Combat Finance

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Combat finance : how military values and discipline will help you achieve financial freedom / Kurt Neddenriep.

ISBN 978-1-118-81750-6 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-81753-7 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-81752-0 (ebk)

To my beautiful wife, Katie, who has walked beside me through two commands, a deployment, and Combat Finance—I love you, sweet girl.

To the men and women of 1st squadron, 221st cavalry, both past and present. Thank you for your dedication, service, professionalism, and support. It has truly been my honor to serve with you.

To SPC Brandon K. Steffey and his military working dog Maci, both KIA October 25, 2009, Laghman province, Afghanistan, and to all of our fallen servicemen and -women. May we live lives that are worthy of your sacrifice.

Combat Finance is a financial self-help book that takes the fog of the everyday financial battle and breaks it down into an easily understandable process that you can use to reach personal financial freedom. I think you’ll find it to be an uplifting read that uses basic military analogies to help explain financial concepts in a way that you can immediately apply to your personal situation, regardless of whether you are 18 or 81. The purpose of this book is to both educate and entertain and, therefore, it is not a financial dissertation, nor is it a white paper on military doctrine and tactics. It is not a book of war stories about staring down the enemy and it’s not just for those with military service. It is a book that will make sense even if the closest you have ever come to the military is making cookies with a Cub Scout den mother.

I wrote Combat Finance to help instill the values, principles, and discipline that it takes to succeed financially, so don’t expect any gimmicks or get rich quick schemes. But don’t get me wrong—getting your finances under control doesn’t have to be like getting a root canal, either. You’ll see that following the fundamentals and maintaining self-discipline is easy when you have a plan and a process. That is what I’m going to teach you in Combat Finance, and I think you’re even going to have some fun along the way. Who knows, you might even learn to appreciate what you have more and worry about what you don’t have less, all the while knowing that you have a plan in place to become wildly successful over time. After all, who wants to just get by? As a Combat Finance reader I want you to set high expectations for you and your family and then surpass those expectations. But to get there you need a plan, a process, and the discipline to see it through, so let’s get going.

I am deeply grateful for the support, advice, and love of my family and friends, especially my wife Katie, who supports me in all my endeavors, both brilliant and not so. To my father, Doug, who taught me to never quit and my mother, Jean, who loved me no matter what. To Lizanne and Kristie for being the best big sisters a guy could ask for. Thanks to you two, I never had to face anything by myself growing up unless I chose to go it alone.

John Mack, without whom this book would not have been published. Thank you for your years of support for our firm’s military reservists. The men and women of the Wildhorse Squadron will never forget that you, and James Gorman flew all the way to Indianapolis to see us off on our deployment and never sought a word of recognition. Thank you both for making our firm a great place to work.

Eric Lupfer of William Morris Endeavor, I knew that the son of a retired armor officer would get results, and you did. Your advice and counsel have been a tremendous resource, and I cannot thank you enough.

My wealth advisory team, José Negrete, Deborah Marcom, Joel McConnell, and Ryan Gilbrech, as well as David Lawrence, David Fritz, Curt Petersen, Nick Gormley, and Melissa Gutknecht. Thank you all for your support. I could not have done this without your efforts.

David Darst and Congressman Mark Amodei for your advanced praise for Combat Finance. Thank you for your trust and confidence.

The men and women of the Wildhorse, 1-221 Armored Reconnaissance Squadron, both past and present. Your dedication, discipline, and professionalism will live with me for the rest of my life. It was an honor to serve with you and to command such a fine group of men and women.

Major General Frank Gonzales, Major General Giles Vanderhoof, Brigadier General Bob Fitch, Brigadier General William Burks, Colonel Jerry Bussel, Colonel Dennis George, Colonel John Morrow, Colonel Steve Spitze, Colonel Lou Cabrera, LTC Scott Cunningham, and all of the past commanders of the Nevada National Guard and the 1-221 ARS, thank you for your leadership and support. I could not have asked for a finer group of mentors.

