The Bank On Yourself Revolution. Pamela Yellen
Then the book hit the bestseller lists. (That was nice, and softened the pain a bit.) And we got a tremendous response from folks who were thrilled to have discovered Bank On Yourself. (That was even better.)
Then the backlash started. (Not fun at all.)
People who have a vested interest in keeping the same-old, same-old going (that would be many of your celebrity money gurus, financial advisors, stockbrokers, money managers, and bankers) went on total attack! I received vile letters and nasty e-mails that were unbelievably vitriolic and accusatory. (Honestly, who has that kind of time on their hands?)
I got attacked in blogs, in articles, and by talking heads both online and offline. Most of the attackers had not done their homework, and some were totally illogical and unreasonable in their arguments against the Bank On Yourself strategy. (Then again, I guess illogical and unreasonable is kinda the currency of the day, isn’t it?) But I still had to step up and defend myself and the Bank On Yourself concept against them.
One article that I found particularly amusing was written by an investment advisor and blogger for a major news website. He wrote an “exposé” about how he’d discovered the fatal flaw in Bank On Yourself. Really? That I had to see. Turns out the only way he could punch a hole in the concept was to compare the cost of purchasing a car and financing it through Bank On Yourself to the cost of not buying a car at all. Well, duh. Of course you’ll have more money if you don’t buy a car! (Someone once told me that blogging isn’t writing. It’s graffiti with punctuation.) To read the point-by-point rebuttal we posted to that article, go to www.BankOnYourself.com/rebuttal.
If I had a dollar for every myth and misconception published online and offline about Bank On Yourself, I’d have more money than all the fat cats on Wall Street put together.
Does it sound like I took these attacks lightly? I didn’t. The truth is that being attacked all the time—even if the attacks aren’t valid—really hurts a lot and is exhausting.
So I told Larry, “That’s it. I’m done.”
It was a very hard time for me. Not only would I never write another book, but there were more than a few moments when I thought about completely giving up my mission to educate people about this proven wealth-building strategy. I’d just go back to the quiet life I had before all of this, where most people who know me actually like and respect me. That was in 2009.
But Then …
By the end of 2010, the recession had crushed the net worth of most Americans. The median net worth of the middle class—who were hit the hardest—fell by so much, it erased eighteen years of gains.1 Savers have been “rewarded” for their diligence with near-zero yields on their hard-earned life savings for five long years because the Federal Reserve deliberately kept interest rates as low as possible.
And soon the talking heads on Wall Street—whose advice got us into this mess in the first place!—were urging us to leap right back in and take more risk, as if it makes perfect sense to make up for your gambling losses by doubling down on your bets.
People who followed all the conventional financial wisdom got clobbered in the last recession, losing homes, college savings, and retirement funds. And they want us to do it again?
It makes me absolutely furious that the financial community is bent on getting us to walk down that same rosy garden path that has nothing at the end of it but quicksand! I know there’s a way out, and I’ve seen so many people benefit from it. I know there’s a safe way to grow your wealth and have access to the cash you need while guaranteeing a comfortable retirement and setting up a legacy to be left to those you love.
I couldn’t just stand by and let people suffer when they don’t have to.
So I said to Larry, “Maybe just one more book.”
Prominently placed on my office wall is a quote from Dan Kennedy, one of my mentors:
“If you don’t offend somebody by noon each day, you’re not doing much.”
And isn’t that true? If I weren’t stirring up the waters or getting any pushback, it would be because I was parroting the same old pap that clearly doesn’t work.
But that’s not what I’m doing.
I’m inciting a revolution.
The highest form of ignorance is to reject something you know nothing about.
—DR. WAYNE DYER
THIS BOOK may make you crazy angry.
It might make you feel uncomfortable, anxious, confused. It might make you question some of your long-held beliefs about money, the stock market, investing, how to get ahead, and how to build wealth. You may start doubting the very validity of the financial strategies and vehicles you’ve poured your blood, sweat, tears, and dollars into.
And if this painful truth hasn’t dawned on you previously, you might feel more than a little squeamish to realize that you’ve built your financial future on a house of cards that can—or has—come tumbling down through no fault of your own.
INSIDE THIS CHAPTER …
• You Can’t Predict the Future—But That’s Okay
• How I Figured Out What Doesn’t Work
• What’s the Bank On Yourself Revolution All About?
• Who Bank On Yourself Isn’t Right For
• Stop Losing Money to the Randomness of the Market and Create Real Wealth
Yep. I’m the bearer of bad tidings.
But if you can get through all the angst and anger and fear and sadness those bad tidings will cause you, I’ve got some good news for you as well. And if you’re willing to keep an open mind, I can show you a way out.
A way out of the constant worry about whether you’ll ever be in a financial position to retire. Out of the stress of figuring out how you’ll ever be able to afford your children’s college education. Out of the crazy-making exercise of trying to second-guess a stock market whose strings are pulled by people whose greed is only outstripped by their ingenuity for coming up with complex smoke-and-mirrors financial schemes.
A way out of the discouragement you feel paying steep credit card fees, the panic you feel when unexpected and shockingly expensive emergencies strike, the sadness you might feel when you realize that you worked really, really hard for decades to end up with … not very much at all.
Is It the Best of Times or the Worst of Times?
I have no idea what the economic climate will be as you read this book. Absolutely no clue. We could be in a screaming bull market, or in the throes of a financial crash and recession, or somewhere in between.
The critical question is:How much does your financial security depend on things you can’t predict or control?
The critical question is: How much does your financial security depend on things you can’t predict or control?
When my first book on Bank On Yourself came out in 2009, we were two years into what turned out to be the deepest and longest recession since the Great Depression. The stock market crashed, losing almost half its value—the second horrific crash in a decade. The housing market collapsed, ultimately wiping out a decade of home equity. Millions of people lost their homes, and many more homeowners found themselves owing more on their mortgages than their homes were worth. The