I recently watched the Power of Two broadcasts with interest and finally found out how to discuss it with someone I have been doing all the things discussed, but think something was missing. Here is my story. In the early 50s I cashed my checks in 1 dollar bills to have a wad of cash to impress the girls! Upon retirement at age 42 I was on half pay and, though I owed nothing to nobody  and owned only a 1 acre lot and a small CD, I knew I was in trouble! I remembered the 'wad' days and cashed my checks in Silver Dollars. Bevieve me, you count out 15 of those for a pair of pants you realize what the pants are worth. I carried the silver in a leather bag and the upside was that I never stood in line at a store I had once visited. The clerks would open another line for me to get those silver dollars!  As the bag got lighter I would spend less and eke out the month. When you feel the real weight of the money you realize just how broke you are! Also I started to put 10 percent of my meager income into CD's as I had been advised to do by friends many years before.

Now I am an old man and have never worked for more than mimimum wage, however those habits I learned a bit too late have paid off and I am writing this to try to help some folks that are younger to start earlier than I did. I have built a 32 foot round-the-world sailboat, Just paid cash for a $70K new home, cash for a new economy truck, cash for a new economy car, live on several acres in the middle of 700 acres of agricultural land and have to use 3 credit unions in order to keep my savings insured. IT CAN BE DONE! Live frugally, you made it on the wages you had before the raise, keep the same lifestyle and bank the raise! Put the first 10% in the bank and and live on the rest. If you must take credit, borrow from your savings and pay it back at the same interest you would have gotten from the institution, this gives you the knowlede of how much the bank is making on you! When making money decisions, don't just write it down, get a bunch of pennys and put them on the table and put them up in stacks to represent what you wish to buy and what the interest costs will be. Believe me, 400 pennys and 360 pennys look a lot different than $400 @15% on a peice of plastic! Or even a pile of $20 bills. And remember those advertisers use the $12.95 gimmick for a reason! The average joe only sees the $12, round UP not Down! 'nuff said, good luck!

Hank