Barry - Dave Barrys Money Secrets

DAVE BARRYS

MONEY $ECRETS

LIKE:

Why Is There a Giant Eyeball on the Dollar?

Crown Publishers / New York

Contents

This book is dedicated to all the people of the world, on the theory that they will respond by thinking: Wow! A book dedicated to me. I should buy a copy.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank Alan Greenspan, Milton Friedman, and the entire faculty of Harvard Business School for not attempting in any way to interfere with the writing of this book. I also want to thank Donald Trump and Suze Orman just for being who they are.

INTRODUCTION

WHY YOU NEED THIS BOOK

P ERHAPS YOURE A YOUNG PERSON just getting started in life. Or perhaps youre an older person thinking about retiring. Or perhaps youre a hostile space alien planning to wipe out humanity by putting tiny radioactive scorpions in the latte machines at Starbucks.

Well, no matter who you are, you need this book.

Why? you ask.

Because chances are that when it comes to your personal finances, you are, with all due respect, a complete moron. I do not mean that in a derogatory way. I mean it simply in the sense that, when it comes to handling money, you are a stupid idiot.

But, you say, what if I follow the accepted principles of sound money management?

Great. Except that your so-called accepted principles of sound money management are worthless.

But, you say, what if OUCH!

I apologize for slapping your face, but if you keep interrupting with your stupid questions, were never going to get through this introduction.

As I was saying, your so-called accepted principles of sound money management are worthless. To help you understand why, lets consider the financial situations of two best friends, named Bob and John.

In some ways, Bob and John are very much alike: Theyre the same age, make the same salary, and have the same number of dependents. They live in identical houses next door to each other. They both have quotation marks around their names.

But that is where the similarities end. Bob is very involved in managing his money: He reads every money-related article he can get his hands on, follows all the money-advice experts on radio and TV, and regularly attends investment seminars.

John does none of these things. He has never read a word about money management. He has no investment plan. John cant even balance his checking account!

And yet, oddly enough, Bob is the one in financial trouble. He lives paycheck to paycheck. He cant afford to send his kids to college. He drives an old clunker car and is forced to use cheap, generic toilet tissue that makes him feel as though he is performing intimate hygiene with roofing materials.

John, meanwhile, drives a new Mercedes, sends his kids to Ivy League universities, and dines at fine restaurants serving shrimp the size of Mike Tysons forearm.

How is this possible? What is Johns secret? Simple: He is stealing from Bob. He dug a tunnel under Bobs house and uses it to swipe Bobs cash, food, electricity, cable TV, and small appliances. Sometimes, when Bob is at an investment seminar, John has sex with Bobs wife, Alice.

What is the moral of this story? Simple: When it comes to money, you cant even trust your best friend. You cant trust anybody. Everywhere you turn, people are trying to take advantage of you.

Ill give you an embarrassing example from my own personal experience. Like many computer users, I receive a tremendous amount of spam e-mail. Most of it is highly questionable, consisting of offers to sell me discount Viagra, enlarge my penis, refinance my mortgage, eliminate my debts, get me a great deal on life insurance, set me up in some home business that will allegedly give me a huge income for just a few hours work, enroll me in a pyramid scheme or some other foolproof system to get rich quick with almost no effort, and on and on and on. Its ridiculous! I mean, why would I need to enlarge MY penis? The very idea is absurd! Ask anyone!

But some of the get rich quick proposals look pretty good. I got one in particular from a businessman in Nigeria, who wrote me a very businesslike e-mail stating that, in a nutshell, he wanted to send me $47 million.

I didnt totally follow his explanationthere were a lot of detailsbut the gist was that there was some kind of business screwup over there in Nigeria (you know how it is in business) and a bunch of businesspeople decided that, for business reasons, they needed to send somebody $47 million, and somehow my name came up.

It seemed almost too good to be true. But as I say, the e-mail was very businesslike, so I replied that, sure, I would be willing to take the $47 million.

You probably know what happened next. After a few e-mail exchanges, the businessman informed me that some minor technical problems had cropped upsomething about Nigerian government red tapeand that in order to smooth things out and send the money to me, he needed me to send him an advance fee of $5,000.

I was a little suspicious, and my friends warned me to be cautious, but $5,000 seemed like a small enough investment for a return of $47 million. So I sent a check.

No sooner had it cleared than my businessman friend sent me another e-mail, apologizing and saying that there were more problems, and he needed another $5,000.

At this point my friends were all telling me that I had become the victim of a classic scam, and that I was crazy to send any more money. But I was so blinded by greed, so hooked on the idea of getting my hands on this huge fortune, that I went ahead and wrote a second $5,000 check.

Two days later, I received $47 million in cash. It came via UPS in 578 large cardboard boxes. I have cash all over my house. If I want a helicopter, I just grab a box and go buy one. My money worries are over forever! And why? Because I did not trust my friends. Theyre not even my friends anymore, now that Im extremely rich. I hang out with new friends that I met at the helicopter store.

Of course I cannot guarantee that you will achieve the same level of financial success as I did. But I can promise you that, if you carefully follow the proven, time-tested money-management principles* detailed in this book, you will be the first person ever to do so. And surely that is worth something.

So lets get started! The first order of business is for you to take the following:

Quiz to Determine Your Current Financial Health

What kind of financial shape are you in right now? This scientific quiz will show you. Be honest in your answers: If you lie, youll only be lying to yourself! The place to lie is on your federal tax return.

What is your annual income?

Not counting your mortgage, how much money do you currently owe?

How would you describe your portfolio?