Here’s some interesting ’information’ that I picked up:

Apparently, all Polar Bears are left-handed.

Well, it seems that there are two types of people in this world: those who will now run off and propagate this ‘fact’ at trivia and pub nights, and those who will go and check their sources.

I’m in the latter … now, I’m not obsessive about it, so this information ‘seems’ right, but I’ll let a polarbearophile prove me right or wrong with these Polar Bear Myths:

- A hunting bear will cover its black nose while lying in wait for a seal.

Canadian biologist Ian Stirling has spent several thousand hours watching polar bears hunt. He has never seen one hide its nose, nor have other scientists.

- The great white bears are left-pawed.

Scientists observing the animals haven’t noticed a preference. In fact, polar bears seem to use their right and left paws equally.

- Polar bears use tools, including blocks of ice to kill their prey.

Scientist Ian Stirling believes that this assertion can be traced to unsuccessful hunts. After failing to catch a seal, a frustrated and angry polar bear may kick the snow, slap the ground — or hurl chunks of ice.

- A polar bear’s hollow hairs conduct ultraviolet light to its black skin, thus capturing energy.

This theory was tested—and disproved—by physicist Daniel Koon.

- The polar bear has a symbiotic relationship with the arctic fox, sharing its food in exchange for the fox’s warning system.

Not only is the bear-fox relationship not symbiotic, the little foxes often annoy the bears. An arctic fox will sometimes tease a bear by darting in to nip at its heels and will sometimes try to drive a bear off its prey.

- Orca whales prey on polar bears.

This has never been observed.

- Polar bears live at both poles.

Polar bears, of course, live only in the circumpolar North. They never encounter penguins, which do not live in the same regions as polar bears.

[AJC: Polar bears = Arctic and Greenland; Penguins = Antarctic, Australia and New Zealand. Get it??!!]

Source: http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/bear-facts/myths-and-misconceptions/

So?

Well, if this is how many myths polar bears can generate, imagine how many there are about our favorite subject: personal finance?!

Here are just some that I have tried to dispel on this site:

- The myth that entrepreneurs are driven by greed

- The myth that a high income equates to wealth

- The myth that diversification is one of the most important personal finance tools around

- The myth that retirement planning centers around replacing your income

… and, I have written many, many more (just type the word ‘myth’ into the search box at the top of this page).

What myths (personal finance or otherwise) have you recently had cause to question?

If you were interviewing me …

… here is what you might ask:

At least, these are the questions (and my responses) just sent to me by a journalist who writes for a number of newspapers. This time, he has been contracted by a company that researches – and writes about – the wealthiest families in America.

I’ll let you know if/when/where the interview will be published, in the meantime, here goes:

[EDIT: this is a link to the actual interview in Millionaire Corner; I recommend that you read it there, instead ... it's been slightly edited to make it read better. Donald, the freelance reporter, is the consummate professional and a hell of a nice guy, to boot!]

1)      A little personal background information. I understand Adrian J. Cartwood is a nom de plume?

Yes. I share intimate personal details about my financial background. If I used my real name, I’d just be bragging instead of sharing. Seriously, I started off by inheriting a family business that was failing, and I was $30k in debt. By slowly fixing the business (while starting another), living mainly off my wife’s part-time salary, and investing EVERY penny that we could spare into real-estate and stocks, our net worth grew to $7 million in just 7 years.

2)      What inspired you to start your blog? (what did you do pre-blog—what do you do now besides)

In 1998, when I was still in debt and my businesses were still struggling, I found what I like to call my Life’s Purpose … or “Life After Work”. Others call this retirement, but who wants to wait until they’re 65 to start living their passion? I decided that I really wanted to be traveling and working on things that I was passionate about in just 5 years instead of the usual 20 to 40 years.

So, I calculated my Number, that is how much I would need in the bank in order to stop working. That Number was a very scary $5 million. I missed my 5 year / $5 million target, but made $7 million in 7 years, instead.

Now, starting $30k behind the 8-ball, $5 million in 5 years seems like an impossible target, so I started reading every single personal finance book that I could get my hands on. What I quickly realized is that they are mostly written by people who became rich BECAUSE they wrote a book about how to get rich. Needless to say they were mostly full of rubbish.

