There is a strong and monotonic relationship between financial literacy scores and parents’ education.[14]  I was born in poverty and my parents did not discuss finance or money at the dinner table. Throughout my early childhood I yearned to know, “Who was Peter and Paul?” The only conversations that I overhead about money was in the late night heated arguments that was incited by, “Robbing Peter to Pay Paul.” As a contributor to the household income, I started working at age nine as a sharecropper in East Texas.[15] Within my first week of picking peas during a summer job, I was able to project my income at the end of each day.  I knew how many rows I needed to pick in order to make a bushel and to weigh in each bushel for a price.  Ironically, this is a classic case of financial analysis concept that I was not cognizant of at a young age. Yet, I was successful in making enough money to buy the school clothes, shoes, and other items required by extracurricular school activities.  Imagine if only I had known about the rule of 72 at age nine. I wonder how many of my classmates would have graduated high school if our elementary teachers would have stressed the importance of saving and investing to become a potential millionaire by applying the rule of 72. Read more