I would like to think I’m the protege of some of my mentors, but I guess only time will tell.

Just knowing how not to do things isn’t enough. Sometimes we’re not doing things the way we’d like because we don’t know how. Seeing someone actually doing it, especially doing it in an extreme way, is very helpful.

“The Simple Dollar is the most popular independent personal finance blog on the internet, reaching a million visitors per month. These readers are affluent, intelligent, and conscious of their money and the social issues around them. ”

You are not the most popular, independent, personal finance blog. GetRichSlowly, for example, shows twice your RSS numbers. I don’t believe your non-subscriber/search traffic beats GRS either, because a linkdomain search on Yahoo returns 128,000 backlinks for GRSinks and only 78,400 for you.

I respond: JD, is that you? I base my claim on SiteMeter statistics, the only tool available to directly compare the visitors and page views of The Simple Dollar and Get Rich Slowly. See them for yourself:
The Simple Dollar’s stats: http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=sm5trenthamm
Get Rich Slowly’s stats: http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s25getrich

Feed subscribers are rather inaccurate because (a) they’re somewhat based on the time a site has been around, (b) different audiences have different levels of adoption of RSS, and (c) some feed readers provide feeds arbitrarily as a default. If you believe in feed read counts as an indicator of popularity, you believe that PFblog.com is more popular than Get Rich Slowly, which is patently absurd.

JD and I have very different audiences, and it’s impossible to tell whose content is read more. I suspect JD has quite a few more authentic feed reading people than I do, whereas I know I have quite a few more people visiting the site than he does. However, to say The Simple Dollar is “not the most popular, independent, personal finance blog” is at least reasonably off base.

I have to say I’m CONSTANTLY being shown just how much money management can rule your life – and seeing them go through money like it’s an endless supply and wasting away their trust fund(s)… it’s CONSTANT motivation and reinforcement that the choices I’m making are right.

Agreed. I’ve had both flavor role models / mentors.

My Dad is an exceptional money manager and hammered into me the right things to do.

One of my early bosses in my career leased expensive cars, bought houses with very little down on 40-year mortgages, and leased his life.

The positive messages from my Dad never hit home until a ‘turning point’ conversation with my idiot boss one day. He was in his early 40′s and I was in my early 30′s; he had been earning 6-figures for over 15 years, and I was in my second or third year of 6-figure earnings. We were talking about an upcoming Bond Issue from a private company that had just announced intent for an IPO the following year. We both thought it was a wise investment, and in an industry we were very familiar with. I almost fell out of my chair when he said “Yeah, but the bonds are only sold in $10,000 blocks, and no normal people can do that.” My reply was, “Well… I don’t want to have this as more than 20% of my non tax-sheltered portfolio, or 10% of my portfolio overall, so I’ll only be buying 2 blocks.”

I called my Dad and told him the story. Then my Dad, who has never had a 6-figure income, bought 2 blocks as well.

His mother, on the other hand, is a bright, charming woman with professional training. Her house — which she never maintained — was foreclosed upon this year after she lost a job through her own misconduct; she just moved out and abandoned it and her mortgage. She currently lives in run-down subsidized apartment with her frequently unemployed boyfriend. She doesn’t answer her phone or open her mail for weeks at a time, dodging creditors. Though she has a clerical job, she makes barely enough to get by and she has no savings. When The Boy is at her apartment, though, he can drink all the soda he wants, dinner is usually eaten at a restaurant or made from convenience foods at home, and his mom gives him $5 for lunch (I pack his lunch on the days he’s here). They also have thousands of dollars of computers, game systems, and games.

This situation can make me — as a stepmother — walk a very shaky tightrope at times. I like his mom, but I strongly disapprove of her financial choices. So, we go out of our way to expose our financial planning to The Boy and let him see first-hand the differences in our lifestyles. We never speak negatively about his mother (when he’s here, at least), but when he shares the latest horror story from her place — like when the gas was turned off for non-payment and the house was very, very cold overnight — we try to make sure he understands how to avoid that when he is an adult.

