Money for Life - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Steven B. Smith is chairman, president and chief executive officer of In2M Corporation. He has strong strategic and tactical business skills and combines them with a passion to develop products and services that make a positive difference in people's lives. Over the years, Mr. Smith has been actively involved in assisting and educating others in the area of personal and small business financial management and he was a significant contributor to the creation and development of Mvelopes Personal; an online budgeting system for use in our modern cashless society.

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RYAN LOOKED AT the clock on his desk. Five P.M. It was Friday, the twenty-first of December, and for the shortest day of the year, it had been a long one. He had just finished a lengthy meeting with his boss, Mike Johnson, vice president of marketing for Medical One Systems, a company that develops custom software for the medical industry. Ryan¹s projects had been delivered on time and under budget. As a result, senior management had approved a 2,000 yearend bonus and, best of all, an 8 percent raise for the coming year. Ryan¹s salary would now top $78,000 a year. It was good news. But he wondered if it would be enough. Was any amount enough to pay the bills?

Suddenly the phone rang, startling Ryan. It was his wife, Christine.³Honey, I¹m doing some Christmas shopping in the mall, and I am standing here in the checkout line. I just tried to use our Visa card, and it was declined. I¹m sure I can¹t use the American Express card because we haven¹t made the payment yet. What would you like me to do?² Annoyed, Ryan snapped, ³Christine, why are you shopping today? You know I just made the Visa payment yesterday, and it takes a few days to process. If you feel that strongly about spending money today, then just write a blasted check, and we¹ll hope it doesn¹t bounce!² There was silence on the other end of the line, then it went dead. He started punching in her cell phone number to call her back, then changed his mind. She knew he had just mailed the bills yesterday! Why was she spending money today? He loved Christine, and yet the strain between them had grown more significant with every passing month. It seemed that no matter how much money he made or how hard he worked, he could not get ahead. How could he successfully manage million-dollar projects at work and yet never get ahead at home? ³Hey Ryan, what¹s got you down?² Mike, on his way out for the weekend, stuck his head in the door. ³I should think you¹d be elated.² ³Oh, I¹m fine,² Ryan said. ³Just thinking about all the things I need to get done this weekend.² ³Well, sitting there is not going to help. Why don¹t you get out of here and get your weekend started? Go home and tell Christine your good news.² Ryan smiled. ³Sure. See you Monday.² He sighed. Funny how at this point the raise didn¹t seem all that exciting. The money would not go nearly far enough to stave off the continual barrage of financial stress. Ryan headed for his car. Why couldn¹t he and Christine get out of debt? They were both intelligent and had college degrees. Managing money just couldn¹t be that difficult. But somehow they seemed to get further and further behind.