Money Talks

As the 21^st century dawned the world was aglow over the Internet. The Internet was going to make the invention of things like TV, radio and personal computers pale in comparison. This technology, like the Industrial Revolution, marked a quantum leap in human productivity. It would forever connect businesses with suppliers and us with everyone else on the planet. We would throw away our TVs and telephones because the Internet was going to supply us with video and allow us to communicate globally at little or no cost. We wouldn’t need libraries, since the Internet would offer free access to all information known to humankind. We weren’t going to need books because we could read anything by anybody any time in any room of the house. We weren’t going to need stores because we could order everything from groceries to jet planes and have them delivered right to our door (or hangar, as the case may be).

What happened? As with many things in life, the promise outstripped the reality. Because of the hype, companies with little more than a stupid idea were able to raise billions of dollars, which certainly changed their world, but not anyone else’s. In many cases, these companies went out of business, leaving small investors holding the bag. (See the chapter called “A Tale of Two Pities” Result? What felt just a few years ago like a revolution in evolution now feels more like a pyramid scheme.

Hype aside, the truth is that the Internet is a revolution and does represent a quantum leap in productivity. Because in many ways, the Internet has lived up to the promise, especially as it applies to your becoming a 60-Minute Money Manager.

Managing your money in an hour a year means keeping your fingers on the pulse of your financial world. In other words, knowing where your money is, making sure you’re getting what you’re paying for, being able to quickly and accurately comparison shop and avoiding paying for services you don’t need. With a computer and the Internet, you’ll always know where your money is and where it’s going. You’ll be able to do your income taxes in a few minutes every year, and comparison shop for everything from a picture frame to life insurance in less than a minute. Thanks to technology, you’ll be fast, accurate, knowledgeable and in control in a way that was completely impossible just a few short years ago.

Two hundred years ago it took weeks to travel from New York to San Francisco, because the only way of getting there was either on a horse or a ship. Then trains came along, which made the trip much faster. Then planes, which ultimately condensed the trip to its current five or six hours. But while one describes these changes as if they happened in the blink of an eye, the truth is much different. People didn’t stop using horses the instant the first train rolled down the tracks. It took time for the new technology to gain a foothold. It took time for trains to become economically feasible, reliable and safe, and more time for people to become comfortable with them. Only then could less efficient technologies begin fading away. Same thing with air travel. And this is exactly where we are right now with computers and the Internet. Computerized financial management has now proved its worth and is officially accepted as a mode of getting you from A to B financially. Pencil and paper are wagon trains. So is ignorance, because the Internet is chock full of information. So is overpaying, because the Internet is such a great source of comparison shopping. It’s only been within the last 10 years that the trip from Chaos to Control shrank from weeks to minutes.

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