So, I found one of my passions! It was, and remains, to be the first true multi-millionaire to write about personal finance, hence the blog.

In my spare time, I develop property and make angel investments, primarily in internet businesses. I am also putting the finishing touches on my first personal finance book.

3)      When did you launch your blog? How many visitors does your blog get?

I don’t do any advertising, marketing, or promotion for my blog at all. I’m not even sure how you found me! Yet, in the three years that I’ve been writing it, I’ve somehow built a dedicated audience in the thousands who seem to read my blog every day. I hope to never disappoint them.

4)      For whom is your blog intended?

This is an excellent question because I often get comments from new readers who say “well, my 401k is company matched, so it’s a great investment” but, I say “sure, but it won’t make you rich”. So, my blog is specifically targeted to people exactly like me: those who realize that their life isn’t merely about money … rather their money is simply there to support their life.

Now, for those readers who truly get this, suddenly they realize that that they, too, want to stop full-time work to pursue their passions – be it writing novels, traveling, researching great wines, writing their own blogs, volunteer, whatever. The kicker is, when they calculate their own Numbers – how much they need in passive investments to support them while they work part-time or quit paid work entirely – it’s inevitably something like $2 million in 6 years. If you run their starting position (say $100,000) through any simple online compound growth rate calculator, as I encourage my readers to do, they quickly see that they need to achieve a 65% compound growth on their investments. Given that their 401k can’t achieve more than 8% over 40 years, it’s clear that they need somebody to teach them how to become rich.

That narrows down my readership to those who have done the same kind of self-reflection that I did 7 years ago and realize that they actually NEED to become rich.

5)      What do most hope your readers get out of it?

I hope that my new readers realize that they should evaluate their lives and see if what they are currently doing is going to truly satisfy them. If so, don’t change anything. But, for those who need more out of life, I hope that they walk away with the tools to evaluate what they truly want to do with their lives, how much money they will need (and by when), and the real personal financial steps that they need to take to bridge the gap … quickly. It’s not about getting rich quick. But it is about getting richer, quicker.

6)      For those unfamiliar, what would be some representative posts?

I really like this one, because it encourage you to start thinking externally rather than internally, which is the first step to financial freedom:

http://7million7years.com/2011/05/24/my-circle-my-prison/

And, this one because it shows that WHERE you invest your money is more important than HOW MUCH you put aside each week or month:

http://7million7years.com/2011/05/26/the-pay-yourself-twice-wealth-strategy/

Finally, this one, because it introduces the 20% Rule that tells you how much you can spend on a house:

http://7million7years.com/2008/02/04/how-much-to-spend-on-a-house/

7)      Did you grow up in a financially literate household? Did your parents discuss money matters with you?

I grew up in a poor household. The rest of my family grew up in a rich one. The trouble was, it was the same house!

You see my father lived beyond his means, but I was the only other male in the family, so he only confided his true financial situation in me. Therefore I grew up paying for all of my own clothes, cars, and so on. The rest of my family still lives on handouts from richer relatives.

That knowledge only taught me financial responsibility, it didn’t teach me how to make money. That came from my $7 million 7 year journey. Naturally, I taught my own children about money from birth. My son is a natural entrepreneur. My daughter more social. But, both know how to save and how to spend responsibly.

8)      If not, were you self taught? Were there any books, for example that influenced you? Or financial pundits?

The books that greatly influenced me were Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. The first is about money and the second about business.

9)      How did you get started in investing?

My very first investment was an apartment that I bought soon after college because a friend of mine was buying one in the same block. I knew nothing other than to copy him. I sold it a couple of years later to pay for a trip overseas. It’s safe to say that was not the start of my financial journey!

When my financial wake-up call arrived 7 years ago, I made my first real real-estate investment. Rich Dad, Poor dad was my motivation, but it was very short on ‘how’. So, like most people, I knew that I had to invest in real-estate but I had no idea HOW.

