One Consumer, Two Consumers

Happy consumers, blue consumers . . .

My serious engagement with the financial challenges many people face began about 15 years ago when I led The Money Class at a halfway house in Newark, NJ. I led the classes—I didn’t “teach” them. I was ignorant about the challenges the men I met would face when they were released.

Since then, I have educated myself, written a couple of books and I’m working on a comprehensive curriculum based on a set of simple, professionally approved, time-tested rules.

This stuff is a hard sell for modern, middle-class Americans. I can’t get my son or grandchildren to read the books or buy in to the principles. But still, I press on. We live in a culture built on the idea that people need stuff. And there are always people willing to sell you stuff, and even let you borrow money so you can get stuff.

This is all by way of an introduction to the graphic that appears early on in my book The Rules: Personal Financial Management for the 21st Century.

I’m not much of an illustrator, as you can see, but I do think the image says a lot.

If you know anyone interested in helping people learn more about money management, I’d love to link up with them.

I’ve got some new, smaller projects that I am trying to get completed. If you have any interest in being a beta tester/early reader, let me know.

Anon.

Ridge