Command Sergeant Major (CSM) Paul Kinsey for taking me under your wing as my squad leader when I enlisted as well as serving with distinction as my CSM during my last year of command. Who would have thought those two young grunts would be the command team some day? Thank you for teaching me how to take care of soldiers and their families.

Command Sergeant Major (CSM) James Richardson for your outstanding service as the first CSM of my command and for all of your support and friendship in Afghanistan. I could not have made it through without you. I would have fewer Bruce Springsteen and Celine Dion songs stuck in my head, but it would have been harder to bear the tough days.

Chaplain Hal Woomer for getting me through some of the darkest days of our deployment and Chaplains William Ohler and Aaron Oliver for their dedication to our cavalry troopers when we returned.

Master Chief Warrant Officer 5 David Anderson, Lieutenant Colonel Mike Glynn, Major Randy Lau, Major Blain Holmes, Major Doug Seymour, Captain Scott Adair, Captain Nick Soapes, Captain Nick Moran, Captain John Minnich, Captain Michael Schiemer, Captain Patrick Arizmendi, Captain Joseph Claros, Captain Andrew Coughlan, Captain Thomas Hopper, Captain Paul Adcox, Captain Phil Gingrich, and Captain Gerry Morris. Thank you all for your service and friendship over the years.

Brigadier General John Sherman Crow and the entire Blackhorse Association for all of your support during our deployment. I hope we made you proud.

Drill Sergeants Johnson and Dalton, thank you for convincing me that there’s nothing to it but to do it and whenever possible not to be a soup sandwich.

Finally, to all those with whom I have served over the last 23 years. You were the foundation of all that went into Combat Finance. I owe you more than I can ever repay. I loved serving with you in the military; especially being in a combat arms unit affiliated with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR). No matter what the task or how good we were at that moment, we all wanted to be better, and we worked hard to improve ourselves. We all wanted to be the best troopers we could be, to be in the best tank crew and fire top gun on Table VIII or win the next battle against Blue Force in the central corridor at the National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin, California. Regardless of the situation, our mantra was that we are only as good as our next fight. We also understood that one of the best ways to get better at anything is to learn from our mistakes, but that it was even better to learn from someone else’s mistakes. There is no need to walk into an ambush in the Brown and Debnam pass if you have seen others make that mistake before. It seems we all make enough mistakes on our own, so why add to the count with ones we can avoid by being observant? These were powerful life lessons that I feel so fortunate to have been exposed to. We were also fortunate enough to be in a regiment that rewarded drive and initiative. We were always praised more for showing initiative with a bold or daring effort than we were for playing it safe, so long as we did not violate moral, ethical, or known safety guidelines in doing so.

Without the spirit of initiative and constant self-improvement that the Wildhorse Squadron and the Blackhorse Regiment instilled in me, I would not have had the experience necessary to write Combat Finance.

Every day in this country, someone will stop and salute a complete stranger headed home from Afghanistan. Someone will thank a passerby who just finished basic training. Someone will shake a service member’s hand on the way to a new assignment. There is a level of honor and respect for people who have served, a respect reinforced by military values, discipline, and self-sacrificing morals. I have had the chance to serve with people who live these values and whom I greatly admire. A few years ago, I was deployed to Afghanistan with the Nevada Army National Guard with a group of disciplined young men and women who, through years of work, were ready to serve their country. It got me thinking: If the military can establish a shared set of leadership and service values and apply them to a process that consistently leads to success, why can’t we develop a set of leadership and service values in a process to help individuals and families to consistently achieve financial success? So I embarked on the journey of Combat Finance to tell the stories of those who serve our country and how their values, discipline, and morals can teach us financial lessons in our personal lives by using military principles and tactics as a foundation to understand finances in mainstream America.

