went to graduate school are still paying off their debt. This comment impacted me as I am deciding whether or not I would like to attend graduate school. Overall, the speakers, despite presentation styles and topics, taught me so much valuable knowledge to consider as I strive towards Financial Independence.

The mini-research projects, while “mini”, taught me fascinating skills to help me make smart decisions with my money. The “city 4-plex” lesson showed how drastic the cost of living was depending on your location and the perks of investing in a rental property during college and graduate school. I learned that you can make great amounts of profit by investing in a property to rent to college grads (NOT college students, they love to party). The "practicing technical analysis strategy" mini-project will serve in handy, especially when I begin to invest in stocks in the future. I used the simple “crossover” strategy - applying a long term moving average and a short term moving average to a chart and buying or selling based on which line crosses over which. This strategy proved to be effective and I gained a high amount of reward. It motivated me to learn other strategies too, as I realized that technical analysis doesn't have to be as challenging as its name sounds.

Movies in Personal Finance? Of course! The movies we watched made it easier (and more fun!) to understand bank scandals to other financial catastrophes. While my gluteus maximus began to ache from sitting on the stools for hours on end, the knowledge I took out of the movie-watching experience was worth the pain. While some movies I still don’t quite understand, I learned how the bank can be untrustworthy and if something sounds too good to be true, it most likely is. 

Last but certainly not least is the Investopedia Stock Simulator! Boy did I have fun experimenting with stocks. At first, I was terribly confused because I had no idea how investing in stocks work, what stocks I should buy, when I should sell, how many shares, why am I in last place!? Over the course of the J-Term, I was able to make my way up to 5th place(!) by investing in stocks after doing some research, understanding the right time to buy and sell, and spending my cash in an intelligent manner. I developed a minor addiction to this simulator and it got me both excited and a little nervous to start investing in the real stock market. With some experience under my belt, I felt better about the future (of course, I will paper trade for a year before starting to invest in the stock market).

In conclusion, I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of information I learned about finance in this short period of time. While it doesn’t sound as “cool” as a trip to Spain or Jamaica, I think it has taught me so much more in the long run. I am so thankful that I was chosen to participate in this course because I can’t imagine going to college with no plan whatsoever about my life! I now have a functional budgeting system, experience investing in the stock market, and so many more advantages that the majority of high schoolers do not receive. I am seriously debating taking this course again because it has changed my life and is the reason I am motivated to become financially independent and retire early!

Final Reflection - Connor Kissack

Connor Kissack

Dr. Ott

Personal Finance

17 January 2020

Personal Finance Reflection

My time being in the Personal Finance J-Term has been absolutely incredible. I started the course with no knowledge of finance and have now come out of it with enough knowledge of the best way to use your money with it having a positive affect on my future. The books we read were astonishing as they talked about the best way to manage one's money and the principles of how to use one's own money. This is exactly why I came into the class; to become financially independent and know the correct way to manage money. Throughout my life, when I am given money, I immediately spend it with no in-between thought on how it would be better for me to saving the money granted to me. That habit has been completely changed as I have had a realization that I will be better off if I saved my equity. As the J-Term has continued on, we have done multiple projects which have been eventful. We had projects that carried on our own interest that we had in our class. Mine being a project about the stock market and how it works. We also set up a finance game called "The Game of Life" which projected what our net worth would be in the future if we took certain projections. We then used our spreadsheet to play the actual game where we rolled the dice and saw what number it landed on. With the number in mind, we had another spreadsheet where it showed what event would happen that corresponded to the number. We also had a project where we had to find a fourplex and calculate the total cost of it. We used this to see if we could in turn make a profit off of the other roommates living in it. I learned a lot from both of these experiences as it taught me about real estate and the other gave me a projection of what my life might look like if I took these certain precautions. After a long day of some of the days of learning about personal finance, we watched films about people switching roles, believing in what is right, and a greedy man who comes to his senses and learns about the importance of life. These films have taught me that money may be important, but it isn't so important that I should only have my mind on how much money I have at the present time. I am thankful that this experience has taught me smarter ways for me to manage my money. This may be my first J-Term experience, but it certainly has had a lifetime lasting impact on me. 

