Breaking Routines

There are very few classes from college that I remember, and out of the ones I do remember, only one I’ve thought about since and that was personal finance. At the time, it was a required class for the degree I pursued and I wasn’t very excited about it.

My parents taught me about the basics of money. Stay away from credit cards, spend less than your paycheck, and try to make money work for you through investing. So I assumed any personal finance class would be boring, but I was wrong.

On the first day the instructor went through the normal first day routines, then started telling us his story. I was amazed at how frugal this guy was, and he was blowing my mind.

A few days into the semester he had us all calculate our net worth and shared back the typical observation. The class had a lot of older students and most had the majority of their net worth was from their home.

This lead his teaching back to being frugal as a way to increase your net worth and he said something to the effect of…

I want each of you to go home and switch the direction of your toilet paper.

I remember hearing audible gasps from the class. I had no idea people cared that much about the direction. It blew my mind so much that it engrained that memory so deep into my brain that I still think about it.

It’s a really smart idea and a great challenge. If you can’t accept the discomfort on something this small how are you going to say no to that $6 morning coffee?