My motivation to write this book came from Captain Doug Seymour, a witty guy I have worked with in the guard for more than a decade. At the time we served together in Afghanistan I was the executive officer, and Seymour was the intelligence officer. We’d be waiting to give the daily brief to our commander, and we’d always have some time to kill, so everyone would ask me financial questions. One day Seymour said, “Sir, you need to write a book and call it Combat Finance.” He was onto something. The anecdotes or methods I’d use to describe finances to these guys would be in military terms. If someone was asking about this mutual fund or that stock, I would talk about how they needed to look at it the same way we conduct a combined arms operation in the military: with infantry, armor, and artillery supported by close air and logistics all working together.

I learned all these things through experience. I originally enlisted when I was 19 as a way to help pay for college. I later received my commission as an armor officer in 1994 before I spent time as a platoon leader and troop commander. I eventually became the squadron commander of the very same unit in which I enlisted back in 1990. I started out my career as a financial advisor in 1996, and by 2001 things were really firing on all cylinders. Of the 247 advisors in my training session in New York City, I was ranked first in the firm nationwide at the five-year mark. In 2001 I had just finished a successful command of Alpha Troop, 221st Cavalry and was preparing to step away from the Nevada Army National Guard to focus on my career as a wealth advisor, and then September 11 happened. It just didn’t feel right that my men could go to war without me if I resigned my commission, so my wife and I decided that I would do a full 20 years of service and risk possible mobilization. Since my unit was an Armored Reconnaissance Squadron, working as a round-out to the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment “Blackhorse,” I was sure we would be mobilized right away. But our call did not come until July 2009 when we served a nine-month dual mission as the Battle Space Owners of Laghman Province and provided security force platoons to the 13 United States Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan. At the same time, my financial career had taken me far, and I was now a senior vice president and Presidents Club member, managing over $200 million in assets for my clients. I worked very hard to build my business, but I’ve never been so busy as I was as the executive officer of the 221st Cavalry in Afghanistan.

Dieterz-Cunningham-Seymour-Lau

I told you Captain Seymour was a big guy. From left to right, Captain Dieters, Lieutenant Colonel Cunningham, Captain Seymour, Major Lau.

During my time in Afghanistan, I learned a lot about how quickly things can change, which greatly influenced my financial views. It was a tough year for our soldiers, with over 60 Purple Hearts and 23 improvised explosive device attacks on members of our unit. On one particular mission during the latter part of our deployment, Staff Sergeant Shane Baldwin was on a mission in a particularly dangerous area called the Alishing Valley. Utilizing an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), we spotted people digging in an improvised explosive device (IED) ahead of Baldwin’s convoy, so we were radioing to let him know what was ahead. Unfortunately, Baldwin and his group did not get the full message in time and they sped up to try to catch these people. They went right into it, and the IED exploded under the vehicle. The crew was banged up, but Baldwin took the brunt of the blow. He ended up having his left leg amputated from just below the knee. When we got back to the states and I took command of the unit, the Command Sergeant Major and I went to see Staff Sergeant Baldwin at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Little did I know, he had started to work out with cadets at West Point, and he was already beating most of them on the physical fitness test. Baldwin did eventually get strong enough to get back on active duty. For me, Shane Baldwin is a great reminder that although there is adversity in everyone’s lives, it’s your attitude and determination that allow you to overcome difficult things and accomplish greatness.

Some people are paralyzed by the idea of starting their journey to financial freedom. Maybe the problem seems really big, and they don’t know how to attack it. But how do you ruck march 50 miles? One step at a time. So you’ve got to create a plan and then break finances down into small steps to get there. Patton was famous for saying that a 90-percent plan aggressively executed today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. Combat Finance is designed to take you step by step through the process of managing your finances, one chapter at a time. So don’t sit there and worry, take action at the end of each chapter so that you can be promoted and move on. I’ve even created a glossary of terms at the end of the text to help guide you through these steps. Refer to it as you go, or if you’re feeling lost or confused about a concept. You can also go to CombatFinance.com to ask a question or find a wingman to help you through. Just know that at the end of the day you’re going to be better for having taken that 90-percent action than you are waiting for years to come up with a perfect plan that is never going to materialize. The minute you come up with the perfect plan, the markets and life and everything else will have morphed and evolved, and it won’t be the perfect plan anymore. So throughout Combat Finance I’m going to push you to create a good plan and then aggressively pursue it today. Not tomorrow or next week, but today.

