Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness.  Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
— Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

I know you think you’ll feel better if you buy a new shirt, buy a new blouse or go get your hair done because you’re feeling down a bit; life’s gotten to you.  But, the truth is, if you have $500 in your savings account, then you’ve got self-esteem, because that’s the one thing you [...]

But consider people who are deeply in debt — bad debt.  They essentially have spent their time in advance, for they are obligated to be at their jobs to repay their debts.  They have spent their time in advance of it arriving.  This is what I mean by the term mortgaging your life.
— Jon Hanson, [...]

Remember what I said before: A job is only a short-term solution to a long-term problem.  Most people have only one problem in mind, and it’s short-term.  It’s the bills at the end of the month.  Money now runs their lives.
— Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Our society thrives on materialism, cashing in on the sin of covetousness.  Its modus operandi is to create within our hearts a longing for the things we do not have.  Not only a longing, but also an attitude of need and entitlement.  We need it.  We deserve it.  Especially if someone else has it.
— Alistair [...]

It’s like I’ve said, “I’ve been broke a lot of times, but I’ve never been poor.” My mother taught me to put some money aside for a rainy day. But our industry is the worst in the world for money — same with athletes. After I played a benefit concert to pay for my friend’s medical [...]

The problem with Americans is that they act and spend as if they are rich before they actually ARE rich.
— Economist interviewed in Kiplinger’s Personal Finance

Hang on to your hat because I’m going to tell you something that may be hard to swallow.  Money is not for spending.  It took me the longest time to understand this — money is for managing first and then for spending.  That truth profoundly changed my attitude about money.
— Mary Hunt, Debt-Proof Your Marriage

Living paycheck-to-paycheck has little to do with the size of the paycheck.
— Mary Hunt, Debt-Proof Your Marriage

“My parents never taught me about money” is a commonly-expressed explanation for people’s financial dilemmas.  The fact is that all of us were taught by the financial behaviors modeled for us by our parents.  The first things most of us learned was that you rarely talk about money, but when you do, you “talk” about [...]

Most people have it all wrong about wealth in America.  Wealth is not the same as income.  If you make a good income each year and spend it all, you are not getting wealthier.  You are just living high.  Wealth is what you accumulate, not what you spend.
— Thomas Stanley, Ph.D., and William Danko, The Millionaire [...]

A big part of being strong financially is that you know where you are weak and take action to make sure you don’t fall prey to the weakness.  And we ALL are weak.
— Dave Ramsey, Total Money Makeover

You drive the car, the $400,000 car around the corner, and park it and instantly the thrill goes away. You find it’s a waste of money. And no matter how big your house is, you can only sit your ass in one seat at a time.
— Russell Simmons, entrepreneur and producer, Def Jam records

It doesn’t matter if you are managing $50,000 a year or $50,000,000.  Unless you have a specific plan that is based on values and principles you believe in and a method to keep all of it from leaking away, you will always be in a financial mess.  That’s what debt-proof living is all about:  learning [...]

For financial stuff I always listened to my father, a Republican investment banker.  He told me if I always pay my bills with one-third, save one-third and screw around with the last third, I’ll be okay, no matter how much I earn.  It’s the one thing he said that I listened to, and I have [...]