Last month, I launched the 6-week I Will Teach You To Be Rich Boot Camp, which is currently happening on a private site.

I was tired of people reading and reading but not actually taking DOING the necessary steps to dominate their finances, so I put together a six-week Boot Camp to power through the logistics and help people start of 2010 with a fully automated system.

It doesn’t matter how many blogs or books or magazines you read — ultimately, results matter.

A few hundred people decided to invest in themselves to take action.

Let’s see what some of them have done in the first week alone.

She saved $75,000+ on her mortgage

“Refinanced my mortgage from a 5/1 interest only ARM at 6.375% to a 30 year fixed at 5.25%. This will cost me ~$100 more a month, but I am paying ~$120/mo on equity in my house instead of it ALL being interest to the bank. Assuming that my ARM interest rate would have stayed the same (almost certainly would rise with inflationary pressures I see coming) at 6.25%, refinancing to a fixed @ 5.25% will save me $75,106.47 over the life of the loan. This is a CONSERVATIVE estimate!

Thanks, Ramit, for the bootcamp. It made me take ACTION!”
–T. Munroe

Raised credit score

“With a single phone call, I raised my credit limit from $9,000 to $15,300 (even though I asked for $11,000).”
–E. Yee

Uncovered $200 in free gift cards

“I checked my rewards points on my credit card and found out I could redeem $200 dollars worth of gift cards, which could’ve gone without notice.”
–S. Shin

Saved $600/year on car payments

“OK, good one. I refinanced my car to both lower the interest and the monthly. Now I will own the car and have $53 less per month to pay. I can use this to ’snowball’ the payments on my credit cards. yes!”
–E. Friedman

Started paying off debt

“I have 3 credit cards with 5K spread across them. This week I have finally paid off one credit card (1K) off after having had a balance on it for 3 years. I was grinning with glee as I paid it off on Thursday!! 1 down two more to go. I plan to use the snowball effect to get the next one paid off in the next 6 weeks, making payments every two weeks. This will increase my credit utilization ratio and increase my Fico score. This will help me leaps in bounds as I have learned that my Fico score can save me thousands in interest rates as I prepare to take out student loans to go back to school!! Talk about big picture savings. Andy’s chart really struck home.”
–C. Dewey

This week’s material included:

• A live mini-talk from me on productivity & time-management tactics — with tactics I’ve never released
• A private webcast from ex-MyFico executive Andy Jolls of videocreditscore.com

The Boot Camp is closed, but if you want to get notified when the next one launches in 2010, click here.

To skip the entire explanation below: Get a preview and new bonuses I’ve never released on entrepreneurship, negotiation, and personal finance at http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/bootcamp

Last week, I asked I Will Teach You To Be Rich readers what you want to do before the end of 2009. Look at the #1 result:

Taking ACTION. Aww yeah…

• One of my readers, Paul, cut 30% off his 30-year mortgage, saving $5,000/year
• Another reader saved $1,455 with two phone calls
• And in a personal example, I took my friend’s advice exactly one year ago and implemented it in a month. Since then, it’s generated tens of thousands of dollars for me

The key is not just learning more, it’s IMPLEMENTING the tips you’ve read about.

So in 7 days, I’m launching the first official I Will Teach You To Be Rich Boot Camp to help people invest in themselves — to stop reading and start taking ACTION with their finances.

What’s an online bootcamp?

You’re reading this site, so you’re already dedicated to saving money by focusing on the Big Wins. But there’s more than just saving money — there’s picking the right accounts, earning more, optimizing your spending (including automation).

I’ve put together an online 6-week boot camp that will take you through my entire automation system, including picking the right accounts, creating a plan to pay off debt, opening and funding the right investment accounts, and automating your money.

You want to know how to turn your idea into a business? Have a specific question about your finances or want to get input on a marketing plan? Yep, we’ll cover that.

The bootcamp includes:

• Weekly live classes from me where I’ll kick your ass to take action implementing an advanced automation system, and answer your specific questions (new topics)
• Expert guest speakers on entrepreneurship, finding dream jobs, earning more, and advanced topics — every week (new)
• Curriculum with detailed action steps on saving, earning more, automation, and entrepreneurship — which will let you start 2010 off fresh (some new material)
• Private community with hundreds of other members who are going through the same thing as you (and are dedicated to taking ACTION)

I’m sick of people reading blogs and books and websites and doing nothing. The point is not reading, it’s automating your money, starting to invest, and using conscious spending to live a Rich Life!

Why a bootcamp?

Because there are 2 months left in 2009, and I want to show you how you can make life changes in just 6 weeks. I have tons and tons of examples of people who’ve taken action and gotten out of thousands of debt, started earning more, etc.

I’ve spent months developing the curriculum and building a system that will help you take action on your finances. After all, if you’re going to spend time learning about personal finance, you might as well go the extra step and apply it to your OWN life.

By the end of the bootcamp, I guarantee you’ll have saved money, automated your finances…and stopped worrying about your day-to-day finances.

What you should do

I’ve put together a pre-launch list with tons of bonuses, including a video on how I spilled coffee on my brand-new laptop (and still got over $1,000 reimbursed to me for my mistake), an extremely detailed video on how I helped my friend Susan negotiate $8,000 in a salary negotiation, and MANY other bonuses.

Everyone who signs up for the pre-launch list will get a discount to the bootcamp when it launches on November 3rd.

