MONEY Blog - Larry Winget

ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

February 27th, 2008 by Larry Winget in Money | 4 Comments →

I just found a new statistic regarding money that my own financial planner/retirement specialist sent me. A stat that shocked even me! The average savings of a 50 year old in the United States is only $2500.

Okay, you 50 year old idiot, let’s say you started to work at the very late age of 25 (I picked that number because the math is easier.) From the age of 25 to the age of 50, you were only able to put away one hundred dollars per year. Aren’t you proud? Somehow you were able to set aside $1.92 a week. I am SO impressed.

Are you kidding me? How does that happen? There are lots of ways. You spend more than you earn - that’s certainly the biggest way. You don’t have a plan. You have screwed up priorities. You don’t pay attention. You indulge yourself. You indulge your kids.

I got an email today from a woman who explained that she and her husband filed bankruptcy in 1999. Now, eight years later, their debt is right where it was then. First let me say this: Bankruptcy gave you a second chance and you blew that too!!! She said that she and her husband don’t buy anything for themselves but do have three daughters that in her words, “don’t want for anything.” Her question was how does she explain to her daughters that they have financial problems and need to “cut back” without “failing her daughters?” I wrote her back. You can imagine how nice I was. First, her statement about how her daughters “don’t want for anything” is a lie. They want for responsible parents who are smart enough to learn from their mistakes - who know how to provide for their family’s future - who have put away for college for their three kids - who have their priorities straight - who can teach them about financial planning and budgeting - who know how to live a lifestyle they can afford - who aren’t idiots!!!!!!! Failing her daughters? One more time: are you kidding me? She and her husband have already failed her daughters. She said that her daughters all have cell phones that run more than $200 a month but that they are barely scraping by. She told me that she doesn’t think it is fair that her daughters “suffer” because of her mistakes. Holy crap!!!!! Since when is a young teenager doing without a cell phone called suffering?

I could really get off on a rant here but you get the point already I believe. Sadly, I get lots of emails like this. People just can’t figure out how they got into their mess. It’s like those bills sneaked into their house at night along with the plasma TV and the closet full of cheaply made crap they can’t get their fat butts into anyway. Then they wake up in the morning and SURPRISE!!!! they are in debt up to their eyeballs and have no money to pay for all that stuff they don’t need and probably don’t even want.

Pay attention people!!!! SAVE SOME MONEY. Get a wealth strategy! Wishful thinking is NOT a wealth strategy. Hope is a not a plan for success! Get a grip. Anyone can save money. I don’t care how bad your situation is, it can be done. How? By just doing it! Stop writing me and asking me how to save money. Really. I am sick of your stupid emails begging me to tell you the secret to saving money. There is no frigging secret! Put some of your money into a savings account. Period. Just do it. Before you do ANYTHING else - do it! It’s as simple as that.

Here is another stat for you: Only 1 out of 100 of the people who start working at age 25 will be wealthy by the age of 65. Only a total of five out of a hundred will have enough money to retire at 65. Get a plan! The first step is to spend less than you earn. I get accused of being simple and people have trashed my book, You’re Broke Because You Want To Be, because there is nothing earth shattering in it, yet 40% of our society spend more than they earn and live paycheck to paycheck. Seems to me like “spend less than you earn” is earth shattering news for 40% of society so I’ll stick with my simple approach. That simple approach has served me well. I spend less than I earn and save some and invest some and give some away. That simple approach has made me a millionaire. It’s worked for lots of my millionaire friends too.

There are as many ways to be rich as there are rich people. I am not going to tell you how to do it. That is not my area of expertise. In fact, I pay people who are richer than me to show me what to do when it comes time to invest my money. I can, however, tell you how to end up broke and heartbroken and disappointed with your life: spend more than you earn. That’s all it takes.

