My wife and I saw you on Oprah, and I was very interested in the things you had to say. One of my friends said she bought your book “The Automatic Millionaire” that day and had already read most of it. I told her I was going to get it as well and the next day she got it for me as a birthday gift. When I started reading it I couldn’t stop!
It amazed me how many times I had thought to myself that we spend too much money on junk! I actually started doing something about it two years ago. The two biggest things that helped me were that I started taking my lunch to work everyday as well as tea, snacks, and grandma’s desserts! That’s saving me $45.00 a week right there! The other thing that helped me a lot was I when I got a debit card. I’ve never paid a partial payment on a credit card in my life. With my debit card, I know to the penny how much I’ve spent and it’s easier to track.
For the last six years I’ve been maxed out in both my Home Depot employee stock funds and by putting 5% in my 401k that also went into Home Depot stock. All my eggs in one basket right! After reading your book, I bumped my 401k to 10% (5% in HD stock and 5% in an equity growth fund). My wife has done the same thing at her job. I told her to bump her 401k to 8% from 6 and put 4% in a stable fund and 4% in Mohawk stock. At this point we’ve been married for three years. We have a beautiful little eight week old girl named Maggie. We managed to save over $30,000 combined in our stock and 401k. We have got $11,000 in our savings and checking. We are (starting this month) to add 10% to our house payment every month. We have ZERO credit cards. We purchased my wife’s car in June 2001 and doubled and tripled the payments to have it paid off in a year and four months. I recently purchased a new truck and Home Depot offers an employee discount that is as much as 3% below invoice (this discount is offered to hundreds of companies around the US for GM Ford, Dodge, Jeep, and Chrysler but most folks do not know about it.) After making a big down payment and as much as tripling my payments some months, I’m on pace to have it paid off very early as well. Some of this may seem to some people like bragging, but it’s not! I work three jobs and for a while my wife worked two. We cut coupons every Sunday and only buy the things we need.
Thank you so much for the information in your book! You really make it clear and easy to understand. I was very lucky. I too have those old school parents that brought me up to value money, save for a rainy day, not to go crazy with credit cards, and always pay more on loans than the monthly payment. Thanks again,
