From the Publisher
Conventional wisdom about your money is simple: maximize your
earnings, minimize your expenses, meet your obligations --
and make sure that you have some sort of nest egg to provide
for your old age and to pass along to the kids.
Yet the conventional wisdom is wrong. While your income
might be rising, so is your mortgage, looming college
expenses and all of your household bills. Even with both
spouses working, you can't see how you could care for aging
parents or withstand a long siege of unemployment. And your
own retirement at 65 -- or even 75 hardly looks like a sure
thing.
Well, guess what? If you're going to survive with your
peace of mind intact, you need to forget about conventional
wisdom and adopt a new goal: DIE BROKE.
But don't worry. Die Broke, the new book by Stephen Pollan
and Mark Levine, is here to help. It shows that wealth is to
be spent while you're alive, either on yourself or your loved
ones, and that every penny left unspent after you die is a
failing.
Die Broke preaches a radically new approach to career and
personal finance. In a nutshell, it says: Quit Today. No,
don't tell your boss to shove it . . . at least not out loud.
But in your head accept that from this day on you're a free
agent whose number-one workplace priority is your personal
bottom line.
Pay Cash. Spending should be neither convenient nor
painless. Saving, not spending, must become reflexive, and
credit should be a rarely used tool for those few times
(buying homes and cars) when paying cash is impossible.
Don't Retire. Your work life should be a journey up and
down hills, rather than a climb up a sheer cliff that ends
with a jump into the abyss.
Die Broke is a cry for sanity. To die broke is not to live
poorly, and every Die Broker will find here a comprehensive
approach to career planning; saving; investing; buying
insurance; providing for parents, children, and spouses;
making charitable donations; paying for education; and
handling the myriad other details of your financial life.
Most financial books offer seemingly sensible advice that
invariably leads you to the same anxiety-producing dead end.
Now from America's most trusted financial advisor comes a way
out of the worry, a lifelong plan that actually delivers not
just peace of mind, but the lifestyle of your dreams.
Stephen M. Pollan is a frequent commentator in the
financial media, a contributor to magazines as diverse as
Worth and New York, and author of more than a dozen books. He
presently lives in New York City and Litchfield County,
Connecticut, with his wife, Corky, and in close proximity to
his five children and nine grandchildren. Mark Levine has
been Stephen Pollan1s collaborator for fifteen years. He
lives in Ithaca, New York, with his wife, Deirdre, and his
Newfoundland, Molly.
