Jeff Nicholas of Nicolas Financial came to speak to the entire eighth grade class of Heritage Middle School Wednesday about how money builds with simple interest versus compound interest.
We have been learning about this in class for over a week and the students have been really interested to learn about money in the “real” world.
Nicolas used beans in a jar to simulate the growth per year for 9 years for both types of interest. He and the students talked about starting to save money for the future, where that money could be saved at, and for what that money could go towards.
Nicolas also taught them the rule of 72 – a shortcut to estimate the number of years required to double your money at a given annual rate of return – so that they can calculate when their money would double in a situation.
At the end of the presentation, one lucky student was the recipient of a 1 oz. silver coin for being able to remember and repeat the procedure to the rule of 72. Of course that was followed up with the option to sell it right now or to hold onto it for a while so that it could increase its value.
