A couple of things that really get my undies in a wad about personal money management.

[upaloopa]

One is the message that we are given that we need to save more for retirement when the economy has created vast unemployment and that unemployment has forced down wages.

There is a lot of great money management advice around like that. Another one tells you to pay off your high interest credit cards. With what? Hell people use the credit cards to pay for food and essentials in times like these.

Another one tells you go to the doctor more often for health check ups and screenings to prevent major illness. You can't even afford health insurance and they don't do health check ups and screenings for free in the ER Mitt! And if they find something you lose your insurance if you have it because of a pre-existing condition! Maybe that one will go away if we can hang on to the ACA.

Here is a good one, pay one and one half house payments each month and retire your loan early with less interest. What if you can barely make the one house payment?

Here in a thread on DU (this is what started this) we are told to better manage our 401K's and then we wouldn't lose so much in an economic down turn. Who has the time or expertise to play the stock market? And any news you get about stocks is already too late to act on because the institutions have already taken all the gains with their computer programs.

Then there are those "10 ways to increase your buying power" stories in the rags at the supermarket check outs. They tell you to shop around for cell phone and cable deals. You have to sign up for two years on most of them and the deals are only for a couple of months. If you shop around you get hit with a penalty by canceling your service before two years is up.

OK rant off!

[wryter2000]

1. Here's mine

"Pay yourself first." The idea is that you take some percentage of whatever money you make and stash it away. I doubt the bank that holds my mortgage would like to accept a percentage less of the payment.

I also hate the assumption that I must be wasting money somewhere. "Buy fewer lattes! Eat out less often! Rent movies instead of going to the theatre." Yeah, right.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. That one REALLY gets under my skin

When I tell my wife that we can't afford for her to take out over $100 every paycheck for herself, she throws that little canard in my face even as two of our credit cards go unpaid (most of which she was responsible for racking up), we have unpaid book rental and medical bills, and some of our loans/bills are a little behind- all of which is slowly eating away at our credit scores like acid.

[Turbineguy]

2. All this advice is worthless.

Make sure you are born in a wealthy household.

Failing that, get money from your parents.

Or win the lottery with the money you save not buying lottery tickets.

[Speck Tater]

3. What worked for me:

Avoid debt.
Live simply. And by live simply, I mean the kind of voluntary simplicity that allows you to live comfortably far below your income.

[kelly1mm]

6. Agree on the simple living and living FAR below your means. Wife and I are retiring

at the end of the next school year. We are 45 and 42. Never have made 6 figures combined. Our savings rate has been over 60% of our net income for the past 7 years. We have gotten our monthly expenses down to less than $1300 per month.

[Speck Tater]

8. Way to go. I retired 5 years ago at 62

but I got a late start on the whole voluntary simplicity thing. Plus I wanted my house and 5 acres of land to be free and clear before I retired.

[Warpy]

5. Oh, I love those money management specialists

The one I like the best is the young guy right out of B-school who was on my teevee a couple of years ago saying Boomers should have been saving $2000/year since they turned 21 in order to retire today.

When I was 21, $2000/year was more than I was taking home after taxes. I suppose Junior never heard of inflation and expected me to live on air and sleep at my job and do a little part time hooking to make up the shortfall from the magic $2000.

These guys are second only to religious figures in spreading guilt over absolutely nothing we've ever had control of and most of them are being paid 6 figure salaries to do it.

The only way to get good money management advice is to take it from someone making the median wage and able to survive and save a little. No kid in a 3 piece suit and an expensive haircut has a damned thing to say to me or anybody else who works for a living and gets shafted on pay.

[OutNow]

7. Well, money management helped me

My parents had no extra money after feeding three kids and paying the bills. The only thing I learned from my parents was how to balance my checkbook. I really didn't have a clue about what to do with "extra" money, and I didn't have any anyway while I worked full time and took college courses at night. After 7 1/2 years of night school I graduated and got a good job. The folks I worked with were mostly people who were middle class growing up and had lots of financial help with their college education. While they were talking about calling their broker (this was before the Internet) and lavish vacations, I had no clue what was going on.

I could have followed their lead, buying a BMW and a big house in the nicest suburbs, etc. But this just didn't feel right to me. My small house in the inner suburbs was fine for me and my family and I were happy with my Ford Mustang. So when I started to have "extra" money I didn't know what to do. I mean I had no clue. Lucky for me my employer had a benefit that paid for a financial planner.

This guy was very helpful. He explained why it was good to live beneath my means and how to invest in low cost no-load mutual funds. He also told me most of my colleagues were spending every penny they earned with their high priced life style and would be in trouble if the economy ever crashed.

The two meetings (total 4 hours) with the financial adviser really opened my eyes. So while much of the money management advice can be silly and not germane to your situation, in my case it changed my life for the better.