Live Better, Spend Less, and Save More

This book is an accumulation of all I have learned in my life about personal finance.  As an undergraduate business student concentrating in finance, I learned many financial concepts and technical tools.  I first applied my financial knowledge as a loan officer in a bank.  I was fortunate to work in a bank where the loan officers performed all parts of making a loan, including  collecting the not-so-good loans.  The experience of talking to thousands of loan customers about money, credit, and personal finances has turned out to be invaluable for me.  Those were very valuable years in getting me to where I am now as an educator in the area of personal finance. 

            After my bank experience, I moved on to other career experiences that have added to my knowledge of personal finance and how people think about money.  Personally, I made many mistakes and I did a few things right when it came to money.  Of all my experiences with money, the most important lesson I learned was to do what felt right to me and not listen to others.  It seemed that when I was doing what felt right to me, my personal finances were healthy and I felt comfortable with money.  When I was following someone else’s money agenda, things went poorly and I was very uncomfortable with money.  The school of hard knocks clearly has taught me that I know me best and to pursue personal finances that I felt good about.  I encourage you to do the same. 

I have written this book to provide you with the knowledge and concepts, so you can make informed financial decisions based upon what you want.  What you do with the knowledge and concepts I will teach you is up to you.  You know you best. 

            I began the journey of writing this book when I began teaching at Indiana University Purdue University Columbus in the fall of 2001.  In the spring of 2002, I had the opportunity to teach a course called F260 Personal Finance.  I used a standard textbook for that semester and then again when I taught F260 in the summer of 2002.  Those two semesters started me thinking about an improved way to teach and learn personal finance.  At that point in my life, I had never considered writing a book.  I taught F260 again in the fall of 2002 and I decided to not use the standard textbook.  Instead, I wrote the materials for the course as the semester progressed.  It went pretty well.  I was able to get direct feedback from the students about what was working in my writing and what was not working.  I made changes as I received feedback from the students.  It helped that my campus had a wide range of students.  I had people of all ages, education, background, work experience, and experience with money in F260.  I have had 18 year olds just out of high school to people in their 60s.  Their diversified feedback and cumulative feedback has been extraordinarily helpful to me. 

            I have taught many personal finances courses since those first few times and with each course I have used my book drafts as the course textbook.  Hundreds of people have used the drafts and provided me with feedback.  I have now refined the draft into a completed book. 

This book is about what works for real people in the real world.  Too much of the financial advice that is available today is simply not workable for most people in the rea