Why “I’m Not Good at Math” Is Costing You Money
Do you feel you are “not good at math?”
Tom Mullooly discusses basic money skills are ALREADY taught in school. In math class.
But many students still lack fundamentals like multiplication, percentages, and fractions. He recounts Ric Edelman teaching a personal finance course at Rowan University where business majors couldn’t answer simple mortgage and percentage questions, saying they were taught to rely on calculators instead of learning fundamentals.
Believing “I’m Not Good At Math” can really cost you money – but it does NOT need to be true! You may be better at math than you think. It’s also something you CAN get better at. Tom emphasizes struggling with everyday numbers is usually a foundation gap, not an intelligence issue. Mastering basic operations builds confidence and improves real-life decisions.
He illustrates how math matters with credit card debt, explaining that interest compounds daily and can quickly snowball, such as a $20,000 balance at 20% interest growing to $20,331.39 after the first month.
Tom closes by describing his client onboarding data-gathering process to assess their “math situation.”
Why “I’m Not Good at Math” Is Costing You Money – Links
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Special thanks to @RicEdelman for the inspiration (Twitter – Ric Edelman)
Why “I’m Not Good at Math” Is Costing You Money – Transcript
There are plenty of politicians and leaders begging to have “money management skills” and “basic financial planning” taught in high school.
The problem is, they already do that.
It’s called math class.
Recently, well-known financial planner Ric Edelman went back to his alma mater, Rowan University here in NJ, to teach a personal financial planning course at the business school at Rowan.
This was a financial planning course for juniors and senior undergrad students.
Juniors and Seniors… in the Business program.
During a lesson on mortgages, Edelman posed a basic question:
“If a home costs $400,000 dollars, and a buyer puts down twenty percent in cash, how much is left to finance?”
Not a single student in that class of juniors and seniors – business majors – could the answer the question.
So Edelman started asking more questions:
what is 30 percent of 80?
what is 60 percent of 90?
When he asked “what is 40% of 70?” One student replied, “I know it’s 4 x 7, but I don’t remember what that is.”
They explained to Edelman why they couldn’t answer these math questions: they were never taught multiplication tables, percentages or fractions in school. Instead, they were taught how to use a calculator.
If you’re new here, my name is Tom Mullooly, I own a financial planning and investment firm here in Wall Township NJ, and I work alongside my three sons, who are all Certified Financial Planners, just like me.
A struggle with everyday numbers isn’t about intelligence; it’s just about a gap in the foundation.
There is a very distinct, “freeing” kind of feeling when that phrase “I’m just not good at math” finally stops sticking.
For many, that label felt kind of permanent.
It’s not a personal shortcoming — it’s usually just a missing piece of the foundation.
Once the basics are understood, daily decisions naturally gets smoother.
Your confidence goes up.
Math basics aren’t about school tests; they’re a toolkit for real life.
The real world relies on those very basics to function. So we’re not talking about advanced trigonometry, we are talking understanding addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Once folks understand HOW these basics work, anyone can plug in whatever numbers and “be better” at math.
It’s understanding HOW these work, not necessarily knowing what is 24 x 31?
(it’s 744)
A perfect example of this math in motion — and where clarity matters most — is credit card debt.
There’s this assumption credit card interest is calculated once a month.
Look at little closer at the fine print: credit card interest compounds DAILY.
$20,000 on a credit card, at 20% interest.
Day 1 interest: $10.96
Day 30 interest: $11.13
At the end of the first month, the balance is now $20,331.39
On day one, interest is charged on the starting balance.
On day two, the credit card issuer charges interest on the original balance plus the interest accrued from day one.
By day three, interest is charged on top of the interest from day two.
This creates an immediate, continuous, never-ending snowball effect.
I think I was in the 5th or 6th grade when I started saying “I’m not good at math.”
Looking back, I said that because I wanted to fit in.
When a phrase gets repeated enough, it’s easy to start believing it.
I found out in college I was pretty good at math.
Just start doing math in your head. You can do it. It’s worth a try, right?
Now, let’s bring this all home to YOUR situation.
When we get started with a new client, the very first thing we do is a process called data gathering. That’s where we drill down and examine your current MATH situation. What does your math look like?
And if you want to know more about that, watch this video next…….
(Thank you for watching “Why I’m Not Good at Math” is Costing You Money)
