David,
My wife and I have read a number of your books, the latest being The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner. At that point we decided to make our financial future automatic. We started making automatic bi-weekly payments on our mortgage and extra payments to pay off my wife’s car. We continued to make monthly car payments (investments) “automatic” plus a little extra to good growth stock mutual funds. One year later, we were able to purchase an SUV for my wife for cash, and we continue to make monthly investments automatic in the hope that in 3 yrs we will be able to purchase another car for cash. We figured if we replace the car every 3-5 yrs for cash, we will never have another car payment and in 20-30 yrs we will have $400,000 to $500,000.
We also opened up 6 ING accounts and made that automatic as well. Every week we get paid, money is automatically taken from our checks and deposited into our ING accounts. If we don’t see it, we don’t miss it. A couple of those accounts are our “Vacation Fund” and “Christmas Fund”. Next month we are going on another cruise with the same group. A few years ago around Christmas we were trying to buy gifts for everyone and not spend too much. My wife started the Christmas account first. Since Christmas comes the same time every year I started making automatic investments to our ING account. This year each of us will have money set aside to buy gifts for family and friends.
Lastly, because we have made our financial life automatic, we are in the process of building our dream house. Thank you for your books and guidance. We have been given your books as gifts and recommend them to anyone that wants to get their financial life on track.