You can’t accomplish this mission without knowing why you fight. A lot of people might think fight is a bad word. But fighting has brought us a lot of wonderful things. We’ve fought for freedom and equality. We’ve fought against tyranny. We’ve made great changes through the good fight. So what are you willing to fight for? Is it your baby daughter who needs to have a bright future and a college education? Is it so that you never have to see your spouse crying over the bills again? Is it to have the retirement you always dreamed about? Figure out why you fight. Hang on to that. Write it down and post it where you will see it every day to remind you not to ease up in this financial fight. Let it drive you through this journey.

There are two sayings my drill sergeant pounded into my brain during basic training. His first saying was negative, designed to make you feel like a total idiot if you did something wrong. The drill sergeant would look you up and down and ask things like, “Are you going to stand like that? You look like a soup sandwich!” Everyone looked puzzled the first time he said it, but he quickly clarified, “There’s a ham sandwich . . . there’s a peanut butter and jelly sandwich . . . but there’s no soup sandwich. If you pour soup between two slices of bread all you get is a handful of mush! You look like a soup sandwich!” Any time he wanted to say something was messed up, it was soup sandwich. I’ll use the same phrase here to describe financial situations that are not up to Combat Finance standards. Drill Sergeant was a confident, quick-talking man from Chicago, and if he said you looked like soup sandwich, well, you probably did, and you were going to be doing some pushups or cockroaches, or both. I can’t make you do pushups in this book, but I can remind you of a drill sergeant who was determined to make me a better soldier when I tell you that something regarding your finances is soup sandwich.

His other saying was far more positive: “There’s nothing to it but to do it.” There really isn’t. After you have this knowledge ingrained in your daily financial life, there’s nothing left but to simply apply the principles. Many people are so hesitant to take a financial chance that they won’t make any decision at all. If you make a decision and things go south a few days later, you need to continue to stick to the fundamentals because they work, and the bumps in the road are just part of the process, just as it is in the military where you have to put people outside the wire if you want to win the war. Sure, you can stay inside the wire all day so no one gets hurt and you feel better, but that’s a false sense of security. In finance, bad things are also going to happen along your way to financial success. It doesn’t mean that the process was wrong or the decision was wrong, it’s just the fog of war and the randomness of life. But if you will commit to taking action and learning the process and discipline that it takes to win your financial freedom, you will succeed.

We will start with basic training, where you will learn the fundamentals of personal finance, which includes things like getting out of debt, living within your means, and establishing a budget. Just like military basic training, these are mission-critical skills that you must learn in order to succeed. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, what school you went to, or who your mom or dad are. If you want to enlist in the military, you have to go through basic training to ensure that those basic skills become a part of who you are. Often, people will have developed some very bad financial habits, but those bad habits are not obvious for a variety of different reasons. Perhaps your parents have stepped in from time to time with financial gifts or assistance to bail you out. Or you have received unexpected bonuses that helped pay off a ballooning credit card balance. These kinds of things can mask an underlying problem, which is a lack of financial self-sufficiency. Basic training will help you put the spotlight on where you stand financially so that you can begin the journey to financial freedom knowing exactly where you currently stand, with the fundamental skills in place to take you where you want to go.

After you have mastered basic training, we’ll move on to the purpose and importance of reserves. You will learn why, just as in any military operation, you must always have financial reserves and never deploy them carelessly. Next, we’ll talk about how to buy a house that you can truly defend and still win the battle to reach your other financial goals. Then we begin advanced individual training. You may not love it now, but when we’re finished, I think you’ll “love training” just as much as the Sergeant Major and me. I certainly hope so, because ongoing training is essential to reaching your full lifetime financial potential. However, as important as training is, we cannot forget to think defensively as well. So we’ll talk about why you need to defend the home front even while you are out there conducting offensive operations.

