plan. And so there are a lot of details out there, but I wanted to take a minute and focus very specifically on one aspect of this, which is helping your
state to get a surgery for my son. And we're in the surgical center. We we traveled because we saved a lot of money by doing that. We're in the surgical
center because it was an overnight trip. We were we were there early. We didn't have anything else to do. And so, I was just talking with the intake nurse and
she mentioned how her son was getting to the age where he needed to decide what he's going to do after high school. And I said, 'Well, what's his plan? And
she said, 'Well, he's going to be a teacher. And without me prompting her, she then went into an explanation of why she didn't think that was a very good
idea for primarily monetary reasons. And she had done the research to see what teachers make in that area, as well as looking around to other places to see
if there were places where you could make more as a teacher, a public school teacher. and she was trying to convince him that that was not worth four years
actually more acute than that because you can't survive on that much money." Well, you certainly can't be married and have kids. And teacher is a career that
those things?" And she said, "No." And I said, 'Well, I've helped an awful lot of young people wade through career choices, and here's a quick recipe for
this. So, this advice applies for you as well. When you're talking careers with your sons, the first step is to figure out how much money they need to make.
children, even when they're 18, 19, 20 or older, have any clue how much their parents food budget is per month or how much they spend on health insurance per
to have kids and I don't really want them to have to worry too much about money. I'd like them to be able to go on a vacation every year, maybe two. I'd
no connection between what you say you want with your kids and what you do, often at least some and sometimes a lot more than half of what you do with your
we go on lavish vacations and, you know, I bought my daughter a pony or whatever and now I'm going to pay their tuition and well, if they're not successful,
However, far too few parents actually do the simple little things that can be done that require far fewer resources than putting your kid in gymnastics
three times a week or buying them a car the day they turn 16 or any of these other things that a whole lot of people do that don't actually help at all and
Just make a list. Have you ever asked a kid what they want to do for a living? They usually say some really stupid thing, some stupid thing that either
Everybody was named Heather and they all wanted to be a marine biologist. Well, and boys are just as dumb, if not more so. So, where are they going to get
of what is available to him than he does. And you might know not just the options, but the cost and benefit better than he does. So why aren't you going
remember about inflation, if you've been watching these videos for a while, you know, cuz I've I've given this number based on my own calculations over the
years. And whenever I say it, it seems really extreme. And I'm sure there are a bunch of guys out there that feel bad because they don't make that much. Okay,
tracking that and they're not going to they're going to keep falling behind. And remember, this isn't about helping your son live lifestyles of the rich and
famous. It's about helping your son ride the tiger, get the most out of a decaying system. For what purpose? To be able to have a wife and kids. That's
really the primary driver. Now, if he's not interested in that or he can't find find the right lady or whatever, he will have a massively greater degree of
really bad. So, and depending on where you are in life, that might be more or less visible to you because the economy is bifurcating. There are the people who
thing about this is that it's not so surprising to see families where maybe they haven't made very good financial or professional decisions and they're not
teaching them principles where they can make it for themselves. That doesn't mean that you cut them off. You know, when they're seven years old, you give
designed to build them, not just to cash out your chips and give them the money or whatever the things the money buys. So you come up with your number and then
and what are the what are the odds that the the wage is going to grow over time. So you go down the list and you'll find that there's probably only a handful of
fields, college is still going to be a mandatory requirement. And that's very unfortunate because college is a huge waste of money, a huge waste of time.
You could you could complete the things that you need to do there in far less time and with far less money, but the system's corrupt and it is what it is.
He's 15 and he's done high school and he's also already knocked out about half of his degree by going a cheaper online only route and doing all of his prerexs.
something, there's not something you can do in six months rather than taking four years to do it in $5,000 rather than 120 or whatever it will cost. Right?
optimize you can get more out of fewer inputs and that's like I mentioned my son my other son's doing something else too both of them are working right now
they're working uh remotely part-time as they do other things like finish high school, start college, whatever. Um, my my other son is planning on being a
effectively. So, he needs to know how to drive. He needs to have his license. So, he's got his learners. And every time my wife goes into town every two weeks to
they're they're the same age, they're twins, were working for me 20 hours a week at my startup. And we I think it was 20 hours a week. We arranged things
exceptions for internships with school. So, we maxed all of that out and they made tons of money. They were both doing a really good job at what they were
feedback once they started working for me, obviously. But I said, "Look, if you're serious about this," I printed the list of all the modules on the wall,
taped it to the wall, and put two columns for each of them. And I said, "Check them off as you go. If you get to the bottom of the list, I'll hire you,
So the point is you can't start stacking these things and optimizing and getting ahead and basically hacking the system. There's there's not much you can do if
difference. Is there something you can do to reduce the cost of tuition? like move to the state that they're going to go so you can get instate tuition or
maybe even uh buy a duplex in that place and then they can live there and rent out the other rooms and then you've got a property manager on site. But it's a
pipes or cooking meth in the house. So, and then if your kid participates in that, you've got bigger problems. So, thinking outside the box like this, it's
not too far outside the box. But it's very different than sticking your head in the sand and just assuming that if you dump money on your kid right now,
somehow that's going to translate into success later in life. And the funny thing is when you start talking about these things, people get all stressed
out. Oh, that's that's just so much to do. It's really not compared to what you're already doing. You can actually back off big time on the things that
you're already doing and the net, it's actually less work. It's less work. I'll give you another example. We were, my wife and I were thinking through our
It's a nice foundation. And everybody's got strengths. You just have to figure out what they are. We noticed that he enjoyed tinkering with electronics
we've got a budget of about $35, which is pretty small. We don't like to go overboard on Christmas. We like to focus on just family time, not make it about
that and getting the present, I knew that I was putting myself on the hook to spend time doing this kit with my son because he wasn't going to be able to do
and I learned a lot and he learned even more and he really did well with it. And so, I gave him a little bait. I said, "Look, there's 40ome lessons here. I'm
going to give you about a half hour once a week for us to do this on Thursdays." And he'd come up every Thursday, can we do electronics? Yep. Or if he forgot,
which was very rare, I'd tell him it's time. And I said, if you get through all these lessons, I'll buy you a Raspberry Pi, which is more. It was $200. Now, the
cost of all this doesn't matter too much because we have this homeschool program in the state where they'll reimburse things like that, which is pretty sweet.
thinking so that he would bridge that and become better and better at doing it himself. It wasn't about me doing it and him watching. He did all the things and
then I tried to not say anything unless it was sort of general advice. Well, pretty soon he was doing the lessons on his own and he was catching things
before I could catch them when they didn't work with, you know, I was still involved quite a bit here and there, but um more and more frequently he was the
homesteading helps with this. I just put a plug in that where you're assigning things to your children. You're training them how to do it. But there's this
threshold to be able to have a wife who doesn't have to work and as many children as they want to have. And even if you have a wife who's determined to
be left by the wayside where the analogy I use is you put your canoe in the river just like everybody else and you float down. Guess where you're going to end
up? The same place everyone else does. You're going to be broke and miserable. Money isn't everything, but it is vital that we do what we can to be responsible