One day I was driving around my neighborhood and saw a ‘for sale’ sign on a condo in an older block of 12. There was an Auction just about to start! I figured that not many people would know about it, because the sign was by an out-of-town agent, so I figured it was likely to go for a good price, so I stopped to check it out.

My next problem was that I had literally no idea of how much to pay. But, I saw a young guy in a trademan’s outfit measuring doors and windows and so on. I guessed that he was planning to buy it for himself, fix it up and flip it. I decided to bid against him and pay $1 more. I figured that if he was looking to take a quick profit that he would be operating on a tight budget, and that I could then afford to pay just that little bit more to buy and hold.

And, that’s what happened.

I found myself as the winning bidder for a property that I had never been in before. I had to call my wife (who was NOT pleased) to rush over with my checkbook. We still own that condo today and it has been a start performer, although we went on from there over the next 5 years to buy our own block of condos, an office building and so on.

10)   What were some of the defining lessons you learned when you first started out?

 You can’t save your way to wealth. Running some simple numbers through that online calculator quickly showed me that my 401k would never be able to fund my retirement even if I waited until 65: investment returns from mutual funds are simply too low and fees are too high, not to mention inflation eats up half of everything every 20 years.

I realized that I would need to create my own perpetual money machine by taking as much of income as I could put aside and investing in assets that I could borrow against (so that I could buy more) but had enough income to cover the costs of owning those assets. Real-estate (and, to a lesser extent a small portfolio of hand-picked stocks) could fit the bill. I also learned that starting a business is the best way to increase income; more income means more investments; more investments means more real wealth.

11)   What are some of the most common mistakes investors make?

The most common and deadly mistake is confusing good debt and bad debt with cheap debt and expensive debt. Because so many people have trapped themselves into bad credit card debt, which they should pay off as quickly as possible because it’s just so expensive, they have been lead to believe by so many financial pundits that they should pay off all of their debt, including their mortgages. For most people, this is actually a mistake.

Instead they should pay off expensive debt (such as credit cards, and auto loans) as quickly as possible. But, as soon as they remaining loans are at a lower rate than the cost of an investment loan (such as you might get to buy an investment property), why pay it off just to take out a bigger, more expensive investment loan?

The second mistake is thinking that you house is an investment, it’s not. The chances are that you will never be able to sell that house, even when you retire, to  truly down-size. Retirees plan on selling their big houses but rarely move into a small, two bedroom condo. They realize that they either don’t want to move, or stay close to their children, or move into an expensive retirement community. That and the moving costs (plus, are you going to move old furniture into a nice, new codo?) mean that they pocket a lot less than they think. Suddenly, there’s a huge hole in their retirement plans.

12)   What is the most common question you are asked?

Mostly, people ask me how I became rich. On my blog, I tell them because it’s something that anybody can do.

13)   What are some key dos and don’ts you think investors should consider?

I think that you should find out what you’re passionate about e.g. real-estate, stocks, business and learn all you can about that subject then base your investment strategy primarily about that.

I don’t think that you should buy any “how I made $1 million by invest in …” books, instead you should find one author whom you feel speaks your language and learn all you can, then go ahead and try out what you have learned. But, first, you should make sure that the author actually made his/her money from the financial strategies that they speak to you about. You’ll find that most made their money either by writing their books or in the business of offering financial advice, rather than actually from investing.

I think that you should buy a house, but then you should not put more than 20% of your net worth into any subsequent or upsized houses.

I think you should not take on debt for consumer purchases, such as gifts, cars, or furniture but you should borrow reasonable amounts of money to invest (say, 20% down real-estate).

I think you should start a business, but you should not quit your job until you have proven the business model with at least some paying customers

14)   The most important question: How much do you miss the Deerfield Bakery?

I still have a home in Deerfield as well as my other home in Australia, so you might say that I am in the fortunate position of being able to have my cake and eat it [pun intended].

<- Now, if you want actually HEAR me interviewed, check out eventual millionaire ->

So, that’s a bit about me; now, why don’t you tell me a bit about you?

