“I’m so thankful that I listen to WOKV in Jacksonville, FL that’s where I heard of the Saving Thousands. I am able to continue to increase my savings account by using Rule #9 Share Your Successes. I work daily with homeless youth in an Independent Living setting, and I share this savings tip with every youth that comes into the program. Every pay day I go to the bank and get two rolls of quarters. I dump them into a large Zephryhills water bottle. I chose $20.00 because I was blowing at least $20.00 a pay period on junk. Then I began to realize after reding the rules, if I waste $20.00 I should be able to save $20.00. By doing this I have saved more $580.00 in quarters plus my pocket change by sharing this with the youth in the program, I am teaching them a young age the value of money and the importance of having a savings account or a rainy day fund. The youth report by doing this, they have learned to begin to save for a rainy day and I am Sharing My Success. Thanks Robert for the rules!”

“I’ve actually saved a lot of money by using Rule #1 and shopping around to make a purchase. Last week my flat screen busted after my son threw the football too hard and I was determined to get a new TV. That night I went to Walmart and found one for $2000. I was just about to buy it when my son told me to wait and let’s shop around. So I looked online at best buy, Amazon, target. Turns out Target was having a special on that TV and I saved $500!!!!! I don’t know about you but that’s a lot of money. Thanks RP for the rules!

“My husband and I used Rule #11 relating to our retirement accounts. By starting early in our 20s and investing wisely, David was just able to take early retirement with enough in his 401K to generate monthly dividends greater than his monthly salary. I just found an old 401K statement from the early 1990s which had a balance of only $30,000. Compound interest baby!!! That along with patience and discipline has given us the freedom to retire. (Because real estate is not work to me — it’s an obsession — I’ll continue to be an instructor and sell properties.)”

“We have three sons in college, our two oldest have two semesters left and our third son has three semesters until graduation. Before paying their tuition bills for this Fall semester, they had to have a one on one financial session with Mom, which covered 10 points. The one topic that captured their attention the most was about the credit card. I showed them on our actual statement that we owed $3K for the month, but if we only paid the minimum payment due it would take us 15 years and cost us $6K to pay that off. They cannot understand why anyone would not pay the entire balance due in that case. It made no sense to them. They will remember that moving forward. [As a side note, we use a credit card to take advantage of the cash back every month, and never pay fees or interest.]”

“I use credit cards to earn free airplane tickets, double frequent flyer miles, and cash-back on every purchase. I use these cards (AMEX Platinum, Disney VISA, Amazon Prime, and Discover) as if they were debit cards, BUT each time I make a purchase–whether it’s for $2,000 or $3–I deduct the total of the charge from my checkbook register. In my mind, I have already paid the bill, but in reality, the money is still in the bank earning interest. When the bill comes in, I pay it immediately, but do NOT subtract the total from my checkbook because each individual item has already been deducted.

“My wife wanted to buy some furniture to match what we already have. I convinced her to wait and think on it for a few days instead of running up my credit card again. She seems to have forgot all about it. She instead of using some spending cash on it, chose to pay down my credit card balances that were run up while she was in school. We now have a plan to knock out the high interest cards first, then the others, after that we will double up on my truck payments and have them gone within a year. after that is done we will be trying to pay an extra 1000.00 per month towards the principal of our home loan.I have had trouble in the past making her understand the way to kill the bills, but, after listening to your show, I can relay the information with a higher degree of understanding and intelligence. Thank you so much for all the information given out on the radio. It is a tremendous help.My goal is to cut our 30 year loan in half and be done in 15 years or less. I am 47 and my wife is 55, we want to be able to prepare for retirement in fairly short order. We have nothing put back as of now, but after hearing your show, we can still pull it off.”

“Since I retired 13 years ago, I’ve had to pay much more attention to my finances. I did not receive any instruction about handling money when I was young; then my husband handled that aspect of our lives, Having my income cut nearly in half at age 65 has been a shocking reality.

“Rule #4! Don’t abuse credit, but don’t fear it either! I don’t have any extra money on the budget we have, so I was so excited to discover a new credit card at my bank. I’m hesitant to share this for fear the bank will stop the program.My bank has a Cash Reward card with the deal that if I:

“I used rule #1 when purchasing my new temporary home. I recently just purchased a temporary home and had it delivered to my property to live in until we finish remodeling the old farm house that is on the property. But before I purchased it, I did a lot of research and calling around to see who had the best price and the best housing options around. It took me a few weeks and I made sure I did not go with the first “deal” that I found. Since my temporary home is not exactly livable at the moment and does not have a bathroom or kitchen, it’s basically an empty shell. This $900 would definitely would help go towards preparing my new home to live in until the new house is complete.”

“I am 47 and looking to change careers when my home is paid off. I bought a house 6 years ago at an interest rate of 4.85 percent. I am paying $1000.00 extra each month to get it paid off. At this rate it will be paid off in 4 years and 10 months. I can only do this because I have no credit card debt and have kept a good credit score. I think credit score is a very important thing for all young people to learn about. Also the three day rule has always been something I have lived by….not to rush into purchases.”