Sign up instantly for the pre-list here and get 7 days of unreleased bonuses (videos, case studies, and surprises):

http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/bootcamp

“1) If you have a short credit history (like me), get your parents/grandparents to add you as a authorized user on their oldest credit card (you inherit their credit history length)
2) If you have any blemishes in the past (like a single missed payment when you first got your credit card in high school) dispute it right before making a car/house transaction because while that blemish is investigated, it is not counted against you for 30 days (while they investigate it); if the investigation does not get back to you within 30 days, the blemish is gone permanently”

I wanted to check for sure, so I asked another friend, Andy Jolls at videocreditscore.com, who is a former MyFico exec. His reply:

“These are things we called score gaming at myFICO.

FICO ‘08 closed the loophole around authorized users to an extent. People were using his method number one to add users to anyone with a strong credit history to get the score boost. FICO ‘08 now checks the likelihood it’s an honest auth. user [parent/grand parent, etc. ] and will let the scores intertwine. Yes, it can happen pretty quickly.

http://www.videocreditscore.com/fico-08/

Number 2 is not true, company has to remove it in 30 days if it can’t verify it, but it does count against you while they investigate. Said another way, you send in your dispute on August 1, the company doesn’t need to update your score immediately when they get the dispute. They have 30 days to investigate and respond.

Also, it’s not gone permanently. this is what credit repair shops tout but that’s not right. Scenario: Aug 1, you mail the dispute, Sept 1, they remove the item because they haven’t heard back. Sept 16th, they get verification of the account, so they add it back in. Make sense? Sometimes, it is removed permanently because they never hear back.”

http://www.videocreditscore.com/build-credit-score/

Learn more: Read more about the hidden perks of credit cards.

What credit hacks do you know about?

I include a call script in Chapters 1 and 2 of my book to do this.

Aaron T. writes:

I was fortunate enough to come out of school with no student loans, but do have $4364.11 in credit card debt over 2 cards. One is $999.03 and the other is 3,365.08. I just started reading your book yesterday, today I called the card with the higher balance to lower my APR from 19.99%. I have had this card for almost 4 years. My Mom had been paying the minimum for a year or so, but since I became full time I took over any other bills my parents were paying. I have paid $200 the last 3 months and my minimum payment is around $89.

Anyways, I just called and asked, (I had to do no negotiating really, I just followed the script you have in your book) and I got my APR lowered from 19.99% to 14.24%, effective immediately.

Basically, the $13.95 my girlfriend paid for your book will more than pay for itself by the time I get my next bill.

See for yourself with full-chapter excerpts of my book.

Then get the book at Amazon or B&N.

For my new book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich (coming out in 6 days!!!!!), I asked my publisher once and they sent over ALL the PDFs. God I love them.

However, I don’t think they know what I was planning to do with them. I just kept whispering words like “wikis…Twitter…web 2.0.” They seemed to like that a lot.

So instead of trying to sell you guys on a bunch of promises, I’m figured you’d just want to see a few meaty chapters from the book.

No prob. Today, I’ll show you the FULL Chapter 1, “Optimize Your Credit Cards,” where you’ll see things like:

• Page 24: Call script to use if you miss a payment

• Page 34: People who waste time chasing bank interest rates
• Page 35: Section on student/CC debt

The chapter also includes strategies to beat credit cards by (1) picking the right card and (2) negotiating if they try to screw you, how-to tactics for paying off debt, and my most hated pet peeve of all: Why most people focus on minutiae like saving $3 on lattes, but forget *big wins* like optimizing their credit. (See page 17 for an example of how your credit will save you hundreds of thousands of dollars — more than any amount of lattes.)

I’ll let the work speak for itself. Chapter 1 starts on page 13 of the PDF attachment.

BOOK COUNTDOWN: I Will Teach You To Be Rich launches!! order from Amazon or Barnes and Noble and forward your receipt to iboughtthebook@iwillteachyoutoberich.com to get spreadsheets, bonuses, and a way to get your book signed.

I’m 30.

Just divorced. Not fun.

$30k in debt. Freaking me out.

I have an old 401k that I rolled over from a previous company into Sharebuilder. Value $8,500.

I’m very inclined to withdraw the cash with penalty and pay off a higher interest credit card (13%). I know that mentally and emotionally it will make me feel better to give a big “peace out” to a credit card that I cut up a while ago.

I’m torn and looking for advice. There’s no way I’m making 13% on the money within Sharebuilder.

My financial goals: pay off all debt as soon as possible, and live a simple, cash lifestyle with lots of savings / investment. Looking at all options: cutting back on $tupid crap, selling stuff, and maybe even freelancing to make more money (even though I make $80k+ at my full-time job). If you’re wondering, I have a Simple IRA that I contribute to every month with my current employer.

Any help is appreciated…

Before you answer…

• Remember, there’s often a difference between the best decision and the financially correct decision.

• You can also get huge advantages by pre-paying your debt.

What would you tell Jason? (And watch the comments to see how they differ from your own opinion…that’s the most interesting part.)

Just wanted to say thanks for inspiring me to get my $95 annual credit card fee waived tonight. I remembered reading one of your previous entries about asking your bank (or credit card company) nicely for these types of things. I just got an AMEX and I asked if they’d waive my fee the first year…I think for $95, the 1 minute I spent on hold was worth it.

Of course, most people shouldn’t even pay an annual fee on their credit card. But if you spend enough to justify it, you can often get it waived by using the same principles I use when negotiating my bank: See Part 1 and Part 2.

Leave me a comment and let me know how it goes for you.

Here are a couple pictures of me getting prepped from a while back:

And here’s the clip of me appearing earlier this week, on Tuesday: