Sherri Burr - A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Literacy

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JESSE H. CHOPER

Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus,
University of California, Berkeley

JOSHUA DRESSLER

Professor of Law, Michael E. Moritz College of Law,
The Ohio State University

YALE KAMISAR

Professor of Law Emeritus, University of San Diego
Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Michigan

MARY KAY KANE

Professor of Law, Chancellor and Dean Emeritus,
University of California,
Hastings College of the Law

LARRY D. KRAMER

President, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

JONATHAN R. MACEY

Professor of Law, Yale Law School

ARTHUR R. MILLER

University Professor, New York University
Formerly Bruce Bromley Professor of Law, Harvard University

GRANT S. NELSON

Professor of Law, Pepperdine University
Professor of Law Emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles

A. BENJAMIN SPENCER

Professor of Law,
University of Virginia School of Law

JAMES J. WHITE

Professor of Law, University of Michigan

a short & happy guide to

by

Sherri Burr

Regents Professor of Law
University of New Mexico School of Law

Mat #41625738

The publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or other professional advice, and this publication is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. If you require legal or other expert advice, you should seek the services of a competent attorney or other professional.

Short and Happy Guide Series is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

2014 LEG, Inc. d/b/a West Academic

444 Cedar Street, Suite 700
St. Paul, MN 55101
1-877-888-1330

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-62810-039-6

This book is dedicated to my great-aunt Callie, great-great-aunts Lillian and Sill, and great-grandmother Zellar. Thank you for demonstrating the power of passive income and the advantage of managing money appropriately.

The author thanks the following individuals for reading various chapters of this book and providing feedback: Judith Schiess Avila, Sue Brown, Cheryl Burbank, Omar Durant, Penny Durant, Melody Groves, Lana Harrigan, Kathleen Hessler, Phil Jackson, Sue Mann, Nathalie Martin, Paula Paul, Pat Sutton, Kelly Williams, Carolyn Wheelock, and Patricia Woody.

She is also grateful to the following individuals at West Academic for their enthusiastic support of this book: James Cahoy, Staci Herr, Louis Higgins, Robb Westawker, Greg Olson, Pam Siege Chandler, and Laura Holle.

In conclusion, the author appreciates the many individuals, including the named and the anonymous, who shared stories or were interviewed for this book.

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During the current recession, which began around December 2007, the U.S. economy lost over 15,000 legal jobs and 250,000 public education positions, and downgraded numerous other employments. As access to credit tightened, some individuals lost the ability to borrow for cars, homes and other items. Even as undergraduate and professional students found loans to finance their education, interest rates rose. This situation necessitates educating law students, lawyers, judges, secretaries, teachers and the general public to mind their finances.

A Short & Happy Guide to Financial Well-Being is a money management manual for individuals seeking education so they can thrive in both weak and healthy economic times. It provides advice on eliminating debt, spending frugally, managing credit, purchasing cars and homes, saving money, writing wills, adjusting to downsizing, and filing for bankruptcy. The book is set up in a tip format, offering advice in an easy to follow fashion for individuals like law and medical students seeking to manage their personal finances while in school, and will serve them well when their finances improve upon graduation and the obtaining of a job.

This book intersperses individual interviews, the authors personal experiences, and colorful characters like Dedicated Doctor, Joyful Judge, Lively Law Student, Learned Lawyer, Published Poet, Reliable Realtor, and Seattle Businessman to explain complex financial matters. Through these characters, A Short & Happy Guide to Financial Well-Being provides financial advice in an often humorous manner.

Certain characters like Learned Lawyer, Lively Law Student, Published Poet, and Scattered Secretary appear throughout the book. Published Poet, for example, is introduced in the first chapter as a person who adopts a phone code to dodge creditors, and readers will follow her through a number of problematic circumstances as she loses her home, and twice files for bankruptcy. Learned Lawyer appears in various chapters as a person who navigated requests from relatives for loans, and as a busy professional who adopted simplified investment strategies to avoid scams. Scattered Secretary demonstrates the advantages of eliminating debt, while Lively Law Student showcases how to spend frugally and search for the free or nearly free items and services.

The tips are practical. Those who mind their finances during difficult times will be situated to move forward into the economys good times.

This book is grouped into four parts. Part I provides the basics to becoming financially literate. Part II offers savings and prudent investment tips. Part III delivers tips for the financially struggling, including those who have been downsized or gone bankrupt. Part IV conveys information helpful to all individuals seeking to improve their lives.

A Short & Happy Guide to Financial Well-Being is a gift of knowledge to you, your relatives and your friends. When it comes to managing money, ignorance is not bliss.

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The phone rang incessantly. Published Poet, a creative person in her seventies on Social Security, didnt dare answer. She feared the threats and name calling. Instead, Published Poet adopted a phone code and shared it only with her closest family members and friends. They were instructed to dial her number, let the phone ring once, hang up, and then dial again. She would answer the second time.

Why did Published Poet adopt a scheme before she would pick up her ringing telephone? To distinguish friend from foe, namely collection agencies harassing her at all hours. When the collection agencies eventually figured out the code, she disconnected her phone altogether so no one could reach her.

Scattered Secretary worked for a law firm and was organized at work, but disorganized at home. As his bills mounted, he put together a simple system to determine which ones to pay. He drew a line in a room with a belt or another item and then tossed the bills into the air. The bills that landed on the positive side got paid, the others got pitched into the circular file, otherwise known as the trash can.