Hi David,

I can’t help but laugh at myself for truly being a, “starstruck teen” when my husband and I met you at the Baltimore, MD Homeowner Challenge Seminar. I am usually so professional and composed in any situation, but you must have thought I had ADD or way too much coffee! The financial security you have helped us achieve is life altering. My zeal in meeting you was genuine and I guess my emotions got the best of me.

As per your request, I am attaching a picture of our family for your website. We are the West family that you highlighted in your Yahoo (or “yoo-hoo”) finance column titled, “Meet the Millionaires” several months ago.

We have made even more financial gains since that column ran. Here is a snapshot what we
have accomplished:

–We have no car payments, but will need a car in the near future now that we have a 2-year old daughter. So we are actually making a $400 “car payment” to our money market account every month. We will buy our car only when we have enough to purchase it with cash.
–Joe switched jobs in Oct ’05 which is now enabling him to put a full 10% away for retirement through a combination of 401K and Roth IRA.
–I have increased my 403B contributions to 7%.
–We continue to put money away into a money market for emergencies. We actually had a plumbing issue and a hospital bill that were nice to be able to pay outright.
–We continue to put money away into our dream basket, which will enable us to take a vacation to California this Thanksgiving.
–And lastly, we are excited about ’07 because we plan on renting out our current townhouse and buying another property for us to live in for awhile (as discussed in your seminar!)

PS…. And this one is good!!!
Without our personal financial plan in place, we wouldn’t have had the guts to start our own business. We recently started a new children’s book publishing company. From one author to another, we’d like to send your son a copy of our first publication. We will be doing book signings at Barnes and Noble Stores throughout Virginia in June so we are excited about our future in this endeavor as well.

Thank you for being our “Grandma Bach”.
With much thanks and admiration,