I’m hoping by now you have read my article on the secret formula for creating wealth. If you haven’t read it, please go and read it now. If you have read it but find my argument too simplistic, here is a story that, I’m very confident, will convince you of the potency of my formula.

Trent Hamm is the author of personal finance website called The Simple Dollar. Trent recently released a free ebook in which he tells his story about how he emerged from a complete financial meltdown in 2006, to a state of financial peace today. And guess what, it’s the simple secret at work here!

Below is an excerpt from Trent’s free ebook, Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance On Just One Page.

I was born in raised in downstate rural Illinois. Growing up, my family didnʼt have a lot of money, but they did have a lot of love. They taught me the value of living frugally, but it wasnʼt always coupled with great financial lessons. In short, I had little idea how to manage my own money, and when I left home for college, I made a long sequence of financial mistakes.

Flash forward to April 2006. I had a good job, was married, and had an infant son, but I still hadnʼt learned the value of managing my money. To put it simply, I had a financial meltdown, capped off by a long night of soul searching while facing a pile of bills that I simply couldnʼt afford to pay.

That experience woke me up. I dove into personal finance books, reading them by the hundreds. I started throwing the book at our terrible financial state, trying every tactic that I read about. And it worked. Over the course of two years, we paid off two car loans, five figuresʼ worth of credit card debt, five figuresʼ worth of student loan debt, and several personal loans. This turnaround laid the foundation for many things we had only dreamed about to that point – we bought a home, had another child, built a strong emergency fund, and, eventually, I was able to change careers and become a writer, taking a pay drop but living out a dream Iʼd had since I was a child.

How did he do it? It’s the magic formula at work: he spent less than he earned, sought ways to earn more, and did something really smart with the difference.

While some of the specifics are “American” and may not be relevant to those of us here in Ghana, the central issues discussed in Trent Hamm’s free personal finance ebook are applicable to anyone no matter where you live. Download your own free copy of Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance On Just One Page now (5MB PDF file).

PLEASE NOTE: This is a large PDF file, about 5MB in size. For the best result, use an external download manager to download the file. If you don’t have one (or don’t know what I’m talking about), right-click on the image below (command-click for Mac users) and select the option to download / save the linked file.