One of the trickiest things about personal finance is the sheer number of choices. It doesn’t matter the details of your specific situation – we all face countless decisions and each option comes with a lot of underlying complexity.
Wading through choice after choice is not easy to do, especially on your own. Consistently making the best choices becomes exponentially more difficult. As a result, most people struggle to figure it out.
We face endless obstacles, too. The human brain isn’t hardwired to think rationally about money decisions; advertisers subtly follow us around the Internet (and even our homes) to strategically encourage us to consume; Wall Street spends billions of dollars convincing you to take actions when you shouldn’t; and nobody receives a formal personal finance education led by a knowledgeable (and unbiased) expert.
It’s little wonder that so many people struggle to understand where to start and what to do with their money. These are some of the reasons why I wrote Making Money Simple: The Complete Guide to Getting Your Financial House in Order and Keeping It That Way Forever, which is coming out on April 2nd.
What We All Need for Financial Success: A Clear Starting Point
The key to financial success is mostly about minimizing mistakes and leveraging the power of compounding across all areas of your financial life. The easiest way to do this is to define your goals, develop an optimal savings plan, and automate as much of that plan as possible.
The purpose of Making Money Simple is to give you a clear starting point, focus only on the most important decisions to make, and create a saving system that quietly nudges your finances in the right direction without regular effort on your part.
I wrote this book for people in their 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s who are excelling in their careers and want to make sure they are doing the right thing with their money. My goal was to provide information so they could be more financially savvy – but just as importantly, I also wanted to give my readers tools to apply that knowledge and change their behaviors.
Making Money Simple is designed to keep you organized and on the right track over time. You can order a copy from Amazon now by using this link.
And if you want to learn more about how this book came to be? Read on.
The Story Behind Making Money Simple
In the past several weeks, I’ve been doing dozens of interviews about the book. Many people have asked about how and why I wrote Making Money Simple. Considering there seems to be a lot of interest about the process that went into creating this, I wanted to share this detailed look at its making.
Every year I make a list of personal and professional work goals, and “write a book” somehow ended up on the list in January 2017. My wife, Ann, was pregnant with our second child. I had just launched my own blog a month earlier and was publishing new content every week.
Around that same time I was promoted to Co-Chief Investment Officer, working with Plancorp’s founder, Jeff Buckner, to oversee about $4 billion in client assets. My colleagues and I at Plancorp were also gearing up to build a new digital advisor called BrightPlan.
In other words, it’s not like I didn’t have other things going on. But Ann’s pregnancy left her wiped out after a full day of work, so she typically went to bed at the same time as our then four-year-old son Tommy. That left me with a few hours every night to myself. That alone time, plus the motivation that comes with any New Year’s Resolution, set the wheels in motion.
The Best Advice I Got on Tackling My Goal
Prior to starting, I reached out to other authors for advice. I’m incredibly thankful for that early guidance. This is some of the most valuable advice I received:
- Write the book you want to write rather than worrying about what you think others want you to write. – Jason Zweig
- Don’t cobble together a bunch of blog posts and call it a book. – Ben Carlson
- Get feedback from as many people as possible. – Wes Gray
- Hire a project manager to keep you on track. – Mary Beth Storjohann
Other people that graciously gave me advice at different stages of the writing and publishing process included Roger Whitney, Meb Faber, Rick Ferri, Michael Batnick, Brian Portnoy, Daniel Crosby, and Matt Hall.
If I could give one piece of advice to aspiring authors, it would be to hire a project manager. Per Mary Beth’s advice, I hired a project manager to set a writing schedule and pester me to stay on task. Without having someone constantly looking over my shoulder, I would have never made progress.
The First Draft in Fits and Starts
During the first three months of 2017, I sat at my computer every night when Ann and Tommy went to bed. By April, I had the introduction and first nine chapters. According to my outline, this meant I was two-thirds of the way to a completed first draft.
Then I took a break to focus my attention on building BrightPlan. When Joey was born in June, my sleep-deprived attempts at any work beyond my everyday responsibilities forced me to put the book on hold longer.
In September 2017, I read my manuscript with the intention of getting in the zone to write the final third of the book. But after that initial read through, I felt chapters 5 through 9 were too complicated and needed a rewrite.