Next, in Chapter 6, we transition away from the skills, tasks, and discipline you and your family need to master and begin to build your external team. You’ll learn about the value of advice and how to select quality advisors in all areas of your life so that you can continue to master your chosen profession while confidently managing your finances. Like any good manager, you’ll need to know how to set priorities and allocate resources, so we’ll talk about how to take your financial goals and dreams and turn them into actionable, achievable, and measurable objectives so that everyone on your team can work efficiently to accomplish your mission. Finally, we’ll talk about asset allocation and diversification in a way that will leave you understanding it better than you ever have before, and perhaps even embracing it for the first time.

So now that you know where we are heading, that’s enough talk. Let’s move out smartly and win this fight. I hope you’ll join me on a journey through Combat Finance, starting with financial basic training.

Christmas 2009

Top Row, Command Sergeant Major Richardson, Lieutenant Colonel Cunningham, Major Neddenriep, Major Lau, Captain Adair. Bottom Row, Major Glynn, Captain Morris, Captain Moore, Captain Minnich

Chapter 1

Basic Training

On the day we arrived for basic training at Fort Benning in rural Georgia, the drill sergeant told us that we would soon learn to maintain our military bearing. We had no idea what that meant at the time, but he told us that we would fully understand the concept by the time we graduated basic training, and that it was the foundation of being a professional soldier. If we didn’t understand military bearing by the time we graduated basic training, he said he would have failed us as a drill sergeant. It was his duty to make sure that we would not only understand military bearing, but that we would be proud to possess it.

He was right. I am so proud to now understand that military bearing is a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine’s ability to conduct him- or herself on duty and to know that it encompasses his or her level of professionalism when dealing with others and his or her approach to military situations. It has two key components: self-discipline and discipline of others. I see self-discipline as maintaining self-control and being accountable for one’s own actions. It’s the mark of marines with good military bearing to do their duty even when no one else is watching. Arguing with superiors, ignoring military standards, and permitting rule breaking are not consistent with military bearing. I understand discipline of others as calmly instructing to help rectify mistakes. Airmen with military bearing don’t yell at subordinates in anger; instead they identify the deficiency and direct corrective action in a professional manner.

Financial bearing is very similar to military bearing in that it encompasses the same level of discipline when dealing with financial decisions and with how you conduct your approach to managing your money. Like military bearing, financial bearing also has two components. The first, self-discipline, is basically the same. We’ve all been there: sitting in a shop, debating about whether to buy that new TV, those new shoes, or that brand-new leather couch. Maybe you know you can’t afford it, but you justify it because you think you deserve it. That’s soup sandwich. The only way to avoid making choices that put your own immediate desires over your long-term well-being is to refer to your financial bearing. You don’t need or deserve these things if your bank account says otherwise.

The second component of financial bearing is slightly different from military bearing. Instead of the discipline of others, the second component of financial bearing is the emancipation from others. What that means is that you have the composure and confidence to do what is right for you financially, regardless of the influence of others. I know that we all like to think that we are strong and above the influence of others, but if we are honest with ourselves, that is not entirely true. We all make financial decisions at least in part to conform to social norms. These social norms influence the car we think we need to have, the size and neighborhood of the house we buy, and even the clothes we wear. The influence of others is a powerful force that can be both good and bad, so the mark of a person with good financial bearing is to do what is right financially even when someone else is watching.

Figure 1.1 shows a boy we saw out on patrol in the Laghman Province of Afghanistan. You can see he’s gotv some kind of cardboard slipper strapped to his feet. The corn that he’s carrying probably weighs about as much as he does, and it’s thrown over his shoulder with a strap. The point is that we can survive at this level of existence if we have to. Sure, it’s not what we want for ourselves and our kids, but at the same time, even without the new TV, those new shoes, or that leather couch you’re still better off economically than 99 percent of the world. So be content with the present while you work to improve the future.

