A strong distaste for seeing others get taken advantage of. A desire since my adolescence to become a noteworthy writer. A passion for languages. A passion for teaching. These core elements are the primary motivators for writing this newsletter. Reconciling these ideas will be a challenge, but one worth accomplishing.
For those who seek them, the United States is a unique place with abundant opportunities for growth. It can also be a cold and merciless place if you do not understand how to navigate its often complex systems. And there are lots of them.
Opportunities for growth, specifically financial growth, cannot take place without first obtaining and then applying a base education in both financial thinking and money management. Money-thinking, to phrase it another way. It is a common enough story. Someone visits a car dealership after seeing an advertisement, or decides its time to upgrade their lifestyle after a pay raise or annual bonus. They are already picturing themselves driving around the new vehicle with fresh paper tags, a kind of 'guilt-free' enjoyment period before the first payment comes due. At the dealership, the sales rep takes out a sheet of paper, draws a big 'plus' on it and writes the words: trade-in value, sale price, down payment, monthly payment. One phrase in each box.
The numbers keep changing as the negotiation continues. Frequent trips to speak with their manager. Sometimes a trip to the back office to speak with the finance department. All a part of the game. The trade-in value squeaks up by $500 or $1000. Don't worry, the number the dealership initially provided was already 25% or maybe even 40% lower than what the vehicle could sell for in a private-party transaction. A lower monthly payment will require a larger down payment. Now it's at $2,500 when 5 minutes ago it was only $1,000. A final adjustment. The loan term gets extended from 60 mos. to 84 mos., and the interest jumps from 6.79% to 10.29% as a result. Now the monthly payment is more affordable. Barely. In two years the loan on the vehicle will be 10, 15, or 20 thousand dollars more than its value on the open market. All because of the excitement and making an emotional decision when it comes to money management. Did you notice the vehicle sales price never changed?
Two or three years later this same individual runs into a string of financial hardships. An unexpected medical bill. Overspending a predicted larger check from working a bunch of OT hours. When the deposit clears the bank, it's $400 less than the original estimate due to the increased taxes and other deductions. The family pet requires an unexpected surgery. Isn't it typical how hardships, financial or otherwise, seem to come in waves? The due immediately bills take priority. Then comes the first missed car payment. Then a late credit card payment. Now this individual's credit score takes a hit and they come to us as a client.
While slightly exaggerated for dramatic effect, the above situation is easily possible. The question becomes - how do I avoid these kind of financial pitfalls? This newsletter will look to fulfill that very purpose. It is not a newsletter on how to become wealthy, or worse yet, a get-rich-quick guide (read as: scheme). The purpose is to provide a broad, baseline education to the myriad financial systems in the United States so you, the reader, can learn to use them to your advantage instead of having them used against you to your disadvantage. The first few articles will be free. This is so readers can more easily get a general feel for the writing style and type of content before choosing to become a paid subscriber. Paid subscribers will have the option of electing versions translated into Spanish, Japanese, or no translation. For translated versions, each article will contain four versions. For example, if subscribed to the Japanese-series, there will be a native English, native Japanese, simple English, and simple Japanese version. This facilitates language learning at all skill levels. The English-only version will not include an accompanying translation.
If any reader has a specific topic they'd like covered, please email us at info@nwifl.org with any relevant details. The secondary, personal goal for this newsletter is to improve my own writing through this process. Clean prose and clearly expressed ideas are a joy to read. It's part of what I admire about Ernest Hemmingway's works. The directness of it. The rawness of it. He plants the reader immediately in the story exactly where it starts. Take the opening line from The Old Man and the Sea. "He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Guld Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.' Again. Taking the first two sentences from The Sun Also Rises, "Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn." If you wish to improve your own writing, I can recommend Writing that Works by Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelson. On Writing by Stephen King. And of course, The Elements of Style by William Strunk. Let's learn and grow together.
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