Scrooge Strategy

1. Answer surveys 2. Be in my book 3. Get famous

13 comments — written on October 12th, 2007

At least one of the three points in the title of this point is a lie.

Anyway, below are some new surveys below for a chance to share your story in my upcoming book, published in 2008. If your story is selected, you’ll be fully credited in the book, which will make your mom and dad so happy. IT’S THE CHANCE OF A LIFETIME!!!!!

Please leave your contact info. There were some awesome stories submitted last week by people who didn’t realize that I need contact info to include their stories. This is rather like mailing in a $10m winning lottery ticket and chicken-scratching “SEND ME THE MONEY!!!” on the back…without a return address. If you don’t submit contact info, I won’t include you!

Tip: Start at the bottom and work your way up for the best chance of inclusion. Most people will click on the top ones = so your probability of inclusion is better on the more-ignored questions.

Questions about saving and spending
If you make less money than your friend but save more.

Self-fulfilling prophecy: staying poor

If you’ve ever done something with the goal of seeming sexy instead of rich.

People who spend more than they make and don’t know it

Do you feel guilty about how much you spend?

People who don’t believe saving is the way to get rich

People who don’t plan until it’s too late — they realized, too late, that they needed to save money

Reminder: Start at the bottom and work your way up for the best chance of inclusion. Most people will click on the top ones = so your probability of inclusion is better on the more-ignored questions.

Questions about credit cards
What were the barriers to using your credit card effectively?

Best experience using credit cards.

Used credit-card offer for college students?

Your worst experience using credit cards

If you missed a credit card payment

Trouble with a big purchase because of credit

START AT THE BOTTOM!! KILL ME PLEASE IF YOU DON’T!!!!

13 comments

Leave your own

  1. 1
    October 12, 2007

    www.topcreditcardsadvice.info » 1. Answer surveys 2. Be in my book 3. Get famous

    [...] jeffkuo wrote a fantastic post today on “1. Answer surveys 2. Be in my book 3. Get famous”Here’s ONLY a quick extractQuestions about credit cards What were the barriers to using your credit card effectively? Best experience using credit cards. Used credit-card offer for college students? Your worst experience using credit cards … [...]

  2. 2
    October 12, 2007

    David B

    I’ve been in the real world for a year or so now. Gotten screwed a couple of times in multiple ways. Got two speeding tickets (both undeserving!)

    Well, anyway, this goes back an article of yours about just giving a call to try and get things fixed.

    At Dave and Busters in Chicago, I was charged some 50$ for games somehow (in addition to the actual 14$ I DID pay for…my friend and I split for 7$ of games each). I called probably 4-5x trying to rectify it but they never did. I lost 50$ there :( I tried, though. Perhaps I should try to have the bank attack them?

    Then, I tried to fight speeding ticket #1, and failed. DANG. Speeding ticket #2 was so low that it wasn’t worth the gas to drive over to the courthouse and fight. BUT, then they tried to charge me additional 36$ saying I didn’t pay on time, blah blah blah. I called them up and laid the smack down (ie, faxed proof that they were soooo wrrrooongg). So, now I don’t owe them that 36$ they were trying to screw me out of :P Success!

    So. Yeah. 1/3 so far :P That 36$ pays for a full tank of gas though! Wish I got the 56$ back from Dave and Busters. they lost me as a customer because of that.

  3. 3
    October 12, 2007

    Sra

    If everyone starts at the bottom, won’t that defeat the purpose?

  4. 4
    October 12, 2007

    Ramit Sethi

    You would think so…but the top ones are STILL getting the most responses.

  5. 5
    October 14, 2007

    Kibrika

    I honestly read all the questions, and I answered the one where I could find an answer. Not my fault it is situated at the top.

  6. 6
    October 15, 2007

    Sunil

    Ever thought of just reorganizing the post and rotating some of the credit card questions to the top? then you can see if placement is the issue or if people just have more to say about personal finance organization and saving than they do about credit card debt. i know i do, and i bet a lot of your readers are the same.

  7. 7
    October 20, 2007

    Creative Investor

    Sunil: I don’t think Ramit is concerned with which questions get the most answers, I think he is curious whether anyone will actually follow his hint and what the actual responses will be. :)

    Ramit: By the way, just wanted to comment on your blog, might as well do it here. I have to say that I was skeptical at first, mostly because of the title of your blog, “I Will Teach You To Be Rich”. It just sounded like you’d be promoting all these get-rich schemes and scams, etc. But after familiarizing myself with your content, I now understand that your approach is the exact opposite and in many ways parallels my own thoughts on personal finance and investing. I just finished reading your article about MLMs, which further solidified my respect for you.

    I don’t have any good stories for you, but good luck with the book!

  8. 8
    October 24, 2007

    Grace

    To David B:

    LOL! … nice

  9. 9
    October 24, 2007

    Ryan

    Well… I filled out one towards the top…. but thats the only one that applied to me!

  10. 10
    October 26, 2007

    vh

    Makes me itch that the thing bounces you to the Survey Monkey site when you submit your answer to one of the questions. Are we going to get spam and nuisance phone calls from those people? Or from purchasers of their lists?

  11. 11
    November 16, 2007

    evie

    I would love to see a survey about the actions your blog readers actually took because of reading your site, and the benefits they experienced because of that action. The actions could be finance-related, or how they overcame barriers, or asked for perks at work – anything they did that was inspired by your blog.

  12. 12
    November 16, 2007

    Ramit Sethi

    I did that survey once before. Here’s the full survey and here are the actual changes people made after reading my site.

  13. 13
    November 16, 2007

    evie

    awesome.

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