J-Term Reflection- Luke

Luke Kirchner
Dr. Ott
PF
17 January 2020

Reflection 

     During this J-term, I learned many valuable skills that I think I will use for the rest of my life. This was nothing less than a life changing experience. Before I started this J-Term, I was not sure of great ways to budget money, invest in stocks and I had basically no knowledge on home ownership. After two weeks, I now know quite a lot. The books we read we very helpful and taught me a lot. Why Didn't They Teach Me This in School was very nice and have some great tips. Your Money or Your Life taught me new ways to think of our time and 'life energy'. During the two weeks we were running an Investopedia stock trading game. I learned more about stock trading strategies and how to invest money. After the two weeks, I finished 3rd in placement. We had many activities where we researched different stocks and justified our purchases. We learned about house interest rates and how mortgages work. This is very useful information as I knew practically nothing about this before I took this J-Term. The course also showed us about the value of money and how hard it is to make. The movies, while very entertaining, also taught us some great life lessons and lessons about different jobs. My favorite was trading places. Other activities included calculating our net worth, seeing how much money given to us was still in our life, and our first memory of money.

In the end, this J-Term was a great success and I had a fun time! Dr. Ott is great!

Clark's Reflection

Clark May II

Dr. Ott

Personal Finance

17 January 2020

Reflection

My expectations going into Personal Finance this year were much different than my expectations last year. This year, I was expecting to really build on all the knowledge I had learned from last year. In the course this year, I really felt as if I could dive deeper into my topics of interest, especially stock options. Being able to read my own book allowed me to truly pursue my interests. I got the chance to present on my book and my topic to the class and I really enjoyed the extra work I had to do for being a returning student. As I said, it allowed me to further delve into topics of my interest and the extra presentation I had to do enabled me to share my prior knowledge, and I feel as if my experience was utilized very well throughout the time of the course. I was able to take more of a leadership role and I thoroughly enjoyed helping other classmates with projects we had done last year. This is not to say that the course was a repeat of last year or not challenging though. We did a lot of new projects such as looking for quadplexes in different cities and using charts, historical data, and technical strategies to choose whether or not to invest in stocks. Reading my book on advanced stock option strategies has been one of the most difficult tasks that I have taken on and it has proven to be one of the most informative and intriguing projects I’ve ever done. It’s taught me so much about the complex world of trading stock options and it has introduced me to information I will need if I choose to go down the route of options trading.––

The last reason why I loved this course was that it has made me feel more prepared and confident for the A-Term I am leading with Sierra in March. Being in this class has shown me great teaching strategies that we will use during the A-Term and there are many activities we’ve done that we will take inspiration from to make our course more interesting and fun. The lessons I’ve learned this year are so valuable and I can’t wait to take the information I’ve learned from this class and introduce it to the Investing A-Term class in a few months. Personal Finance has been the most valuable course I’ve taken at Post Oak and all of the information will help me in the future when I begin on my financial journey. 