This is a redux of a 2009 post, but it’s about time that I gave my newer readers a heads-up as to what we’re all about … i

______________________

I get a lot of questions, comments, and e-mails in general from new readers, and this one – from Chad – is reasonably typical of what I might see:

I’m turning 27; just got a job making 50k/yr.; on the market for my 1st condo to live in (and hopefully rent out a room); have 1 student loan at < 3% fixed interest. My goal is $7 million in 13 years.

1. I have very little to no knowledge of finance/investing. Do you recommend any resources to get me up to speed so I can understand what you write about?

2. Where does my situation put me in terms of Making Money 101 and 201, i.e. where do I go from here?

I appreciate ANY direction you can give me as I do not want to be stuck behind a computer in a cube for the next 30-40 years.

While I love reading these sorts of e-mails (AJC: I really do!], I have a hard time responding because I can’t / don’t give direct personal advice … but,

I can suggest that Chad think about:

1. Exactly HOW important that $7 million in 13 years is to him, and

2. Assuming it’s VERY important (critical even), how he is going to get there.

You see, my advice might change according to his Number – more importantly to his Required Annual Compound Growth Rate:

a) If low – say, no more than 10% to 15% – then I would point Chad to the various ‘frugal’ blogs (my personal favorite is Get Rich Slowly) and ‘starter books’ like The Richest Man In Babylon, or the more modern equivalent: Automatic Millionaire by David Bach, or anything by Dave Ramsey or Suze Orman.

Each would probably suggest something along the lines of:

- Keep your job; times are tough!

- Save as much of your salary as you can (max your 401k’s, then your IRA’s)

- Pay down ALL debt, following a Debt Avalanche or Debt Snowball, whichever is your favorite

- Invest any ‘spare change’ (after all debts are paid off and the requisite ‘emergency fund’ has been built up) into a low cost Index Fund

… and, wait until your government-directed – or, employer-forced if you are retrenched and become unhireable – ‘retirement’. This is where that fully paid off home and a lot of candles and canned food stockpiled will really pay off … you won’t be able to afford real food

a) If high – say, more than 10% to 15% (and, I would venture that $7 million in just 13 years would well and truly put Chad in the 50+% required annual compound growth rate category!) – then I would instead point Chad to books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad and The E-Myth Revisited and then towards this blog and its 7 Millionaires … In Training! ‘sister blog’ and suggest that he starts working his way through the back issues (well, posts).

After reading/digesting properly, he should be able to come up with his own plan … something along the lines of:

- Keep your job, but get into active stock and/or real-estate investing – better yet, start a side-business; because times are really tough(!):

i) A mildly successful part-time business might provide additional income to help you weather the financial storm and supercharge your savings, investment, and debt repayment plans

ii) A more successful part-time business might provide a built-in ‘emergency fund’, tiding you over should you lose your job and/or unexpected expenses crop up

iii) An even more successful part-time business that can be started and/or survive during a recession may prove to become wildly successful once the clouds of the recession begin to lift, maybe even carrying you directly to your Number [AJC: do not pass Go, but do collect $200 million ]

- Control your spending, and save as much of your salary as you can to build a war chest for starting / running your business

- Pay down ALL expensive debt, following the method laid out in the Cash Cascade, but keep your mortgage (lock in to current low rates) subject to the 20% Rule and the 25% Income Rule and seriously think about keeping your other cheap debt loans.

- Invest any ‘spare change’ from your job and business (after all expensive debts are paid off and the requisite ‘business startup fund’ has been built up) into quality ‘recession-priced’ stocks and/or true cashflow positive real-estate.

… and, wait until you have reached your Number (through sale of business and/or conservative valuation of your equity in your investment assets).

That’s it

Let’s just quickly recap for new readers:

The likes of David Bach (The Automatic Millionaire) like to tell you that you needn’t do much more than ‘pay yourself first’ (i.e. save) 10% – 12.5% of your gross salary in order to live an idyllic life (well, at least retire well) … going so far as to call this “A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich”.

The reality is that this is actually a dangerous financial strategy to pin your financial future on.

Whilst the idea of saving money is to be commended – in fact, saving is absolutely necessary – the sad reality is that you would need to pay yourself first 75% of your gross income, starting now and continuing for the next 20 years, just to maintain your current standard of living in retirement.

