Bissonnette - How to be richer, smarter, and better-looking than your parents

Praise for

Debt-Free U

A real mule kick to the higher educational status quo.... Hes a contrarian, and his book is packed with studies and statistics to back up his analysis. Its a magical combination that college-bound students and their parents should read.

USA Today

He has written the best and most troubling book ever about the college admissions process.

Jay Mathews, Washington Post

Provides a ton of food for thought for your college planning process.

Christian Science Monitor

Zac Bissonnette is one of the sharpest financial writers around.... Doogie Howser meets the boys from Facebook.

Andrew Tobias, bestselling author of The Only Investment Guide Youll Ever Need

Let Zac Bissonnette help you plan for college, and you will finish rich.

David Bach, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Automatic Millionaire and Start Late, Finish Rich

In the new economy, your college choice is critical. Zac Bissonnettes Debt-Free U is the one book you need to make this life-changing decisionthoroughly researched, smart, and funny. Grade: A+.

Alison Rogers, CBS MoneyWatch, and author of Diary of a Real Estate Rookie

With Bissonnette, college-bound students and their parents finally have an unbiased source to help make an educated decision about choosing and affording college. His advice can help you pocket tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Farnoosh Torabi, financial expert and author of Psych Yourself Rich

PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN

HOW TO BE RICHER, SMARTER, AND BETTER-LOOKING THAN YOUR PARENTS

Zac Bissonnette is an associate producer on the investigative team at CNBC. He has also written for the Boston Globe, the Daily Beast, the Wall Street Journal, Glamour, and the New York Times Online, and has appeared on CNN and the Today show. He has been featured in the Washington Post, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and U.S. News & World Report. Bissonnette graduated with an art history degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 2011, and is a contributing editor with the Antique Trader.

HOW TO BE RICHER, SMARTER, AND BETTER-LOOKING THAN YOUR PARENTS

Zac Bissonnette

PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN

PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN

Published by the Penguin Group

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published by Portfolio / Penguin 2012

Copyright Zac Bissonnette, 2012

All rights reserved

Excerpt from Birth of a New Age address by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Copyright 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; copyright renewed 1991 Coretta Scott King. Reprinted by arrangement with The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King Jr., c/o Writers House, New York, NY as agent for the proprietor.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Bissonnette, Zac.

How to be richer, smarter, and better-looking than your parents / Zac Bissonnette.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-101-58212-1

1. Young adultsFinance, Personal. 2. Wealth. I. Title.

HG179.B5145 2012

332.0240084'2dc23 2012001873

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.

To my parents, who are actually wonderful

and wonderful-looking *

* And dont suffer the indignity of my spindly little legs

CONTENTS

With money in your pocket, you are wise and handsome, and you sing well, too.

YIDDISH PROVERB

INTRODUCTION

Money, Power, and Really Broke Housewives

We must spend our money not merely for the adolescent and transitory things, but [for] this eternal, lasting thing that we call freedom.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

I remember being four years old, hiding out in the back storage room in our house, shivering and crying and clutching White Bear, wishing my parents would just stop yelling at each other. Thank you for making my life an unmitigated misery, my mother shouted at my father, barely holding back the tears. Why was Mom so angry? Was he taking her on vacation to Branson, Missouri? Had he converted to Scientology? Or was she just hormonal?

No, as I continued to listen to the conversation, I learned what she was worried about: paying the bills.

This was my first lesson about money, and even though I know a lot more now, the one thing I did understand when I was four was that the reason my parents argued as often and loudly as they did was that they didnt have enough of it. My dads construction business was in the red, and the modest salary my mother made as a therapist was not enough to pull us out of the hole.

My parents are both wonderful people, and I dont mean to suggest that I had a miserable childhood. I had a great childhood. We grew up in a beautiful town on Cape Cod. We always had food. The lights never got turned off, and everybody loved one anothereven though the constant financial stress eventually led my parents to divorce. When I look back on it, the elements of my childhood that were less than pleasant generally involved money. (And once when, at age seven, I was pantsed at summer camp.)

My dad taught me about money the way an alcoholic teaches his kids about drinking: by being a bad example. My dad is one of the most wonderful people I know. He was a hippie during the late sixties and early seventies, driving a Volkswagen bus with a bumper sticker that read, No Left Turn Unstoned. At one point he actually lived in a tree house in a state park. When I was in middle school, he threatened to embarrass me by showing my friends pictures of his tree house. A skilled carpenter and in many ways a brilliant man, my dad has never liked to think about money and, consequently, doesnt manage it well.