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I’m not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions. A few times, I’ve made a New Year’s resolution to lose weight. Still fat!

Some people get themselves into financial trouble around the holidays. Let me back up for a second. For some people, the holidays are a really big deal. You have a bunch of kids, the kids need presents, and you don’t want to disappoint anyone. So, you go deep into credit card debt, and then you spend the rest of the year paying it off. No fun. 

A way around this would be to have hard conversations with the kids about how times are tough, etc., but nobody wants to have the hard conversations. Hard talk, easy life; easy talk, hard life.

Live with No Worries

Maybe you have a goal to get yourself in financial shape in the coming year. I wrote a book that might help: No Worries. And in addition to the book, we here at Jared Dillian Money developed a comprehensive course designed to get people to live a stress-free financial life. What? You hadn’t heard of this before? Well, we didn’t make a lot of noise about it when it came out. To be perfectly honest, it’s not a big money maker for us! Hundreds of hours went into its development, and we sell it for a very low price.

Why do we do this? Because we want Jared Dillian Money to be all financial things to all people—from personal finance up to institutional finance. So that is one reason. And I think at one point, I had an aspiration to out-Dave Ramsey Dave Ramsey, but he has a monopoly on bad ideas.

The other reason is that we have a genuine desire to help people, and if you can spend $99 to put yourself through the financial wringer, where you learn a bunch of stuff and your spending habits (and save thousands of dollars in the process), then it is probably worth it.

Now, this course is fairly untested. Not a lot of people have taken it, so we haven’t received a lot of feedback on it. It’s based on the principles that I laid out in No Worries—it’s all about living a stress-free financial life. And if you’re experiencing financial stress of any kind, this course is probably for you. It might not be because you’re overspending—it might be because you’re underspending.

Make a Change

In the course, we talk about all things personal finance. We talk about debt, credit cards, mortgages, car loans, and student loans. We also talk about risk in the financial markets.

The funny thing about personal finance is that most people think they have a pretty good handle on their situation, but there are always things you can do to optimize. That said, the course is really not about optimization; it’s about how to be happy with your financial situation to prevent common errors like spending too much over Christmas and, more commonly, taking Social Security too early.

This isn’t for everyone. Some people plain don’t need it. I, for one, have never needed a personal finance course, although I probably could have used some guidance on how to spend a little more money when I was in my 20s and 30s. But even during the financial crisis, I have never been under financial duress. That isn’t simply a function of making a lot of money—I have not always made a lot of money. I recently built an expensive house—no financial stress. Maybe a little when it went over budget by 10%, but I didn’t lose any sleep over it.

Some people experience financial stress all the time—with every purchase they make, down to the sausage and cheddar sandwich at Starbucks. For some people, just living and getting by in a capitalist economy is arduous. This is more a function of mindset than anything. 

Remember: The solution to the common problem of not having enough money is… to make more money. Not to cut expenses even further. If you take nothing else away from the course, this is worthwhile. “The Revenue Side” is the most powerful concept in personal finance.

So, if this sounds like you, I recommend signing up. But don’t be one of these people who doesn’t finish what they start. Take the whole thing from front to back. I can’t fix your financial problems—only you can—but I can give you a push in the right direction. 

The regular price of the course is $129, but we are lowering it to $99 over the holidays. Get your expenses covered, minimize your debt, have an emergency fund in the bank, and nobody can touch you. Now is the ideal time to make a change. Enroll today to get started.

Jared Dillian, MFA