Clearly, my solution – which is to Pay Yourself Twice 15% of your gross salary – does little to bridge the gap.

Of course, it’s what you do with the money that counts:

I assume that your current ‘pay yourself first’ savings are going into some sort of employer sponsored, tax-advanatged retirement plan …

… which we already know cannot possibly be enough to support your current lifestyle in retirement, let alone set you up for that hammock in the Bahamas with free flowing Pina Coladas that you crave

However, I do want you to keep your retirement fund going – and growing – because it is insurance, if all else fails.

But, it’s the “all else’s” that will make the difference between an austere retirement in 20 – 40 years or a certainly more memorable (and, very early) retirement with $7 million in 7 years … or a happy medium, if that’s more your speed.

And, that’s why you need to Pay Yourself Twice:

- Once to maintain this insurance policy, and

- The second time to build your investing war-chest.

If the power of compounding at bank to mutual fund rates of return (i.e. 4% – 10%) is not sufficient, then it stands to reason that you need to start investing at (much) higher compound returns.

This means building up a modest starting capital amount and ‘rolling the dice’ with higher risk / higher reward investments e.g.

A few minutes with a good compound growth rate calculator will (a) confirm how well your current strategy is doing against your desired retirement needs, and (b) tell you how deep into the above table you need to dive to bridge the gap.

It goes without saying – so, I’ll say it anyway (!) – that I hope that you all succeed with your investments, be they in stocks, real-estate and/or businesses. However, if you should fail … well, by continuing to Pay Yourself Twice, it won’t take too long to build up enough starting capital to have another go.

And, it might take one, two, five times before you are successful …

All the while, you have a 20 year backup plan (by also continuing to pay yourself first) just in case

Concentration…fortunes are built on it—or lost by the lack of it…

Here’s a clue…if you’re a salesman, you have to sell; if you’re a writer, you have to write; if you’re an accountant, you have to be crunching numbers. The more time and energy spent doing something other than your primary activity, the less progress you’ll make in your career and the less income you’ll earn.

.

I used to struggle with this myself …

My natural tendency is to do a LOT of things … at once.

My father (my then business partner) used to tell me to forget the ‘new business’ and just focus on his one.

My wife used to tell me to focus.

Then I did an online ‘psych test’ about ‘money and personality’ (I highly recommend this one: http://www.kolbe.com/assessmentTools/assessment-tools.cfm#rindex you’ll want to do the A-Index AND the Financial MO+) …

I learned two things about myself that changed my mind … then, my life:

The A-Index told me that I was an entrepreneur – this may be “well, duh” to you, given the title of this blog, but – at the time – it was news to me: I was a struggling entrepreneur, but wasn’t feeling very well cut out for the ‘job’.

The Financial MO+ Index told me that I work best by having “several balls in the air at once” – it’s the way my mind works best, the report said, and it was 100% true.

So, these reports – all $150 worth – gave me the confidence to work according to my instincts … and, a 356% compounded return on my investment

Kevin’s ‘fallacy’ may well be true for 99% of people. But, it’s not true for me.

And – just maybe – if you want to achieve results that only 1% of the population ever dare aspire to and achieve, it won’t be true for you, either?

In any event … I learned to follow my instincts and so should you!

So, the best thing to do is scan this post and if it’s interesting, subscribe by e-mail / RSS and I’ll pop a quick e-mail into your in-box if the urge to write does strike.

Today, I am inspired by a post written by moneycrush about success:

“Big goals take time, which means it can be especially hard to stick to them when they require both time and sacrifice.”

Here, moneycrush equates success with “reaching your goals”. giving an example of getting your house paid off.

So, this got me thinking about the nature of success:

On the surface, I am successful.

Certainly my friends and family talk to me – and, of me – in those terms.

Now, they don’t necessarily know my net worth (after all, that’s why I write here under a nom de plume), but they do know that I sold three businesses in three countries … so, they can connect the dots.