Final Reflection

This year’s Personal Finance J-Term went well for the most part. As a returning student, the lack of a third week was noticeable in the curriculum, as we had much less time to talk about investment strategy and cashflow options and could only get through the basics. The schedule was far more rigid and the work was a bit too condensed, but the term was still overall a success despite this. It was a good refresher course on what I learned last year, and I got some new information along with it. I got to employ what I learned about investment strategy last year in paper trading and while I wasn’t great at it, I did make .3% profit. The low percentage was partially because I forgot to actually use about half of the money and got sidetracked by financial aid apps for colleges when Amazon killed my portfolio. Good times. What I enjoyed most was researching how investments and cashflow worked for US citizens abroad, mostly because it often just didn’t work. My example country, Finland, has excellent opportunities for investing in funds and equity. The banks and companies one can buy into have near 10% returns at times and are excellent potential diversification for foreigners with Finnish bank accounts. For Americans investing in these funds, however, the devil is in the details, and this particular devil is the IRS. Real estate also requires a staggering level of capital to break into, and the supply of renting residencies is gargantuan, making cashflow extremely difficult to obtain through real estate. With interest rates regulated to <1%, the down payments and total prices of land in urban areas, the only areas in Finland with a profitable housing market, rising, finding investment opportunity locally becomes exceedingly hard for expatriates. In terms of the normal curriculum, going over everything a second time helped me understand how money works and how I can make it work for me. Things I didn’t quite get before, like shorts, options, futures, and such, make far more sense to me now. I learned a lot about investing from this course is basically what I’ve spent the last paragraph trying to say.

My J-Term Reflection

Andreas Cantu 
Dr. Ott 
Personal Finance 
17 January 2020 

A Reflection 

My time at the Personal Finance was nothing less than a blessing. I have spent my whole life not to worried or concerned about the concept of money. There were very few times when I felt like I was lacking the proper knowledge of money and how to properly use it. Well by the time the first day of personal finance ended I instantly knew that there was so much to learn. There is so much information out there in the world of finance and the fact that there was so much I did not know and still have to learn is outstanding. The books that we read alone had more useful information regarding personal finance and how to properly use your money so as to not end up in debt. This course was so perfectly crafted for students our age because, we are all at age where money becomes more and more apparent in our life and if we don't learn how to properly manage and use our money now than it will most definitely affect us later on in the future. 
I especially appreciated the activities that we did during this term because, of how beneficial and relevant they were to our course. This activities included: determining your net worth, simulating all of your future expenses all the way to death, keeping track of all our purchases and much more. So in the end I am very grateful for this J-Term and I know that this is most definitely one of the most important classes I have/will ever take and know I will use these lessons for the rest of my life. 

Final Reflection

I took the personal finance last year and this year and I’m so happy I took both. I’ve learned so much, gotten more experience with finances, and grown in my relationship with money. I took last year’s course because I had no experience with money and managing money and I thought it would be useful to start learning then. I found money to be boring and complicated and just a pain in the butt. One of the only things that drew me to finance was the dream of being able to retire early and do with my life whatever I want. Taking that course opened my eyes to the world of finance and money and since then, my relationship with money has developed and changed for the better. I decided to take the course again because last year, I had just begun being introduced to finances and I didn’t understand everything and still had a lot of unanswered questions. Taking the course again allowed me to dive deeper into finances and work to understand concepts that I was struggling to grasp. Since Clark and I will be leading an A-Term about investing, this J-Term allowed us to review finances and observe how the class is run. I chose to take Personal Finance again so I could deepen my knowledge of finance and learn about new perspectives and since I’ve taken the course already I had a much easier time understanding things and could also bring more to the table. This course helped build my confidence in finances and bring awareness to many money-related things that I wouldn’t have been aware of otherwise- for example, the substantial difference in money paid between a 30 year mortgage and a 15 year mortgage. This time around we did a few new activities that were more hands on and which taught me a lot. Since I was a returnee, I presented on a couple of topics instead of one and this really allowed me to pursue and research in-depthly about topics of my interest. I also got the opportunity to read a book of my choice and I chose the book, “The Simple Path to Wealth”. I really enjoyed reading this book because it enforced the idea that finance doesn’t have to be complex and hard and “only for professionals”, finance can be for everyone. The author brought in a lot of new perspectives and financial tips that I wasn’t aware of before. I was also able to understand the movies so much better which was really nice and I got to enjoy the movies more simply because I knew more about what they were talking about. Last year’s class sparked my interest in finance and this year’s class helped me to pursue that interest. This has been one of, if not the, most valuable class I have ever taken.