Jason Kelly

I was delighted to receive this from Anthoney Grigsby:

Since I began gaining a stronger hold of my finances two years ago, I have made significant changes in my life that will only positively benefit me in the long run.

Your book The Neatest Little Guide To Stock Market Investing was the very first personal finance/investing book I purchased. I gained a lot of useful information from your teachings and since wanted to spread my own message and strategies through blogs and other means. I began my first blog, but I realized that I'm not yet ready to speak about only investments, so I created a blog where I can continuously talk about various personal finance topics as well as investments.

This brought about HelpMyCashGrow.com. Now instead of just blog posts, I create video & audio podcasts, provide downloadables, and now I am running my first contest. Since it was you and your book that gave me my first starting point, I wanted to let you know that my very first contest prize is your book.

Anthoney's story is inspiring. He decided a couple of years ago to re-shape his financial situation. He was deeply in debt with no clear goals of what he wanted or when he wanted it.

He mapped out a path from the bleak field of debt to a life of prosperity where he decides his own future, instead of reacting to the next crisis. What's interesting about Anthoney is that he's doing all of this publicly. His website shows him to be still in the process of attaining wealth.

I like that, because that's where most people are. Too often in this business, we read what Donald Trump is doing to expand his real estate empire, or how Jamie Dimon is steering JPMorgan through the credit minefield to emerge even wealthier than before. Meanwhile, most people can barely keep the lights on in their homes, and that's in the world's richest country. Pick up a copy of National Geographic to see what real struggles look like in, for example, Darfur.

As a voice of regular folks who budget their income against expenses because there will be no Federal Reserve bailout of their "writedowns" and irresponsibility, Anthoney is tough to beat. He shows on his site that he has:

An investment portfolio worth $11,117 (Goal: $20,000)
Assets worth $18,306 (Goal: $30,000)
An emergency fund worth $768 (Goal: $2,000)
Collection accounts totaling $2,317
Student loans totaling $10,064

On April 7, he released his March 2008 financial report in which his family "significantly increased our assets and significantly decreased our liabilities" and achieved a positive net worth. It was a notable accomplishment, with assets growing 31% and liabilities shrinking 13%. The Grigsby family's net worth at the end of March was $5,925 -- roughly what Bear Stearns is currently worth -- and the Grigsbys did it without help from Ben Bernanke and Jamie Dimon.

I applaud Anthoney's efforts and his willingness to share his financial journey with others. He wrote to inform me of his web site's first contest, where he will be awarding a copy of my stock book to the winner. I will sign it to the lucky person who best answers Anthoney's question:

"Since money has no intrinsic value, why did we develop a system that evolves around money? Was our government worried we would run out of gold as a resource? How important is the control our government has over the money supply?"

Anthoney will select a winner based on the thoughtfulness of their response, and announce that person's name on May 14. To learn more about the contest, see Anthoney's post.

Posted by Jason Kelly at 9:40 AM Japan time
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