They don’t realize that, by their measure of success = money, I was already ‘successful’ well before  before I sold my businesses, and well before those businesses even made any serious money.

Because I was quietly doing what I advise my readers to do: take your income and use it to buy income-producing assets instead of spending it. What my family and friends don’t realize is that’s how I made I made $7 million in 7 years, starting with $30k in debt.

In any event, I still don’t consider myself successful.

That doesn’t mean that I’m one of those guys who chases ever bigger and bigger financial wins …

It just means that I measure success differently:

To me, success is when I am living my Life’s Purpose. And, money is just one of the enablers.

In 1998, I discovered my Life’s Purpose; it was simply to “always be traveling mentally, physically, and spiritually”.

Now, that means nothing to you … so, let me translate that into some practical incarnations of that Purpose:

- Travel … a lot. This takes time and money.

And, comfortably. For me, this means about $50k a year of business class travel. I’m about to experiment with a roll-up mattress on the business class ‘lie flat’ seats; if that doesn’t work, I’ll need to ‘upgrade’ to first class because lack of sleep on the long-haul flights from/to Australia kills me.

- Personal Finance & Public speaking … twin passions of mine. I hope to be able to combine these, one day. The money I might earn is irrelevant.

I rarely get to indulge in public speaking these days; the hidden cost of no longer being attached to the corporate world. But, I discovered this passion about 30 years ago, yet have spoken publicly less and less as time has gone on. This blog, as well as being a passion in its own right, is one step towards resurrecting myself as a public speaker. My book (out soon!) is the second.

- Venture Capital … this goes with the ‘traveling mentally’ bit.

I must admit I was worried. Stories about VC’s investing in 10 businesses in order to (hope) that one may succeed scared me, with typical (VC-like) bricks and mortar investments requiring upwards of $250k each. Fortunately, the internet came along and I’m happily working on my little angel investing fund, which allocates $25k+ per investment. If 10 fail, well, it shouldn’t hurt much more than my pride. Fortunately, success rates are closer to 30%, so I’m told (hope!). In either case, but don’t tell my partners this, I’m only in it for the stimulation and … fun!

- the touchy/feely spiritual stuff. I’m not exactly the next great guru, but this doesn’t cost any money – or much time – and feels … well … nice.

So, for me success is more about what I do than what I have.

But, I am just starting to live my Life’s Purpose: I’m beginning to travel more; but, I am just starting my venture capital activities and my book isn’t out yet (hence, the speaking offers haven’t exactly flooded in) … so, I am working on my ‘success’ but am clearly not there, yet.

Now, I suggest that you find out what REALLY matters to you and go about becoming ‘successful’ too

I’ve just returned from my longest vacation-from-blogging that I’ve had in the the 3 years since I’ve been writing this blog.

Some of it had to do with poor internet access where I was traveling; it was supposed to be a ‘first world country’ but had ‘third world’ internet access. But, that was also probably a side effect of the second reason that I didn’t post: I was too damn tired/busy from touring.

I made the ‘mistake’ of agreeing to take a two week educational/discovery tour with a busload of other families from my childrens’ school: whilst educational, it was hardly a vacation! On the bus / off the bus … next historical site … on the bus / off the bus … three to four times each day. Crawl into bed each night exhausted, on the bus again by 8am the next day.

And, being a group tour, the hotels were set at the lowest common denominator: around 3 stars, hence the poor internet access.

Now, this probably sounds like fun to my main readership base (sub-30′s singles or young couples / no kids) … the rest of you are nodding in silent agreement: there comes a point where Hilton-hopping is REALLY what you need in a vacation!

Anyhow, we’re back and enjoying Resort Cartwood (i.e. home) with it’s huge landscaped and tiled 5-star surroundings, pool, tennis court, home theater, and so on … who needs a holiday away from home!

We celebrated New Year whilst away … which really means that we did nothing but had a wonderful view of the fireworks from our hotel window.

But, it did get me thinking:

Why make resolutions on New Year?

Does that mean that you wait – on average – 6 months to finally build up the courage to ‘resolve’ to do something that you already know is important for you to start doing / quit doing?

