Once I realized what I had done, I read everything I could find, including Rich Dad’s Advisors®: The Abc’s Of Getting Out Of Debt: Turn Bad Debt Into Good Debt And Bad Credit Into Good Credit and Perfect Credit: 7 Steps To A Great Credit Rating starting in the year 2000. Each book got me closer to living debt free and I was so good at it prior to our current financial crises that I was able to travel to 24 countries around the world.

Because Wall Street caused our current Mortgage and credit crisis, in part due to our lack of their deep financial machinations, many of us are having to climb out yet again. Even though it’s been depressing, earlier reading provided knowledge that it is in fact possible to climb out of almost any financial crevice. You can get out of debt and stay out of debt with almost any of these books, including The Everything Improve Your Credit Book. While you are climbing out . . . or before you fall into credit traps, think about ways to make additional income at least for the short term until America turns around . . . which is predicted to be another five years!

Secure your business’s future using the right SBA loan bank loan or equity financing for you. Whatever path you take, do NOT use your home as collateral; thousands of families assume their property value would continue to rise, took out small business loans against their home, and hit a brick wall. Their business proceeds are down and they cannot pay back the line of credit against their home.

Do what some of the wealthy did when younger: Own one house free and clear. Do not touch it. Do everything you can to protect your home.

When it comes to your chances of receiving financing and doing it right Financing Your Small Business provides you with all the answers you need. It helps you find ways to combine various types of financing and shows you how to get the money you need. This book shows you how to get a bank loan, presentations, writing business plans . . . another “don’t:” Never start a business without a solid business plan. Yes you may love mountain bikes or golfing gear, but have you run the numbers on income/outgo, market fluctuations based on seasons? This book also has working with professionals, how to value your business, how to find and evaluate investors From SBA loans to venture capital sources Financing Your Small Business shows you the ways to get the money you need.

Consider reading at least one tome about the Rise and Fall of the US Mortgage and Credit Markets: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Market Meltdown. Again, I believe that part of what millions of us are facing is the result of not having sufficient financial education; it is NOT taught in our schools; only five states teach financial literacy. With the current debacle, let’s all hope that changes.

An interesting proposition is put forth in The Debt-Free Millionaire: Winning Strategies to Creating Great Credit and Retiring Rich is a call for a generation that was brought up on spending tomorrow’s money today. This pragmatic and refreshingly contrarian approach to the real secrets of cash-flow management—and leveraging the credit system—are a breath of fresh air in a smog-choked world of misinformation and confusing financial advice. Start living the dream. Take charge of your financial future. The Debt-Free Millionaire offers unique insights, little known strategies and easy-to-understand practical tools to first manage then eliminate debt. It is amust read for both consumers and financial professionals to better explain the often complex world of debt management. The book is a straightforward guide to debt, and how to eliminate it, that is as timely as it is needed. Anyone who follows the program in this book will be glad they did. This is not a get-rich-quick scheme. We need a paradigm shift in our financial thinking processes; this is an excellent start.

However, silence will be interpreted as “everything is okay.” It isn’t.

Our recommendation: Blog! Here is a link to Wells Fargo/Wachovia Corporate Blog

Ignore their sales messages; of course, they are informing you that you are to “keep using your debit card and credit card just as you’re doing today . . . ” However, we recommend cutting up your credit cards. All of them! Right now! You CAN live debt-free.

A GREAT ADVANTAGE TO LIVING WITHOUT CREDIT: Since our family got rid of most of our credit cards some years ago and went to an all-cash-basis, we have gone around the world. (We do keep a card for travel and pay it off when we return.) We save for what we want. The only items we buy on time are cars (and even that is a questionable practice) and homes (and we do know people who have saved and purchased cash — not easy in California, but it is possible). The BEST way to get something you want is to save for it and buy it cash. Your savings alone on the interest will probably buy you that luxury item you really want.

Let them know how you feel about their sloppy business practices. Also let them know that you will steer everyone you can away from them. We have easily steered more than $3 million in business that would have gone to Wells Fargo by diverting people elsewhere. That is just through personal conversations and has nothing to do with what this blog is doing. You do have a voice. You can fight back.

In fairness, if your lender does something good, blog on that. There MUST be at least one person who has been treated well, musn’t there? Just one! That would be quite a story.

Other lenders have blogs: Bank of America started one recently, but it is greatly geared towards their future growth. Chase does not appear to have one . . . but there are more than a thousand blog sites expressing their ire at Chase.

If you have urls for other lender blogs, please feel free to include them here.