Ramit Sethi (author and blogger of "I Will Teach You to Be Rich") gives a spoken presentation on practical personal-finance tactics for young people: criticize trivial frugality, teach negotiation to waive bank/credit-card/car-insurance fees, and recommend automation of savings and investing (examples: $25/month, 5% to 401(k), sub-savings). He frames wealth as both money and living a "rich" lifestyle.
A lot of people, especially bloggers, love to write about frugality. Like, oh, I cooked this thing at home and I cut down on the number of grains of rice, so I was able to save 15 cents. Like, get a life, okay? Ramit Sethi is a specialist in sniffing through the fine print. Ramit Sethi is the author of the book I Will Teach you to Be Rich. My name is Ramit Sethi and I write the blog I Will Teach youh to Be Rich. Frankly, there's too much personal finance information out there and most of it's irrelevant for young people With I Will Teach youh Be Rich. I'm not talking about PE ratios, I'm not talking about the top 10 stocks of the year. I'm talking about how do you get started? How do you call up your bank account and get your fees waived? How do you call your credit card and negotiate your APR down? And how do you just set up an investing account and set $25 a month to go into it? I teach people how to negotiate like an Indian, alright? That's what I learned when I was a kid and now I'm trying to teach it to others. If a bank charges you an overdraft fee or a credit card charges you a late fee, all you do is call month and say, I see there's a late fee on my account, I'd like to have that waived. And they'll say, well, why do you want that? They say, well, I made a mistake and it won't happen again. So that's what you do. That's it. And it's waived. I talk about how to negotiate with your credit cards or more importantly with your car insurance. And a lot of the people who followed my car insurance script when they called up the car insurance companies, they saved $700 a year. Look at this smile. I mean, how can you resist? If you smile in a negotiation, it disarms what can otherwise be a very tense situation. Automation is about taking that next hundred dollars you earn, whatever it's from your paycheck, wherever, and putting it automatically into different accounts. So when I earn the next hundred dollars or thousand dollars, 5% might go to my 401k, 5% to my savings account. And within that savings account I have sub savings account trip to China. Stupid mistakes I make, whatever it may be, by the time the money gets to me, it's all been handled automatically while I'm sleeping. And I know I can spend that money guilt free. It's not just about money. I want to emphasize that rich partly is about money, but it's also about living a rich lifestyle. Whatever that Sam.
