Poor No More: The Book
Poor No More: Wealth Is Within Reach
A brief description of the book
Information about the author
The table of contents
The first chapter of the book
Information on purchasing the book
It doesn’t matter if we make $10,000, $100,000, or $1,000,000 per year. If we haven’t learned how to wisely spend and invest our money, we will end up with nothing in the end. Reversing this dire situation doesn’t require sacrifice or going without the items we desire. All it requires is the knowledge of how personal financial decisions affect our lives – an understanding of how outside forces often encourage us to make bad decisions about our finances.
We have been promoted to, advertised to, marketed to, and sold to so often that we no longer think for ourselves. When it comes to personal financial decisions, our minds have become cluttered with so much self-serving advice and clever product advertisements that outside influences have taken control of our financial decision mindset. These ideas, trapped unknowingly within our perceptions of finance, are toxic to our financial well-being. Making our daily financial choices using our corrupted financial decision mindset sustains our dependency on our paychecks. Madison Avenue advertising executives make our daily financial choices for us without our knowledge or objections. Our financial ruin is certain unless we can regain control.
A popular health craze is to use various cleansing regimens to remove the toxins from our bodies. Similarly, we need to cleanse our minds of financial ideas and mindsets that were placed there by sinister outside forces with their own agendas. This book endeavors to identify and debunk these inappropriate ideas.
Just as important, this book provides tools to help the reader make appropriate financial, purchasing, and living decisions. The goal is a better life, without monetary pressures, free from external toxic financial interference. The goal is financial freedom and personal wealth.
Curtis Hill, CFP® holds two bachelor’s degrees from North Carolina State University plus a master degree from Southern Methodist University. Mr. Hill had been a successful businessman and manager for fifteen years before becoming a financial advisor. He worked at three major brokerage firms beginning with Morgan Stanley in 1994, where he obtained the title of Senior Vice President, and earned his CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ certification.
Mr. Hill’s career is all about helping people achieve financial serenity. During his practice, Mr. Hill has been very observant of what made some people successful and others not. In his book, Poor No More, he summarizes his observations and identifies financial pitfalls as well as behaviors that lead to wealth.
Mr. Hill was raised in North Carolina, moved to Dallas, TX in his early twenties, and subsequently moved to Los Angeles in his mid thirties. He now lives in Beverly Hills, CA with his wife, Irina.
Table of Contents
- Chapter 1 – What’s Really Behind Our Financial Decisions?
- Chapter 2 – Sixty-Five Is Not a Magic Number
- Chapter 3 – The Goal Is Financial Freedom, Not Retirement
- Chapter 4 – Freedom Account Dynamics
- Chapter 5 – Madison Avenue Versus Us
- Chapter 6 – Our “NEEDS” Versus Our “WANTS”
- Chapter 7 – Planning and Budgeting
- Chapter 8 – Living Well on Less
- Chapter 9 – Debt Is a Four-Letter Word
- Chapter 10 – Cars: Budget Sucking Machines
- Chapter 11 – You Versus Car Dealerships
- Chapter 12 – How Did I Blow All That
- Chapter 13 – Proper Use and Control of Credit
- Chapter 14 – Home Sweet Mortgage
- Chapter 15 – The Power of Compounding (Are We Getting Ahead?)
- Chapter 16 – Investments Aren’t Mysterious
- Chapter 17 – Untrue Investment Truisms or The Effects of Aiming Too Low
- Chapter 18 – Wrapping It All Up
Chapter 1- What’s Really Behind Our Financial Decisions?
It had been a long day. My head was thumping with a splitting headache. Since my office was over a pharmacy, I went downstairs to buy some Advil™ . Two hours later, with my head cleared from the pain, I asked myself, “Why Advil™??” My purchase had been spontaneous, without thought. Who had placed the idea in my head that Advil™ was the solution? Would not the store brand’s ibuprofen have been just as good at half the price? Why did I buy Advil™? Do I exercise control over my other purchases and financial decisions?
My premise is that we no longer properly exercise choice or free will when it comes to our financial decisions. In fact, these decisions are becoming increasingly involuntary, without our conscious control. We have been promoted to, advertised to, marketed to, and sold to so often that we can no longer think for ourselves. When it comes to personal financial decisions, our minds have become cluttered with so much external self-serving advice and clever product advertisements that outside influences have taken control of our financial “belief system.”
Do our beliefs betray us? Are we aware of the sources of our beliefs? Are our beliefs controlled by others?
So what does our belief system have to do with money and finance? It’s simple; we make our daily decisions based on what we “believe” is good or bad, what we “believe” is desirable or not, what we “believe” we deserve or not, what we “believe” we need or not, and what we “believe” we can afford or not. Most of our decision-making processes begin with our belief system. That is why the source of our beliefs is so critical. My question to the reader is: Have we considered where our beliefs come from? A wise person should be suspicious of the source of their beliefs, and should be aware of how and why these beliefs became part of his their psyche.
If freedom is defined by having control, how can we have freedom if we give up control of our belief system to outside forces that have self-serving motives?
When we consider the sheer volume of advertising and marketing we encounter, it is self-evident that our financial belief system has been corrupted by sinister outside forces. These outside forces have their own agendas that seldom align with our best interests. These forces consider only their own goals – corporate profits. Corporate marketing has become so effective that it can implant ideas and concepts within our financial belief system without our knowledge. These corrupted concepts, implanted within our financial belief system, are toxic to our monetary well-being.
Please note that I do not intend to beat up corporations. They are only doing what I, as a stockholder, would insist they do: attempting to maximize sales and profits. I just want the reader to be aware that corporate profit motives may conflict with our personal best interests.
Don’t let corporations brainwash us and control our beliefs!