Figure 1.1 Boy with Corn

Financial bearing is so important, because in my experience most financial wounds are self-inflicted, or what we might call friendly fire. In other words, our day-to-day choices regarding how we spend our time and money are the determining factor in our financial success or failure. One of the things that most often holds people back from becoming wealthy is that they want to act wealthy while they’re young. They want to drive a really nice car that they see their older sibling or parents driving. They want to have that house that took their parents or grandparents 20 years to work into. They take extravagant vacations and have to have the latest fashions. If people are disciplined and stick to the fundamentals of investing, eventually they are going to be able to do those things, but not in the beginning. The military is the same way. Someone might see the way General George Patton acted, and want that kind of success right from the start. Once you become a general officer, you can stand back and look around and focus on the big picture issues and have someone take care of the more mundane things and drive your Humvee for you. But can you imagine going into basic training and trying to act that way? How far would you get? You’d probably get kicked out in the first week. At a minimum you’d be mocked by your drill sergeant. You certainly wouldn’t get promoted. So the point is that you have to be a good private or a good lieutenant or cadet before you can be a general. You’ve got to work your way up and build knowledge and experience. It’s the same concept with finances. You’ve got to start small by demonstrating the financial bearing necessary to live within your means and then use the excess income you generate to invest regularly and build your wealth over time. Sure, there are examples of folks who win the lottery or come up with a brilliant business startup, but for most of us, it’s about having the knowledge and discipline to manage our finances in a systematic way. As you proceed through this chapter and complete the key tasks, you’ll understand financial bearing, and you’ll be proud to possess it. You’ll be proud that you owe money to no one, and proud that all you own is yours, earned and paid for.

The Fundamentals of Basic Training

Basic training is designed to take recruits and make them into soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. Since no one is born into service, we have to be taught by drill sergeants and mentors through a rigorous, continuous process. For example, army basic training lasts nine full weeks and is divided into three phases of three weeks each. Upon arriving, soldiers get a haircut and are issued uniforms and gear. Soldiers do long road marches, obstacle courses, and hand-to-hand combat, as well as learn the basics of land navigation using maps and a compass. They learn about marksmanship and weapons, and continue with even longer road marches while laden with gear. Eventually trainees begin to gain confidence. They complete more advanced training in weapons, marksmanship, land navigation, rappelling, night infiltration, and other more accelerated skills that will lead to their tests and qualifications for graduation.

Basic training was difficult. They break everyone down to the point that you want to give up. The drill sergeant stood right next to us on the rare occasions when we were allowed to call home. All our mail was opened by the drill sergeant, and if there was anything from a girl we’d get mocked and do pushups. If a mom sent cookies, they’d be thrown in the trash in front of us. You become so run down that all you want is just a little sleep. You’ll do anything the drill sergeant orders you to do just to relieve your situation a little. For the first few weeks, everything we did was soup sandwich: the way we put our clothes away, the way we made our beds, the way we ate. The process is there to teach you that you cannot survive on your own and that when you fail to meet the standards or pay attention to detail, you put everyone at risk. You will succeed and fail based on whether the whole platoon succeeds or fails. Over time we realized that if your battle buddy fell behind on a run, you’d better help him. If someone in your squad was behind on a ruck march (a long march with a heavy pack), you dropped back and took his pack so that he could catch up. Then you moved on to help another squad to catch up to the rest, and so on. More importantly, you learned to do the right thing and meet the standards even when no one else was watching, because you knew that failing to do the right thing could cost a life in combat. Everyone started to think that way. If any one person failed, we all failed. If someone failed to meet the standard, we no longer needed the Drill Sergeant to say something because we would correct each other and make sure things were done right. I remember getting my first compliment about four weeks in, and I started to feel like I could do anything by the time I left. You may find yourself experiencing the same process during Combat Finance basic training. So don’t quit or give up when things get tough. Finish the process, and you’ll graduate feeling that you can do anything, too.

