Money Monday

> last week it was official.

Folks started to receive their third stimulus payments.

We heard from the experts don't blow it.

Instead turn it into something bigger.

A certified financial planner and an author for a great book for kids which we will talk about later.

It is good you are with us.

Appreciate it.

Thank you for having he.

Having me.

Excited to chat.

We are going to unpack a few things.

The difference between trading and investing and compound interest.

First, if you received a $1400 stimulus, what should you do with it.

If you are somebody who haven't set up an emergency fund, push cash away for a rainy day, don't spend it.

Make sure you have money set aside for the inevitable ran that will happen to you.

So if you've done that then you have options.

If it is money you might want to use in a few years, that's different.

Maybe you think i am not going to touch it for some time, maybe you can invest that money.

If it is a shorter term and you need it in a few years, you probably don't want to get too cute with that.

If it is something you can leave alone for awhile, then you can use the power of compounding in your paver -- your favor.

We know from watching the movie "wall street" and 1400 seems like a drop in the bucket.

It doesn't seem like a lot of money.

Do you think it is a substantial amount that people can see a return on it?

Absolutely.

To some people it may be a lifeline.

You can make it turn into something much more.

And i think you kind of touched on something.

There is something in trading and investing.

You can see something on the movie wall street.

You can turn this 1400 into 10,000.

If it were easy, then everybody would do it.

And if these people really could do it in that simple of a fashion, would they be out there trying to sell uh subscription service for a hundred dollars?

There is trading that is more buying and selling, and it is going to be closer to gambling.

It is going to be gambling versus investing which people who don't know about markets have been successful for a long period of time by investing and by putting money into quality things or into the market and then leaving it alone.

Forget it is there.

You wake up and suddenly 10 years later maybe that $1400 is worth $3,000 or maybe more, maybe less.

You do that a few more times and suddenly you do have some significant money.

It is building on some of those gains.

You mentioned reddit.

A lot of people had stock with gamestop, maybe $60 and it turned into a few thousand dollars.

That was a bit of an anomaly, but given more time you could see returns.

For the gordon geckos of the world that we are not, what are some of the services you can see and trust with their money and where to put it?

I would say to start out i would say -- you know, start to read things and learn about what is out there.

Start with robin hood -- robinhood.

These days what is easy is you can access a brokerage account on so many platforms and they are thought going to cost you anything if you are doing it yourself.

Whether it is fidelity, schwab, t.d.

Ameritrade.

It is always what do you do with the money?

Am i buy -- buying stacks -- stocks?

Am i buying game stop?

Gamestop?

It is some of the mad money or the play money, but maybe i put $60 or $100 into gamestop.

That's fine.

Don't make that your retirement plan.

Take the hundred dollars and do that and take 1300 away and put it in something safer and more likely to be there for you.

In 20 seconds can you tell us what compound interest is?

It is your money making money on itself, but then doing that again and again.

You are making money even on your gains.

So you could potentially do that with the $fur teen00 stimulus -- $1400 stimulus check.

Before we go i wanted to ask you this.

You wrote a great book for kids.

Can you tell us about the title?

It is teaching kids to buy stock.

Here is the fine print.

The sub title is story and lessons for grown-ups.

You have to read it.

You can't just give it to the kids.

I think we can learn a thing or two about that.

We will talk about that including compound interest because i think that is a statement unto itself.

Thank you for joining us.

Great