(I’m no saint, btw. When he’s not here, I’ll occasionally rant about the fact that we pay her hundreds of dollars in child support each month, yet she funds none of his clothes, school supplies, toys and games, travel, or spending money, and he lives with us five days a week. At the same time, she’s always 30-60 days behind on her car loan, which my husband co-signed and which could easily be covered by her child support money. It drives me nuts sometimes that her house seems like the “fun house”, because he can eat junk and play games all day, whereas he has to do his homework, get up early, and can’t pig out when he’s here during the week. But those are things I can’t change and they’re certainly nothing he needs to hear.)

His mother, on the other hand, is a bright, charming woman with professional training. Her house — which she never maintained — was foreclosed upon this year after she lost a job through her own misconduct; she just moved out and abandoned it and her mortgage. She currently lives in run-down subsidized apartment with her frequently unemployed boyfriend. She doesn’t answer her phone or open her mail for weeks at a time, dodging creditors. Though she has a clerical job, she makes barely enough to get by and she has no savings. When The Boy is at her apartment, though, he can drink all the soda he wants, dinner is usually eaten at a restaurant or made from convenience foods at home, and his mom gives him $5 for lunch (I pack his lunch on the days he’s here). They also have thousands of dollars of computers, game systems, and games.

This situation can make me — as a stepmother — walk a very shaky tightrope at times. I like his mom, but I strongly disapprove of her financial choices. So, we go out of our way to expose our financial planning to The Boy and let him see first-hand the differences in our lifestyles. We never speak negatively about his mother (when he’s here, at least), but when he shares the latest horror story from her place — like when the gas was turned off for non-payment and the house was very, very cold overnight — we try to make sure he understands how to avoid that when he is an adult.

(I’m no saint, btw. When he’s not here, I’ll occasionally rant about the fact that we pay her hundreds of dollars in child support each month, yet she funds none of his clothes, school supplies, toys and games, travel, or spending money, and he lives with us five days a week. At the same time, she’s always 30-60 days behind on her car loan, which my husband co-signed and which could easily be covered by her child support money. It drives me nuts sometimes that her house seems like the “fun house”, because he can eat junk and play games all day, whereas he has to do his homework, get up early, and can’t pig out when he’s here during the week. But those are things I can’t change and they

-Raymond

Watching my teenage friends pick up lipstick stained butts from the side of the road to get enough tobacco so they could roll a couple of cigarettes to tide them over until they got their allowances showed me I needed to smoke like I needed a hole in my head.

Watching college buddies drink until they puked nearly every weekend, then seeing their grades plummet as the behaviour spilled over into the weekdays, showed me that that kind of lifestyle doesn’t cut it if you want to make anything of yourself.

Being driven around in a Mercedes, wined and dined, and shown the high life by someone trying to get me on board their “team”, only to watch the way they spoke to a “team member” when they thought I wasn’t around, taught me to be less impressed by the trappings and more focused on the meat. (not to mention the reaction when I rebuffed their offer, talk about burning bridges)

I’ve picked up lots of good things from watching as well. I can’t tell you the number of people who exhibit habits and behaviours I’ve tried emulating, some better than others. Even small things like how someone calms an angry customer and actually turns things around in a retail store can be instructional if you happen to be there and pay attention.

I have divorced parents.

One retired at about 50 years old to a custom-built home and funds for the rest of their life in relative comfort. They grow a lot of their own food and they spend their days volunteering in their small town community.

The other is now 61, a total shopaholic who just recently took on about 50K in student loans! In addition their spouse opted for a retirement where they get nothing once the spouse dies. The world will crumble as the spouse has a brain tumor that is inoperable and is starting to be a real issue in their lives, though it is not cancerous. My parent will end up with a not paid for house, tons of debt, and student loans up the wazoo. Truly insane.

While DH and I have our issues I do try to emulate the parent who did things the “right way” rather than the other way I have seen….

The horrible thing is that the parent with the horrible financial life inherrited about 300K about 6 years ago and spent it…

Peter

“I read lots of books about heroes and crooks,
and I learned a lot from both of their styles”

Sometimes knowing how things work can protect you from being prey.