Does that mean that you put off for an average of 6 months that which you ALREADY know you must change?

Does that mean that New Year Resolutions are yet another means of justifying procrastination?

Does that mean that you build up the change to such a crescendo that by the time New Year comes and you – for some reason – fail to succeed in making the change, you’ll be too ashamed to try again (at least until 10-12 months later when the next New Year comes around and you build up the courage to ‘try’ again)?

So, why not have a New Day’s Resolution?

If you have something that you need to change, don’t wait until a New Year to resolve to change it, wait until the next day?

Well, I even have an issue with that!

You see, why delay – even a tiny bit – by RESOLVING to do anything?

Why not just DO? Now!

And, don’t even fool yourself into ‘trying’; do as Yoda says:

Try Not. Do or Do not. There is no try.

That’s why I’ve just resolved to never again make another New Year Resolution … at least, not until next year

Forbes Magazine: You have $100,000–where do you put it?

Darwin Deason: It depends on age and goals–but if I was young, I’d put all of it in a company that a) I could directly influence or control, and b) that I loved.

——————–

If you have your own financial advice, or feel that summarizing somebody else’s ‘personal finance system’ into “just one page” would be fun – and useful – then I have 5 x $100 Apple Gift cards to give away!

Just check out this post to join the action: http://7million7years.com/2010/10/28/just-one-page/

But, hurry … the giveaway finishes on Thursday November 11th (the last day for submissions) and the entries are already starting to come in!

Winners announced Monday, November 15.

But, what I really like is the first page; which you can download by clicking here => OnePage.

[click on image to enlarge]

It shows a neat summary of Trent’s thoughts on personal finance in a one page ‘system’. Sure the diagrams are hand-drawn, but everything is clear, succinct, and easy to understand.

But, I don’t agree with everything that Trent says … and, I think that there are other personal finance systems around. It’s just that nobody else has bothered to put them on one page … yet.

That’s why I announced yesterday’s giveaway!

I want to encourage others to put their thoughts on personal finance – whether those thoughts are original, or just neat encapsulations of what has been written elsewhere – into a similar ‘one page system’.

I don’t have any fixed ideas on this, but I imagine that simple diagrams and arrows with a few bullet-points sprinkled in here or there will do the trick … but, I won’t know until I see it.

Now, I have five $100 Apple Gift cards to give away to the 5 people who I think have done the best job, but only if I like what they have done. Call me sole judge, jury, and executioner

But, I really do want to give all five gift cards away … that’s $500 folks … so, hit me with your best shot/s (yes, you can submit as many entries as you like)!

Remember: I’m looking for simplicity & content over appearance. Trent’s page is ‘elegant’ in its simplicity, clarity, and completeness … that’s what I want from you.

Here is a link to the giveaway page, where there are more instructions: $500 Apple Gift Card Giveaway!

Thursday November 11th is the last day for submissions, and I’ll be announcing the winners on Monday, November 15.

You can e-mail your submissions to me at ajc [at] 7million7years [dot] com – or, simply plonk a link to them in the comments of yesterday’s post (or, this one) if you’d rather publish on your own site …

… and, if you already have a blog, why not let your own readers have a one page summary of your personal finance thoughts, and win their undying gratitude … and, maybe get a $100 Apple Gift Card for your troubles?

Good Luck!

AJC.

It’s such a great idea, that I want to do the same thing!

But, I’m lazy

So, here’s the deal: put everything that YOU know about personal finance on one page, and you could win a $100 Apple Gift Card.

In fact, I have FIVE of them to give away. But, it’s at my discretion as to who – if anybody – wins these (but, I really do want to give all 5 away).

The ideas could be yours, mine, (not Trent’s because he’s already published his), or anybody else’s (but, link to the source): the presentation (simplicity + completeness + usefulness … not “how pretty it looks”) is what’s important here!

All up, this is $500 of my own hard-earned money … that you get to spend on really cool apple gear … so, make this good!

You can post a link in the comments (if you really can’t link to anything, send it to me as an e-mail and/or attachment to ajc [at] 7million7years [dot] com).

Shall we say 14 days?

More details tomorrow!!!