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Credit Card Commercials and Government Stupditity

February 13th, 2008 by Larry Winget in Money | 4 Comments →

Okay, I am on a roll trashing stupid commercials. I think maybe it is the result of too much time stuck in hotel rooms while on the road. This is the newest one that pisses me off: Chase Bank, those good ol’ credit card people! Here is the commercial: A couple decides they need a new TV. He rushes to the electronic store and surrounds himself with big screen plasma television sets. Background music: I Want It All And I Want It Now. THAT IS A CLUE to why I have a problem! He grabs his cell phone and dials a number to check his available credit to see how much he can charge. The voice over says something to the effect that you can find out how much of the good life you can buy with a simple phone call encouraging him to max out his card to indulge himself and his wife.Chase should be ashamed. Promoting that I Want It All And I Want It Now mentality and then telling you to max out your entire credit balance on a big screen television. People SHOULD be smart enough to see through this stuff, but sadly they aren’t. People will stupidly watch this and think, “How cool! I should totally go get whatever I want because I deserve it and I can just charge it.” Do you need it? Who cares? Can you afford it? Why does that matter? Is it a good idea? Beats me! I just want it!!!!!!!That is the problem with the government’s new economic stimulus package as well: stupidity. We (the US Government) are going to borrow money from China (because we spent all our money on a stupid war) to give people some money they didn’t earn so they can go buy stuff made in China that they don’t need. Looks to me the economy that gets the most stimulus is China’s. Add to that the issue that most people will look at the money they get as a downpayment and won’t spend just what they are given but will spend much more. Why are we rewarding bad behavior and irresponsibility in people? Do people really need help spending? Isn’t that the basic problem anyway? Why don’t we reward things like saving and investing and putting away for healthcare and for a college fund? That makes more sense to me. I just don’t believe in rewarding spending and encouraging more spending.If you get some of that free government money (I won’t) I hope you don’t do what the government wants you to do. They want you to help retailers and the economy by spending the money at the mall. I want you to pay off those high interest credit cards you have. If you don’t have any high interest credit card debt, then save or invest the money. Be smarter than our government.Until next time.EXTRA EXTRA!!!!!!!!! Just got an email from a Chase executive. I admire them for making contact with me. That alone deserves some respect. They acknowledged to me that perhaps their true message was not clear enough. That the goal was to teach people NOT to buy the biggest but to buy more what they could afford. Sorry I missed it - I think Queen screaming out I want it all and I want it NOW!!!!!!! while flashing a credit card drowned out their meaning - at least to me. Again, I respect Chase for making contact with me. They were very respectful of me and what I do so I give them CREDIT for that. I appreciate any effort to teach people to spend responsibly. In their words, “We are trying to establish a responsibility message (see www.chaseclearandsimple.com, which offers people a number of tools to help them pay on time and know theimpact of only making minimum payments.” I applaud any effort to help people do just that! I have said for years that credit card companies are NOT at fault for being in a credit card mess. People sign the contract and then don’t live according to the document they signed. I do not believe predatory lending runs rampant as many would lead you to believe. I believe big boys and girls sign papers and agree to payment plans and then don’t keep their words. Then when there are consequences, they cry ‘Foul!”This is full disclosure between me and you, them and me and now all of us. I think it is refreshing to see people COMMUNICATE their differences and talk things out openly.Larry

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Don’t complicate it!

February 4th, 2008 by Larry Winget in Money | 1 Comment →

Okay, how tough was it for you to get in debt?  Not very tough I bet.  You simply spent more than you earned.  That is all it took for you to get in over your head.  You did it a variety of ways:  a movie you didn’t have the money for and you bought the tickets on your Mastercard.  A Saturday morning breakfast out with the family that you slipped onto your Visa.  A little here, a little there.  Am I right?  You didn’t mean for all to add up but it just happened!    That is how you get out of debt too.  You simply spend LESS than you earn.  You don’t indulge yourself with a movie or a meal that you don’t have the cash to pay for.  And that is cash that is budgeted for those things.  You don’t use the grocery money to go to the movies.  You don’t use car payment money to buy breakfast.  You only use money (cash) for what it is budgeted for.  And you steer clear of using your credit card except for emergencies and then only after you have exhausted all other forms of payment.   That is how you get out of your ridiculous predicament.  A little here, a little there.   You didn’t get IN trouble overnight and you won’t get OUT of trouble overnight either.   Be patient.  Make your life about doing the right thing, the thing you know you should be doing every day.  Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves.  

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To the whiners and critics…….

January 27th, 2008 by Larry Winget in Money | 7 Comments →

Yep, I said it….. this is to all of you whiners and critics who love to write me about the book and write negative comments about the book, You’re Broke Because You Want To Be.

First, the positive response to the book has been overwhelming. It seems like those who need to change their situation and read the book are very satisfied with my advice and have written me thankful emails. I sincerely appreciate those letters. You are ready for things to improve and you are doing something about it. That’s all I ask of anyone. I applaud you. And over one thousand of you have used my Refer A Friend button to suggest my book to others…..maybe you just wanted the free book, but that’s okay too. Thanks!

