David: I recently attended a “First Time Homebuyers” seminar in our community, and one of the speakers there held up your book and highly recommended it. I leafed through it briefly after the seminar and liked how quick and easy it read (I had years ago purchased “Personal Finance for Dummies” and couldn’t understand it — I’m sure you know how that made me feel!). I bought your book on a Thursday night and immediately started reading it. I got far enough into it that night to go into my Administrator at work Friday morning to see how much I was contributing to my 401K plan (I knew I was, I just didn’t know how much – how can that be?). Come to find out I was only contributing $100 a month — woefully inadequate, so I immediately increased it to $500 (after doing my latte factor the night before I knew I could afford this). My next step is to buy a condo this next year. I previously was going to wait until I got all my credit cards paid off – which realistically could be a year or two down the road. Now I’m going to see about buying a home while still paying off the cards.

The main thing I got from your book was that before I was scared of my future so I just “looked the other way” and didn’t deal with it. You made it okay to have started late (I’m 40), but get busy, which I’m doing and now I’m actually excited about my financial future. Thank you again, David. What you are doing for the world must be very rewarding.

P.S. My next step at work is to become a “great employee.” You got me thinking I’m definitely a “good employee” but could be doing better. I’ll keep you advised if I get that raise I’m going to go for in the next 6 months!!