The outline I had for the book consisted of three parts: goal setting and building a system for financial success, investments, and big financial decisions that happen infrequently. Although the book isn’t segmented out into three parts, I’ve thought of them as such the entire time.
Chapters 5 through 9 covered investments, a topic I’ve always taken pride in being able to simplify. But while the first few chapters of the book struck the conversational tone I intended, the chapters on investing sounded more like someone that was trying to impress their finance industry peers.
My rewrite of Part II took an enormous amount of effort. Explaining the most important aspects of investment theory in an approachable manner took most of the fall of 2017 to complete.
By the winter, I set aside the book to dedicate my extra time to BrightPlan’s launch. I didn’t meet my original goal of writing a first draft by the end of 2017, but the progress was promising. A book was in my future.
Getting the Book Back on Track
I hadn’t told many people I was working on a book in case I wasn’t able to finish. The list of people aware of this project from the start included Ann, my parents, and Plancorp’s Board of Managers.
When the calendar turned to 2018, I’m not sure who of that group thought I was still working on the book. I had been churning out some of the best content of my life for my blog, which I figured most people would assume had overtaken the book and that my manuscript would never see the light of day.
At the beginning of 2018, I was surprised to learn that several publishers were interested in publishing a book I authored. As I sorted through my options, I decided to wait on writing the third section covering less-frequently-made but highly important financial decisions in case a publisher had input on my existing manuscript and remaining outline.
By May 2018, I signed a contract with Wiley & Sons and spent the summer finishing off my manuscript. Around July I began sending my manuscript to people for feedback, and I owe a great debt to the dozen or so people who read an early-stage version of the book.
As the feedback rolled in, I addressed errors and sought to improve areas of confusion.
The Final Leg (and Sprint) to Create a Finished Manuscript
By November 2018, I submitted my manuscript to Wiley for editing and production, which was easily the most stressful stage of the process.
Despite spending two years (off and on) on this project, something about this stage reminded me of the times I waited until the last minute to start a paper in college. I pulled my fair share of all-nighters to turn papers in on time. These efforts usually resulted in a B- or B, but it was always obvious that I could have done better by starting earlier.
For some reason, the editing and production stage left me with a similar feeling that I could do better with more time. I wanted at least a B+ and, preferably, an A-. Like most first-time authors, I lived in fear of the book not being good enough.
Compounding the stress of this stage was the challenge of editing such a long document.
Most articles I write range between 600 and 1,000 words. Occasionally I write longer stuff (like this one) that flirts with 2,000 words. When editing an article, I cut unnecessary words and sentences until I’m either happy enough hitting “publish” or I’ve run out of time and need to hit “publish.”
But the first draft of my book was 60,000 words. I found ways to improve the text every time I read the manuscript, but changes usually meant the publisher had to push back the release date. The most dramatic delay came when I cut nearly 7,000 words while reviewing the page proofs, pushing the publish date from February 2019 to April 2019 (oops).
The draft that will hit the bookshelves in a few weeks is about 50,000 words (150 pages). If I had more time to work on it, I’m sure it would become even more succinct.
As it turns out, I had influenza during the final opportunity I had to make changes. Had it not been for the illness, I might still be making edits.
Last week I saw the galleys, which are advanced reading copies a publisher sends out to the media prior to the official release date. It had taken me more than two years, with professional and personal obstacles littered throughout, but seeing the advanced copy with all my words and graphics was magical.
I did it. The book was real. It is real, and it will be hitting shelves in just a few short weeks.
How You Can Get Your Copy of Making Money Simple
Making Money Simple will be released April 2nd and you can pre-order a copy here. If you do read the book and have feedback to share, please consider leaving a review.
In coming weeks, I’m going to continue publishing articles here and elsewhere about Making Money Simple. For the Wall Street Journal, I’m writing an article that highlights the handful of personal finance books (not investment books) that shaped my own system for turning career success into financial success. I’m also planning an article for Forbes that uses quotes from the book to highlight some of the most important lessons within the book. Eventually, I will also share some lessons learned from writing a book.
If you haven’t already, sign up for my email list to follow along. Once the book is live, my emails will return to their normal focus of helping you with your money.
