Dave Barry's Money Secrets Read Online Free

Point Suze Orman Would Run Out of Ideas for Money Books, but You Would Be Wrong;
and
Buy This Money Book or Suze Orman Will Rip Out Your Throat with Her Large Carnivorous Teeth.
    The reason Suze has sold so many books is that she offers a clear, simple, common-sense message that resonates with everyday people:
You pathetic loser.
    As Suze explains, because of your loserhood, you’re probably doing many stupid things with your money that you’re not even aware of. For example, let’s say that, every morning on the way to work, you stop at Starbucks and buy a latte for $3.95. It doesn’t sound like much, does it? But suppose that, instead of spending that money on coffee, you set it aside each day. What would happen?
    First of all, without the caffeine, you’d fall asleep in your cubicle at work and get fired. But look at the financial upside! At the end of just two working weeks, you’d have saved $3.95 per day for ten days, which works out to, let’s see . . . carry the 6 . . . OK, it’s nearly
forty dollars.
That’s right: You would have saved enough money to invest in
a half keg of beer—
enough, if you manage it properly, to maintain a serious buzz for
an entire weekend.
THAT’S the kind of long-term financial thinking Suze and I are talking about.
    But to achieve this kind of result, you need to develop, and stick to, a Personal Financial Plan. If you’re like most people, you’re always thinking of reasons why you haven’t made a Personal Financial Plan, like “I don’t have the time,” or “I’m no good with numbers,” or “I’m being held prisoner in a cave by a lunatic who believes he is taking orders from a bat.”
    Well, Mr. or Ms. Excuse-Maker, it’s time you stopped whining and started taking charge of your financial situation. It’s easy! You just need to follow these steps:

    1.                  Analyze your cash flow. “Cash flow” is a term that accountants use to describe the flowing of cash. To analyze your cash flow, first sit down at your kitchen table, put your head in your hands, and think really hard about the following question: “Where the HELL does all my money go?”

    When you have figured out the answer, you should make a pie chart to help you graphically visualize your cash flow. It should look something like this:

    Where Your Money Goes

    When we analyze this chart, we see that your biggest area of concern, cash-flow-wise, is your Miscellaneous. This is where you need to cut back, by not spending so much money on frivolous and unnecessary items. Your children, for example. Chances are that, like most kids today, they want you to buy them every new fad item that comes along, so they can be like their friends. Be firm with them! Tell them: “Just because your friends have food, clothing, and medical care, that doesn’t mean YOU have to have those things.” (We’ll have more on reducing the high cost of children in our chapter on education, under “Steering Your Child Away from Harvard and Toward a Cheap, Crappy College.”)
    You can also save on your household expenses by using time-tested homeowner money-saving tips. For example: Do you use toilet paper? Of course you do! No shame in that. But when you’ve used up the roll, what do you do with the little cardboard tube? You throw it away, right? I bet that, over the years, you’ve thrown away hundreds of those little tubes. But if you save them in a box, at some point down the road you’ll have collected enough so that you can put them to some kind of clever, money-saving household use. Although it beats the hell out of me what that use might be. I’m a financial expert, not Heloise.
    Another way you can save money is to avoid using your credit cards. Oh, sure, it’s easy to “whip out the plastic,” but it’s also a bad idea. Let’s say you’re at a convenience store, and you buy a can of Diet Coke costing a dollar, which you pay with your credit card. For openers, the people in line