Show Me the Money!
Feb 19 2009
“People are idiots and I can prove it.”
“Figure out what hurts and stop doing it.”
“Stop raising stupid children.”
These are just some of the zingers bellowed out by Larry Winget at yesterday’s Financial Readiness Roadshow. Some of you may have heard of Larry. He’s a motivational speaker and the author of several best-sellers including, “Shut Up, Stop Whining and Get a Life”, “You’re Broke Because You Want to Be” and “It’s Called Work for a Reason.” His straightforward style makes him a media darling (they never know what’s going to come out of his mouth next) – he’s appeared everywhere from FOX, CNN, Larry King Live, CNBC, The Today Show (just to name a few). His own website has this to say, “He is caustic, straight-forward, never minces words, hilarious and offers solid advice for improving your life and your business.” As a military spouse, he’s not the kind of guy I’m used to seeing in a base theater giving a financial presentation! He’s bold, brash and incredibly abbrasive, but wow, we were all riveted as he led over a hundred of us through simple steps to a better financial outlook.
Who among us isn’t looking for more money to fund retirement, savings, children’s college funds, etc….? Fortunately for all of us, the DoD is partnering with installations around the world to put on Financial Readiness Roadshows. These roadshows are a one-day event putting nationally acclaimed speakers in front of military audiences to teach them about every possible aspect of financial literacy. I’m not going to lie to you….9 hours is an awfully long time to be fed information by firehose, but some of it does manage to seep in and stick with you. If you don’t have 9 hours to dedicate, pick and choose the sessions you want to attend. My experience was people came in and out as their schedules permitted.
Yesterday’s event at Andrews AFB consisted of 4 general sessions: John Sileo speaking about Identity Theft: Think Like a Spy….Bulletproofing your Identity, the director of education from Experion speaking about The Truths and Myths of Credit Reports, a Military & Family Life Consultant speaking about Taking Complete Control of Your Finances and finally, Larry Winget. After the last general session, we could choose from a variety of breakout sessions ranging from: strategies for homebuying, foreclusure prevention to retirement savings. I decided to brush up on Financial Planning for Deployment.
All the sessions were fair to excellent and as keynote speakers, John Sileo and Larry Winget were phenomenal. You’re bound to walk away with a lot of information and tools to help with your financial goals. More than that, I’d be surprised if a single person walked out of those sessions yesterday without a plan to change their lives in some way. As Larry Winget said so eloquently, “If you have the information, you’re obligated to do something about it.”
The Military Homefront website lists the schedule of Financial Readiness Roadshows. I’m sure there’s one coming to an installation near you. I encourage you to check it out.
The financial show provided a great opportunity for military members and/or their spouses to brush up or build on their existing knowledge about Finance, Identity Theft, etc. I attended the seminar yesterday and have to say that it was definitely long, but overall the show provided great information for everyone. John Sileo and Larry Winget were my favorites at the event, but everyone was did a good job.
When this event comes to your base…definitely check out Larry! He is blunt, but great! Some of his advice piggybacked on others; track you expenses. Larry builds on the basic idea of tracking expenses by providing an option to make that person accountable. He tells folks to have a “STUPID column” included in the expense sheet. When that week/month is over, he tells people to “go back and make a note of all purchases and the ones that weren’t necessary, put them in the stupid column.” This will help to eventually eliminate unnecessary spending by making you accountable for your actions or spending habits…