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I Will Teach You To Be Rich Bootcamp: Improve Your Financial IQ

November 3, 2009 by Silicon Valley Blogger

Did you love the book “I Will Teach You To Be Rich”? Even if you haven’t had a chance to read it, I’m hoping that you’ll find this post helpful.

This is a time sensitive post and you’ll know why in a second. You may have noticed the new prominent banner I have on my sidebar, advertising the first of its kind personal finance boot camp. This interesting online course is courtesy of Ramit Sethi, the top financial blogger behind the blog, I Will Teach You To Be Rich.com.

Well here’s what this is about. I’m one of several bloggers who’s helping Ramit get the word out on an interactive online personal finance course which will be offered from November 9 through December 20. You can consider it to be the natural offshoot of his New York best selling book “I Will Teach You To Be Rich”, where he covers a lot of ground on key topics such as banking, saving, budgeting, investing and earning more. Here are some particulars about the boot camp:

I Will Teach You To Be Rich Boot Camp: Details

Who: Ramit Sethi will be hosting and will be guiding you to take action on your finances. He will be answering your questions over the course of the event.
What: 6-week online boot camp to help people take ACTION and manage their money. Includes coursework on credit cards, debt, automating money, picking the right accounts, investments, and day-to-day money questions.
Guest speakers: Also includes guest speakers who are tops in their respective fields (online marketing, entrepreneurship, financial services, job coaching). They’ll be speaking about entrepreneurship, earning more, finding a mentor, landing your dream job, etc.
Cost: $199
No Risk: There’s a 30 day money back guarantee associated with this program, no questions asked.

For those interested, you can only register between now and Friday, November 6 at 12 AM PST. Also, attendance is limited and may close prior to Friday once the boot camp fills up.

Why I Think This Boot Camp Rocks

Ramit is a highly visible blogger and writer in the personal finance space. He’s highly regarded in the financial blogosphere and has written a New York Times best selling book on finance (you can check it out here). He’s a pretty energetic and passionate guy who’d like to see you achieve results. I actually find his energy (and conviction) contagious: you can see him in action in this video, where he dishes out some financial tips on how to get paid what you’re worth:

As for the boot camp, here’s one simple reason for attending it: maybe it’s not enough that we simply read about what to do through blogs, books and newsletters. If you’d like to give your finances higher priority, then why not take action and start making things happen? You can do this in the context of a guided process in a peer setting, where you’ll be in the company of some strong financial advocates.

I think that the $199 cost of the program will pay for itself many times over when you realize that by its end, you’ll have applied certain tips and put financial plans in action (finally) that you wouldn’t have done otherwise. Remember that time is money, so the sooner you implement your financial plans and take control of your money, the better off you’ll be.

Personal Finance Boot Camp Agenda and Schedule

As far as what you can expect from the boot camp, let me try to list them here. Here is the course schedule:

And if you’re curious about how a sample week will run, here is a course outline for Week 1, where you’ll be focusing on how to optimize the use of your credit cards:

• Homework Assignment: Make a list of credit cards, balances, interest rates. (This will be collected and checked off by IWT assistants.)
• Group and Forum Discussion Topics with Support Materials: Six Commandments of Credit Cards, Common Mistakes to Avoid, Credit Card Tips, Card Negotiation Scripts
• Ramit’s Tuesday Live Cast: Ramit talks about big wins with your credit cards, how to find the best deals and takes member’s questions.
• Live Guest Speaker Thursday: Andy Jolls from VideoCreditScore.com talks about easy ways to improve your credit score and answers member’s questions.
• Check Lists: Find out your credit score and check your credit report, set up your credit cards, make sure you’re handling your card effectively, develop a debt plan.

As you can see, it’s a pretty comprehensive course and so there is one thing that this boot camp will require of you: a time commitment. Since it will be running for 6 weeks, with each week dedicated to a given financial topic, you’ll need to set aside some time to tackle this. The estimated amount of time you’ll need to get the most out of this program? Around 5 to 10 hours per week.

Final Words

A lot of us have been harping about the fact that “personal finance is not being taught in high schooI”. Well if we missed the boat on finance during our school days, then perhaps a crash course may help spur us on the right track or may serve as a reality check to help validate the financial moves we’ve been making. I really think that this boot camp is pretty valuable. It’s something that I wish had been available to me when I was in my 20’s; while there’s no substitute for experience, I do think that something like this would have helped expedite my learning and would have confirmed whether I was on the right track. If I had this kind of opportunity back then, I believe that I could have avoided some missteps that ended up costing me big in my earlier years.

Not only do I expect this boot camp to be inspiring as you work with others who can serve as mentors, but it’s also a program that promises you results — if you do the work involved. It’s one that will make you accountable, which will work especially well in a group setting. There won’t be any excuses this time, right?

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