Given the current state of the economy, the mortgage foreclosure crisis, the fluctuating stock market and the debt load of the average American, there's bound to be a certain amount of finger pointing. Should the government have done more? What about all those stockbrokers who got filthy rich? Shouldn't homebuyers have known better?
Author Larry Winget suggests you should point that finger at yourself. In his new book, You're Broke Because You Want to Be: How to Stop Getting By and Start Getting Ahead, the author brashly tells you that if you're experiencing financial problems, you have no one to blame but yourself.
Winget is the star of A&E's reality series Big Spender and author of bestsellers Your Success Is Your Own Damn Fault and Shut Up, Stop Whining and Get a Life: A Kick-Butt Approach to a Better Life. He is currently featured on television commercials for Hyundai, touting their virtues and value.
Winget is known for his bullying, no-holds-barred approach to finance and success, and his new book continues his blunt advice. If you didn't want to be in your current financial situation, you wouldn't be - that is the simple premise of this book.
Victimhood is a privilege you can no longer afford, the author says. Your life is the result of the choices you made. Want a better life? Make better choices.
This is not a feel-good, get to know your spiritual relationship to money, positive-attitude kind of book. Winget's approach is abrasive, tough and in your face. There are no affirmations and positive thinking parables. He belittles the self-help bestseller, The Secret, as being "only half the instruction manual." The real secret, Winget says, is "What you think about, talk about, and get off your ass and do something about comes about."
The author tells you that until you face your financial reality, you will stay broke and waste your life worrying about it. He puts it on the line and says if you want to improve your financial situation and your life, you can. Most people don't; they sit around watching television, don't sharpen their skills in a rapidly changing job market, and complain a lot.
The book, he says, is written for the average person who has a job, makes a living, and still can't seem to get ahead. It's for the millions who live paycheck to paycheck or who have little retirement savings.
His advice for creating stability, savings and financial freedom is simple. First, see your own contradictions. If you want to get out of debt, but you're spending money on cable every month, you're contradicting yourself. If you refuse to get a second job, but have a collection of DVDs (most people who are broke do), you are not taking responsibility.
Many people need a "pretty hard slap in the face" on their excuses for being broke, Winget says. He makes a list of the more common excuses, including: "I grew up poor," "I don't know how to get ahead," and "It's the credit card companies' fault." People blame circumstances, other people, events, and even God, for being broke, he says.
"The fact that you don't have money is a result of all your other problems," he says. You have attitude problems, discipline problems and self-esteem problems. The real problem isn't in your wallet, but between your ears.
After facing this reality, Winget provides a simple but thorough "how-to" list for getting ahead, out of debt and maybe even rich. He starts with a process designed for you to "come clean" on your situation. He wants you to feel humiliation and remorse. You should follow that with anger - real anger for your own stupidity - to come up with the determination to move ahead.
The book continues with must-dos such as cutting up your credit cards, making budgets, and cutting expenses - simple stuff that most of us can easily do. Winget shows how these simple changes can make all the difference. For example, at $4 per pack, a one-pack-per-day smoking habit is $1,460 per year. That amount of yearly contribution to an IRA would yield $400,000 for your retirement.
After looking at yourself in the mirror, Winget says, take a hard look at your friends. If they don't read books, whine about work, and are cheap when it comes to the tip, you should dump them! You should develop friendships with people who embody the traits you want in your own life, he says.
Other success books may provide a splash of water to waken you to financial reality. Winget's is more of a bucketful - ice cold - dumped over your head. It may also be exactly what most of us need.