The Groovy Rule of 2-2-2

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When I was a kid, one of my favorite television shows was Room 222. This show was about a high school in California and I was intrigued by it because I was a preteen for most of its run, and little kids are naturally fascinated with the lives of big kids. I also had a crush on Karen Valentine (see the girl who has an unfortunate bus door incident at the end of the below clip).

This post, however, isn’t an ode to Room 222. I only mention it because its title is numerically synonymous with a rule I devised to help young people manage their finances and their lives.

I call my rule the Groovy Rule of 2-2-2, and here’s how it works.

Read and Embrace These Two Personal Finance Books

You only need two books to get your financial act together. Here they are.

1. Total Money Makeover, by Dave Ramsey
2. The Simple Path to Wealth, by J.L. Collins

Dave Ramsey will teach you how to get out of debt and how to accumulate savings. J.L. Collins will teach you how to invest your savings. Make both of them proud, and you will be doing better financially than 99 percent of the people on this planet.

The Magic Number When It Comes to College Is Two

If you decide to go to college, your default choice should be your local community college. The typical two-year program that leads to an associate’s degree is all the higher education you really need for most entry-level jobs in most fields.

“But wait just a cotton-picking minute,” I hear you wailing at your computer screen. “What if I want to be a doctor or a lawyer? I’m going to need a lot more than an associate’s degree to enter those fields.”

Excellent point. And this leads me to the second reason why “two” is the magic number when it comes to college. If you absolutely must get a bachelor’s degree or higher, take the entry-level salary that people with your desired degree earn and divide it by two. That number is the maximum amount of money you should borrow.

In Raleigh, North Carolina, for instance, the average entry-level salary for a registered nurse is $47,500. Divide that salary by two and you get $23,750. So if you want to be an RN and work in Raleigh, don’t borrow more than $23,750 to get your bachelor’s degree.

Abide by the second component of the Groovy Rule of 2-2-2 and your odds of having a fruitful college experience go up dramatically. Fail to abide by this second component and you’re likely to get chewed up and spit out by the college-industrial complex—just like the young lady in the below video. She borrowed over a hundred grand for a drama degree.

Spend Two Hours a Day Nourishing Your Body, Mind, and Soul

Your destiny is largely determined by what you do between the hours of 5 pm and 9 am. If you do nothing with your non-working hours to improve yourself, you’ll very likely be nothing more than you are right now.

For some people, of course, being a coaster is perfectly fine. They’re happy with themselves and their position in life and see no reason to burden themselves with extra effort.

Being a coaster doesn’t work for me. I would consider myself a failure if I looked back at my life ten years from now and realized that I did nothing but eat, sleep, watch television, and rut.

The good news is that if you’re an improver like me, you don’t need to devote much of your 16 non-working hours to bettering yourself. If you devote a mere two hours a day to nourishing your body, mind, and soul, you will be a better you one, five, or ten years down the road. And, more importantly, you’ll probably have a more fulfilling life.

Body

Move for a half-hour every day. Don’t care what you do—walk, jog, lift weights, or crossfit. Just move.

Here’s a simple workout you can do before work to get you started.

• Walk for 15 minutes
• Do as many pull-ups as you can in two minutes*
• Rest for three minutes
• Do as many push-ups as you can in two minutes
• Rest for three minutes
• Do as many air squats (i.e., deep knee bends) as you can in five minutes

* Tip: If you can’t do any pull-ups, use a resistance band. It’s a great way to defy gravity and build the muscles necessary for an unassisted pull-up.

Mind

Spend an hour a day honing an existing skill or learning a new skill. Again, I don’t care what you do. As long as you’re thinking, exploring, and challenging yourself, you’re giving your mind a workout. Here are some suggestions.

• Listen to a financial podcast while you commute to and from work.
• Read biographies of famous people.
• Sign up for Khan Academy and work on your math or computer skills.
• Start a blog.
• Set up a workshop in your garage or basement and tinker and build.

Soul

Spend a half-hour working on your morals. We’re all terribly flawed and we all need to hone our morality muscles on a daily basis if we want to be good and do good. Here are several books and people that I regularly turn to for moral guidance.

• The Bible
• Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl
• The Book of Virtues, by William J. Bennett
• Jordan Peterson
• Brian Johnson
• Jonathan Haidt

Final Thoughts

Okay, groovy freedomist, that’s all I got. What say you? Is my Groovy Rule of 2-2-2 something every young person should know? Or is it just another ho-hum rule from another ho-hum blogger? Let me know what you think when you get a chance. Peace.