Over the past 4 years, Get Rich Slowly has grown into an active community where 500,000 monthly visitors share ideas on how to save money on food, find the best savings accounts, dig out of debt, and otherwise improve their financial lives.
J.D. lives with his wife and four cats in a 100-year-old house in Portland, Oregon. When hes not writing about money, he likes to read, eat, and laugh with his friends. You can read about his obsessions with books, cats, and comic books at .
About the Creative Team
Dawn Frausto (editor) is assistant editor for the Missing Manual series. When not working, she likes rock climbing, playing soccer, and causing trouble. Email: .
Nellie McKesson (production editor) lives in Brighton, Mass., and spends her spare time studying graphic design and building a t-shirt business (.
Dylan Ross (technical reviewer) is a fee-only Certified Financial Planner practitioner and owner of Swan Financial Planning, LLC in New Jersey. He provides financial planning and investment advice on an hourly, as-needed basis. In his spare time, Dylan enjoys the outdoors, strumming his ukulele, and spending time with his wife and twin sons. Email: .
Charlie Park (technical reviewer), creator of the personal finance website PearBudget.com, is an indie web developer and family man. He lives in Williamsburg, VA.
Alison OByrne (copy editor) is a full-time freelance editor with over eight years experience specializing in corporate and government projects for international clients. She lives a rich and happy life with her family in Dublin, Ireland. Email: .
Jan Wright (indexer) lives in the mountains of New Mexico, and likes to ride an electric bike when she is not indexing, beading, or eating red chile. Email: .
Acknowledgements
You know, Ive always skipped over the acknowledgement sections in books because they look so darn boring. What are they there for, anyhow? Now I know. After having devoted 4 months of more than full-time work to this project, I have a better appreciation for how much effort goes into producing a book.
First, Id like to thank my editor, Dawn Frausto, without whom this book would be a dense, rambling mess. Dawn helped polish this rock into a shining gem. Along the way, Dawn and I were assisted by many folks, including tech reviewers Dylan Ross and Charlie Park, whose eagle eyes caught many stupid errors.
Many Get Rich Slowly readers contributed their stories and ideas to this book, including Courtney Cronk, Sabino Arredondo, Jason Corbett, Trent Hamm, Jessie Smith, Donna Freedman, Jim Wang, Mike Iannantuano, Matt Jabs, Jacob Laha, John Little, Sierra Black, Matt Haughey, Tim Ferriss, April Dykman, Adam Baker, and Ramit Sethi.
Thanks, too, to all the people who read chapters here and there and gave me feedback, including Jeremy Gingerich, Dave Carlson, Andrew Cronk, Paul Hosom, Josh Bennett, Tim Kutscha, Liz Weston, Bonnie Biafore, Adam Jusko, Curtis Arnold, and Chris Guillebeau.
Special thanks to Michael Hampton, without whom I never would have started my journey from debt to wealth. Without Michaels gentle prodding, I wouldnt have changed my profligate ways, destroyed my debt, started Get Rich Slowly, or written this book. Speaking of Get Rich Slowly, Id be remiss if I didnt thank my blogs readers for the support and education theyve given me over the years. You guys are awesome!
Finally, this book wouldnt have been possible without the support of my wife, Kris Gates, who has not only tolerated my long hours in front of the computer, but read every word in these pages many times, and provided much-needed moral support. This project has proved what I already knew: Kris Gates is always right.
This book is dedicated to Sparky: http://tinyurl.com/GRS-sparky.
Introduction
" What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy . And joy is, after all, the end of life . We do not live to eat and make money . We eat and make money to be able to live . That is what life means and what life is for .
George Mallory
For years, I lived paycheck to paycheck on an average American salary. Every month I struggled to pay my bills and make ends meet. I spent everything I had, and sometimes more. In the decade after I graduated from college, I racked up over $35,000 in debt. I knew how to spend money, but I didnt know how to save it.
2004 was a turning point for me. My wife and I bought a 100-year-old farmhouse that needed a lot of work. My budget was already stretched to the limit, and I didnt see how Id be able to afford the plumber, electrician, and carpenter we needed. I felt like I was drowning.
With the help of some friends, I was able to keep my head above water: They loaned me some books about money. I read them, and then went to the public library and borrowed more books on the topic. I started picking up personal-finance magazines and browsing financial websites. All of the advice made sense, but there were so many numbers and terms involved that I couldnt keep them straight.
To make sense of it all for myselfand maybe to help some others along the wayI started writing about the things I learned and posting them at GetRichSlowly.org. I reviewed the books I read, shared the websites I found, and wrote down my thoughts about my relationship with money. I never expected anyone other than my family and friends to read the site, but to my surprise, others wanted to learn about this stuff, too.
Get Rich Slowly has grown into an amazing community of everyday folks who help each other tackle financial problems. (The site gets half a million visitors every month!) Want to learn how to cut your cable bill by 33%, where to find the best online savings account, or find out what a bond is? Get Rich Slowly readers have the answers.