Three Phases of Basic Training

In all the branches of the military, leaders use basic training to establish values, discipline, and skills for a shared culture. You’ll need similar shared financial values to be deeply instilled in you during Combat Finance basic training so that they sustain you during difficult times of temptation or hardship. One of the first things you learn at basic training is your general orders. Every soldier is required to memorize them word for word, a process that is expedited by motivational pushups, the thinking-man position, dying cockroaches, and low crawls. Every soldier in the platoon learned these orders, or we all paid the price. Because I enlisted as an 11 Bravo, which is the Army Infantry, I’m going to use the Army General Orders and army terms throughout this book. The concepts, however, are universal in all branches of the military and apply to your personal financial battle, regardless of your branch of service, or if you’re a civilian.

1. I will guard everything within the limits of my post and quit my post only when properly relieved.

2. I will obey my special orders and perform all my duties in a military manner.

3. I will report violations of my special orders, emergencies, and anything not covered in my instructions to the commander of the relief.

1. I will work diligently to be the best that I can be in my chosen profession and constantly strive for improvement.

2. I will proudly accept the responsibilities that I have to my family, my community, and my country, and I will perform all my duties in a professional manner.

3. I will maintain my financial bearing by living within my means and purchasing only what I have earned, while consistently investing a portion of my income to improve my future.

Both the Army General Orders and the Combat Finance General Orders are critically important, despite how simple they appear on the surface. The first general order says that you are in charge of everything within the limits of your post and you’re going to stay in charge until relieved. No passing the buck, no blaming someone else, no gray area. You are in charge of completing your mission, and when it comes to your personal finances, the first place to start is by making the most out of your chosen profession. I’m going to show you that you can become financially independent whether you make $20,000 a year or $200,000, but I think we’d both agree that you would rather make $200,000. So start by always bringing your “A” Game to your chosen profession, and constantly strive for improvement.

As I see it, the second general order is about personal responsibility. Be proud of who you are and where you are financially; own it. If you are not currently proud about where you are, that’s okay; let’s make some changes, but you still need to own it. Your duties to your family aren’t a burden; they’re a blessing. Your community and country are what you make it, so get involved and make a difference. That’s what it means to proudly accept your responsibilities.

Finally, the last general order says that no matter what happens out there, you know to report it to the commander of the relief. You see, there is no way the army or any branch of the military could cover all the crazy things that might go wrong in one sentence, so they basically said, “If anything else happens, call the commander of the relief.” When it comes to managing your finances over a lifetime, there are also going to be a lot of crazy things happening that we cannot cover in one book, much less one sentence. However, if I can give you one sentence that will help you get through 99 percent of the issues you will face financially, this would be it: I will maintain my financial bearing by living within my means and purchasing only what I have earned, while consistently investing a portion of my income to improve my future. That is why it is your third Combat Finance general order.

I want you to write these general orders down and then memorize them over time. Refer to them when you are faced with financial decisions in your life, and apply them as you complete each of the key tasks in the book. We’re about to enter basic training, and your general orders will help you make it through.

No one can force you to go through basic training—military or financial. You have to volunteer. Who would volunteer to go unless you knew it would give you a brighter future? Volunteer and commit now to Combat Finance basic training, and I know you can achieve financial victory. Boot camp is where you, a civilian recruit, are transformed into a professional service member to prepare you for eventual deployment into the combat zone. Combat Finance basic training will also prepare you to begin your march into financial battle. Basic training will be divided into three phases: (1) live within your means, (2) pay off debt, and (3) nothing to it but to do it.

Chapter 1

Basic Training

The Fundamentals of Basic Training

Three Phases of Basic Training

Phase 1: Live within Your Means