As consumers and as stewards of our own financial well-being, we have become brainwashed. We need to take more responsibility for our financial lives. We need to regain control! Madison Avenue advertising executives make our daily financial decisions for us without our knowledge or objections. We continue to make daily monetary decisions using our corrupted financial belief system, which causes us to remain dependent on our paychecks. Our financial ruin is certain unless we can regain control.
A popular health craze is to use various cleansing regimens to remove the toxins from our bodies. Similarly, we need to cleanse our minds of financial concepts and beliefs that were placed there by sinister outside forces with their own financial agendas. This book endeavors to identify and debunk these inappropriate beliefs, and will recommend regimens to recognize and cleanse inappropriate financial beliefs from our psyches. This book also provides tools to help us make appropriate financial, purchasing, and living decisions. The goal is a better life, without monetary pressures and free from outside malicious financial interference. The goal is financial freedom.
Do we think for ourselves? Or are we sheep following the herd?
Financially we have become sheep, following everyone else, unable to think for ourselves. It is easy to believe that being in debt is normal when everyone around us is in debt. We find comfort in being like everyone else we know. It is easy and convenient to not question our financial beliefs or where they came from. We accept our financial beliefs as fact even though these beliefs are implanted by outside forces. Therefore, our attitudes about what we spend money on, how much debt we take on, how we should work, how we should retire, when we should retire, and what we can expect to achieve in our lives is largely controlled by massive corporate advertising campaigns.
Corporations have trained us to desire their products regardless of our ability to afford them. Then, these corporations provide us with credit to enslave us with the chains of debt. In the end, we are left wanting more than we have and without the funds to buy what we really need. Our desires, implanted within us by outside forces, have taken control of us.
Who controls our purchases: Madison Avenue or us?
So how do we shatter the chains of debt and break our addictions to purchasing items we don’t need? How do we block sinister outside influences? How do we plan for the future? How do we retake control of our lives? People attempt to do so by reading financial self-help books and by seeking the advice of financial planners.
Reading self-help books is a good idea because, at a minimum, this exercise encourages self-reflection about the financial decisions we are making. However, please remember that most self-help books are designed to sell more books by promising easy solutions. Authors can sell more books if they offer solutions that are simple to understand and require little change. Thus, I have not found a financial self-help book that addresses core belief issues. Without correcting our corrupted financial beliefs, it would be difficult to achieve financial freedom. This book focuses on workable practical solutions to our financial issues that will lead to financial freedom.
Financial planners can also be helpful. However, they are typically compensated by the collections of assets under the planner’s management. This creates a potential conflict of interest. The planner’s recommended solutions are often geared around the long-term collection of assets for future needs such as retirement, children’s educations, major purchases, estate planning, etc. It is contrary to the planner’s own pay incentives to encourage investors to spend and enjoy their assets. Thus, many financial planners may place the quality of their clients’ current lifestyles on the back burner. Further, many financial planners embrace some of the corrupted financial beliefs that limit our concepts of what is possible, practical, and achievable. In short, we need to learn how to think for ourselves.
Most financial books and planners focus on retirement planning issues instead of more important current lifestyle issues.
The objective of many personal financial books and financial planners is to teach us how to manage our assets and debt so that we can build wealth to eventually retire, as though retirement should be our main goal. Typically these books and planners define “financial independence” as the ability to retire. Retirement should not be our main or only goal. I believe that focusing primarily on retirement falls short of what is achievable and desirable. Financial books and financial planners focus primarily on retirement planning instead of lifestyle issues. This narrow focus contributes to the corruption of our belief system by limiting our perception of what is achievable through good financial management.
Thus, seeking outside help can result in further “belief” manipulation. If we recognize when and how we are being manipulated, we can break free of the chains that restrict us and learn how to think for ourselves. True financial freedom becomes achievable only when we remove the control and influence of outside forces. Proper outside advice should not tell us what we should do. Proper outside advice should only give us the appropriate tools to evaluate and make our own decisions.
True financial freedom is more than just financial independence. It is the power to choose and think for ourselves without personal monetary pressures or outside influence.
Many financial books and planners focus on collecting assets and guiding our investments. Although their advice can be very useful, it is of no value if we don’t have the money to invest. How do we obtain the free cash to invest when we can’t make ends meet? Many self-help books recommend “get rich quick” schemes that sometimes even suggest taking on more debt in order to make our fortunes. These schemes are ridiculous, risky, and often result in financial ruin. This book will coach its readers on how to find and enjoy the money they already have but are wasting, and how to find the money to change their lives.
Wealth comes from one thing, and that thing is the ability to make good decisions in our lives. Regardless of our income level, wealth will be fleeting unless we make good financial decisions. However, few of us are trained to make these decisions, and many outside forces, through advertising, are encouraging us to make bad monetary choices. This book is all about improving our financial decisions and about regaining control of our lives.
This book will demonstrate techniques to obtain financial independence early in life. Further, this goal can be achieved without high risk, debt, risky stock investment, over leveraged real estate, or other “get rich quick” schemes. The key to reaching this goal is cleansing our thoughts from corrupted financial beliefs that hold us back.
Chapter Takeaway
Our financial decision-making process is greatly influenced by our core financial belief system. However, this belief system has been highly contaminated by years of advertising and marketing. One of the differences between wealthy and poor people is that the wealthy have learned to identify corrupting financial influences and how to neutralize their disruptive effects on their lives. In short, they have learned how to think for themselves.
Just as a farmer must clear the weeds and rocks from a field before he can plow and plant, we must identify and remove the massive number of inappropriate money-related ideas in our heads. Just like the farmer preparing his field to be planted, we must prepare our heads by removing unsuitable financial habits and then relearn how to think about money.
We can never be wealthy if we still think like a poor person.
You can purchase the book from the author, or from Amazon.com.
