Smart Women Finish Rich summary

If you were a fly on the wall at one of the author’s FinishRich Seminars, this is what you’d hear asked at the very beginning: “What’s important about money to you?” You’d then hear the deafening silence that usually follows.

Most people don’t expect to be asked this by a financial expert, yet, it’s a question central to Purpose-Focused Financial Planning. This approach asserts that identifying what’s really driving you financially is the single most important step in the wealth-building process. 

Picture this: you’ve finally mustered the courage – and savings – for a dream trip abroad, perhaps to Italy, Japan, or the Maldives. You’re online, about to book the tickets, and … the website won’t work. You’ve entered the dates, destination, and number of travelers, but the error message keeps flashing red. Annoyed, you reach for your phone to call customer service, but the moment you do, you realize what you’ve done wrong. You haven’t entered your point of departure. 

No one would knowingly attempt to book a holiday without providing all the information. Yet, this is how most of us try to tackle our finances – without identifying where we currently stand. 

As M. C. Hammer showed us earlier, fat paychecks don’t guarantee lasting wealth. It’s the percentage we keep of that paycheck that does. 

How many hours a week do you currently work? Twenty? Forty? Seventy plus? How many of those hours go towards actually paying yourself instead of taxes, a mortgage or rent, car loans, and credit card bills? 

When the author was seven, he became an investor. Being a stockholder of his favorite restaurant – McDonald’s – was exhilarating, so he purchased additional shares whenever he’d saved enough. One day, his grandmother wisely advised he consider diversifying his humble portfolio, explaining the well-worn expression, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

Today, he advocates three baskets for financial eggs: a security basket, a retirement basket, and a dream basket. We covered how to set up your retirement basket in the last section, so let’s explore the remaining two. 

Can you recall a mistake you made years ago that you’ve never repeated again? For the author, it was sticking a screwdriver into an electric socket. He was only five at the time, but the lesson remains to this day. 

Learning from our mistakes is how we grow. Yet, Smart Women see that they can learn just as much from other people’s as their own – and save themselves unnecessary pain in the process. 

At this point, you may be screaming, “I wish I’d known this earlier!” If so, you’re not alone. 

In a report from the Council for Economic Education, 66 percent of US high schoolers failed a basic test of economic principles. What’s more, a PricewaterhouseCoopers study revealed that only 31 percent of American K-12 teachers would feel “completely comfortable” teaching personal finance to their students. 

We started this Blink with the assertion that “finishing rich” doesn’t require an eight figure income. 

That said, becoming someone who attracts abundance is still a worthy endeavor. After all, the sooner you have your security and retirement baskets filled, the sooner you can start living the life of your dreams. 

Smart Women pursue financial empowerment. They recognize that men have a significant head-start in the money game, so make financial education, future security, and realizing their dreams a priority. 

By connecting with your values, getting organized, keeping more of your income, investing wisely, and appreciating the journey, you too can join the ranks of Smart Women who finish rich!