These have been hard economic times and people are asking, “How did this happen and why weren’t we warned?”
We are all looking at our money differently and, perhaps, more carefully. But the myth that “I need an expert to help me understand and manage my money” still exists.
I wrote Money Smart to dispel that myth and show you how to manage your money yourself, because you can do it better than the experts.
For the most part, financial services experts are trained in and excel at sales, asset gathering, and commission generation—but not a lot else. From the mid-’80s to the end of the ’90s, they tended to attribute the success of their investment decisions to their own good judgment, not recognizing the larger forces at play on the market. Over the last forty years, as the new financial services industry expanded its superficial analysis of the stock market, its advice became accepted as genuine investment expertise when, in truth, it was anything but.
The vast majority of these experts truly believed that market growth just goes on forever. It doesn’t. But to keep you believing that it will, the experts in the financial services industry and the financial media have built a system founded on the following three myths:
- Myth #1: “Money Management Is Very Complicated”
- Myth #2: “Let Financial Experts Handle Your Finances Because They Do It Better Than You Can”
- Myth #3: “Always Invest for the Long Term”
In my book, Money Smart: How to Spend, Save, Eliminate Debt, and Achieve Financial Freedom, I show you the truth behind these myths and offer ways you can avoid getting trapped by following the advice from the so-called financial experts.
The answer to the question, who should manage my money? You.