I Will Teach You to Be Rich: No Guilt. No Excuses. No B.S. Just a 6-Week Program That Works.

by Ramit Sethi

We need to set up accounts at solid banks, automate our day-to-day money management (including bills, savings, and, if applicable, debt payoff).

We need to know about a few things to invest in, and then we need to let our money grow for thirty years.

start early.

Yes, the best time to start investing was ten years ago. The second best time is today.

your credit report and your credit score.

Your credit score (often called your FICO score because it was created by the Fair Isaac Corporation) is a single, easy-to-read number between 300 and 850 that represents your credit risk to lenders. It’s like an SAT score for the credit industry (higher is better).

It’s ridiculously easy to check your credit score and credit report—and you should do it right now.

In short, pick two or three great cards, maximize rewards sensibly, and remember that these cards are just one part of your overall financial infrastructure.

If you’re booking travel or eating out, use a travel card to maximize rewards. For everything else, use a cash back card. The card I use for travel and eating out is the Chase Sapphire Reserve. For everything else, I use an Alliant cash back card. And for business, I use a Capital One cash back business card. For extra benefits, I have an Amex Platinum card. The result of this is thousands

you’re booking travel or eating out, use a travel card to maximize rewards. For everything else, use a cash back card. The card I use for travel and eating out is the Chase Sapphire Reserve. For everything else, I use an Alliant cash back card. And for business, I use a Capital One cash back business card. For extra benefits, I have an Amex Platinum card.

to get fees on your cards waived. This

Call them using the phone number on the back of the card and ask if you’re paying any fees, including annual fees or service charges. It should go a little something like this: You: Hi, I’d like to confirm that I’m not paying any fees on my credit card. Credit card rep: Well, it looks like you have an annual fee of $100. That’s actually one of our better rates. You: I’d rather pay no fees. Can you waive this year’s annual fee?

Call them a month before your new annual fee kicks in and ask them to waive it. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

call your credit card company and ask them to lower your APR. If they ask why, tell them you’ve been paying your bill in full on time for the last few months, and

your main cards for a long time, and keep them active—but also keep them simple.

the longer you hold an account, the more valuable it is for your credit score.

was a mistake. It won’t happen again, so I’d like to have the fee removed. (Note: Always end your sentence with strength. Don’t say, “Can you remove this?” Say, “I’d like to have this removed.”) At this point, you have a better-than-50-percent chance of getting the fee credited to your account. But just in case you get an especially tough rep, try this.

increase your total available credit.

Here’s how: Call up your card company and ask for a credit increase.

Automatic warranty doubling: Most cards extend the warranty on your purchases. So if you buy an iPhone

and it breaks after Apple’s warranty expires, your credit card will still cover it up to an additional year. This is true for nearly every credit card for nearly every purchase, automatically.

Car rental insurance:

credit card will usually back you up to $50,000.

Trip-cancellation insurance:

Your key takeaway: Call your credit card company and ask them to send you a full list of all their rewards. Then use them!

Whenever you make a call regarding a dispute on your bill, you wouldn’t believe how powerful it is to refer back to the last time you called—citing the rep’s name, the date of the conversation, and your call notes.

you’re applying for a major loan—for a car, home, or education—don’t close any accounts within six months of filing the loan application.

What happens in disputes like this is the credit card company fights the merchant for you. This works with all credit cards. Keep this in mind for future purchases that go wrong.

The key to using credit cards effectively is to pay off your credit card in full every month.

Set up your credit card (two hours). If you already have one, call and make sure it’s a no-fee card. If you want to get a new credit card, check out bankrate.com to find the best one for you. 3 Make sure you’re handling your credit

Schwab rolled out a phenomenal high-interest checking account years ago that offered unrivaled benefits for free.

Vanguard has consistently demonstrated a long-term focus on low costs and putting their clients first. They actually lower fees proactively. I trust them and invest with them.

Start now so that when you do have a lot of money, you’ll know what to do with it.

you shouldn’t be paying fees or minimums.

Open up a Roth IRA (see The Beauty of Roth IRAs) and contribute as much money as possible to it. (As long as your income is $120,000 or less, you’re allowed to contribute up to $5,500 in 2018.

In a Roth IRA, you pay taxes on the amounts you contribute, but not the earnings.

Most people don’t know this, but you can withdraw your principal (the amount you actually invested from your pocket) penalty-free. There

With both Roths and 401(k)s, you can also access your money, penalty-free, in certain cases of real need (like to pay medical expenses, prevent foreclosure, cover tuition, pay funeral expenses, and so on—the IRS covers this under “Hardship Distributions”).

target date funds automatically pick a blend of investments for you based on your approximate age. They start you off with aggressive investments in your twenties and then shift investments to become more conservative as you get older. You do no work except continuing to send money into your target date fund.

One thing to note is that you’ll need between $100 and $1,000 as a minimum to buy into a fund. If you don’t have it, make it a savings goal. Once you save the minimum needed to invest, you can open your fund and set up an automatic transfer each month. I cannot recommend target funds enough. They’re easy, low cost, and they simply work.

Depending on what company your employer uses to administer your 401(k), your fund options may be a little pricey in terms of expense ratios (I consider anything over 0.75 percent expensive), but on balance, you’re getting huge tax advantages and employer-match benefits. So it’s worth it to invest in these funds, even if they aren’t perfect.

When you send money to your Roth IRA account, it just sits there. You’ll need to invest the money to start making good returns. The easiest investment is a target date fund. You can just buy it, set up automatic monthly contributions, and forget about it.

Let’s assume you’re looking for a target date fund through Vanguard, which I recommend (though there are many other solid companies that offer target date funds).

Some companies require you to invest a minimum amount—usually $1,000 to $3,000—but that fee can often be waived if you agree to automatic investing, which you should. Finally, you can choose any target date fund, depending on your age and risk tolerance. So

you could accumulate even more using the power of compounding by adding more every month. As a rule of thumb, you should assume 8 percent returns.

other words, by investing over time, you don’t try to time the market.

To set up automatic investing, configure your accounts to automatically pull a set amount of money from your checking account each month.