But to those of you who have trashed me over the title saying things like, “How dare you put people down for being poor and for having financial problems…..yada, yada, yada.” I say to you, READ THE BOOK. I understand financial problems. I understand poor. I even start the book sympathizing with the condition “POOR.” The book is NOT for poor people.

Then there is the group, like the couple who trashed my book with one star reviews on Amazon (by the way, they are a married couple who write separate reviews) and they follow me around trashing every book I write. Also, they hate all self improvement books they read and these bozos read a lot…..seems they have every problem known to man, buy books on how to deal with the problem and then hate every book they read. Gee, think THEY might be the problem? Nope, that can’t be it - the experts must be the problem!!!! These people weren’t happy with the book because I didn’t address a number of very specific problems like what happens when you get some disease and can’t work as much and have medical bills and your boss is unsympathetic and again: yada yada yada. In order to address every single specific problem known to man that can cause financial problems I would have to write a 26 volume set of encyclopedias! Instead I address a handful of the most common problems people experience that cause their financial situation. Mostly the problem of an extravagant lifestyle. So to those of you with specific problems that my book doesn’t address……too bad. You are still looking for someone to blame. I’ll let you blame me since obviously you have no fault in your situation at all!

Next, for those of you who post negative comments on Amazon and write me about how stupid the book is because you think I am an arrogant, trash-talking elitist who hides behind sunglasses and stupid shirts and has no idea what it is like to be broke (yep folks, this and more has been said to me and about me), I again say READ THE BOOK. If you read the book, you will find that I am ANYTHING but an elitist and I know broke better than most. I am a country boy from Muskogee, Oklahoma where my family still lives and I grew up without much of anything. And I wear those shirts because I like them! And I wear sunglasses because the sun hurts my eyes! And arrogant? Well, maybe a bit but it is not because I grew up rich or am now rich. I could be the poster child for stupidity. I have made every mistake in the world in every area of my life: with my family, my wife, my businesses, my money. I just learned from my mistakes and now teach what I learned. Period.

Then we have that group of people who trash the book because it is too basic and doesn’t teach anything new. You and ONLY you are 100% correct!!!!!! It is basic….but I meant for it to be that way. People don’t have a clue what their situation is. 40% of our society spends more than they earn. Something basic is needed to wake people up and get them on track… they don’t need a sophisticated approach - they need a basic approach. And you are also right when you say that I am not teaching anything new. I admit that too. There is NO new information anywhere in the world on any topic. I have said that in all my books. I present proven information in a NEW way. I don’t say it like other people. My style is the only thing new and different in any of my books.

Now, it may appear to you who are reading this that I can’t take criticism. Actually I like criticism. In fact, I thrive on it. When you say the kinds of things I say in the way I say it, you have to be prepared to offend people and make them uncomfortable. I am fine with that. So I love all the reviews. IF you read the book. If you read my books and don’t like them, you are free to leave an informed critique of my work. If you haven’t read what I write and you want to critique it, I say, “Shut the hell up because you don’t have the right to comment on something you know nothing about.” Fair? Seems so to me.

Again, thanks to those of you who like the book and are telling me and others. And thanks to those of you who read the book and have issues with it. That shows you are reading and trying to learn and should probably look elsewhere for your answers since I am not the right guy for you. But to you whiners……. you can ….. oh well, you can figure that last one out can’t you???

Larry

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Book Reviews by Personal Finance Bloggers

January 6th, 2008 by Larry Winget in Money | 14 Comments →

I would like to say thanks to all of the personal finance bloggers who have reviewed the book on their blog.  You folks all do a great service out there helping people.  I am going to post some of the reviews here my readers to enjoy. And for my fans who are looking for other financial advice, please check out these blogs! 

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MONEY questions.

October 8th, 2007 by Larry Winget in Money | 47 Comments →

I am getting lots of personal email via my website containing questions about money and debt. I will do my best to answer most of these but frankly, there are just too many to get to personally. However, if you post here I will answer you on the blog. That way everyone can benefit from the questions and the answers.

Below, I have included a few of the letters I received just today. Again, I can’t answer all but will answer some when I think that everyone could benefit from both the question and the answer. I have changed the names to protect the innocent. Though you will see from reading that there aren’t any innocent!

Thanks!!!!

Larry

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