It’s Saturday evening and I’ve got a date with my wife. It’s time to get ready and what happens next remains a mystery to most men. The artful expression of a female brush painting her face is only exceeded by the millions of color and stylish variations she orchestrates with her clothing.

Not to belittle the importance of accessorizing, but when she completes the process of adorning her mortal temple, the inevitable and greatly feared question flows from her lips like silk from a spindle: “How do I look?”

Ladies! Are you aware that one out of five men are technically colorblind and the majority of the remaining four couldn’t match colors and styles if the only way we could watch the World Series depended on it?

Therefore, I find it most interesting that women, after years of empirical evidence to the contrary, continue to baffle all reason and logic by asking such an important question to an unqualified entity who usually looks at you with eyes that rarely see clothing.

The idea of asking the ‘unqualified’ for help seems to be part of our national pastime. How have politicians made things better? How about financial planners or economists? How has throwing more money at anything the government touches produced better results?

In his acceptance speech as the first Nobel Prize winning economist, F.A. Hayek said:

“Economist are at this moment called upon to say to how extricate the free world from the serious threat of accelerating inflation, which, it must be admitted, has been brought about”…by economists. “As a profession we have made a mess of things.”

Ironic isn’t it. The very people who promulgated the mortgage meltdown, the huge national debt, and failed social programs by the hundreds are re-elected every year to solve the problems that they created.

Political job security is the art of screwing up the country so badly that you’re the only one who can articulate what happened. So you get re-elected and mess it up some more.

The author Joshua Cooper Ramo in his recently released book “The Age of the Unthinkable” said, “And if you insert ‘foreign policy experts’ or ‘financial gurus’ for ‘economists’ in Hayek’s remarks, well, you have a sad, disturbing summary of the state of our world at the moment.”

During talks with the Chinese premier Zhou Enlai, Henry Kissinger (Harvard Business Professor and National Security Advisor) commented that the university models of political theory are largely useless in reality.

Confidence in financial experts, economists, and politicians has proven empirically to be misplaced. So where do we turn for help?

Keep in mind I’m not playing the role of a troll. A troll is a critic that doesn’t create or solve. A couch potato who lives in an echo chamber, ignored by everyone except fellow critics.

I’m not qualified to mess up in the field of economics, politics, or financial planning, but I do have an opinion on how to improve your home life and your relationship with money.

Therefore, I offer my view of the financial solution to everyday Americans. To my knowledge, none of these areas are being taught or promoted by our experts.

1. Master your spending
2. Master your savings
3. Master your communication skills

Short, simple, and sweet. Empirically proven to work every time with no risk to your principle (moral and/or financial.)

1. Spend it
2. Save it
3. Invest it

The media overflows with investment advice and commentary. TV pundits, talk radio, and news specialist discuss almost exclusively the stock market, mutual funds, bonds, real estate, and to some extent hedge funds and other esoteric opportunities.

Our world of communication is filled to the brim with investment advice. So how is the primary focus on investing working? Are you feeling better about your finances today than you did 2 years ago? How about 10 years ago?

It’s doesn’t seem necessary to cite how much of a mess we are currently experiencing in our country. Bloomberg, Frontline, and Time have done special reports on the failure of the 401k concept and the exorbitant fees charges by management firms and mutual funds.

Overwhelming evidence proves the failure of the for-profit-mutual-fund industry says David F. Swenson in his book Unconventional Success.

None of this should be alarming or new. The data have been around for years, yet why do we as working folks continue to put our money at risk at the expense of basic financial principles each of us claim to know.

Let’s review the meaning of spend, save and invest.

Spend: Having a Spending Plan. Knowing where each dollar is going. The rule of thumb is to give each dollar a rule or the dollar will rule you. A Spending Plan puts the focus on cash flow.

Save:      Protected money. Zero to little risk. Checking, savings, cds, money market, life insurance, annuities (not variable), mattress (assuming your children don’t find it).

Invest:   Potential money. The potential exists for gain as well as loss. Stocks, bonds, real estate, mutual funds, variable anything, hedge funds, a member in your church who has a great tip, Las Vegas, lending it to a relative.

The Financial Planning industry has been around for decades. They specialize in investing. I recently read a short article found in Discover magazine that cited research conducted on the clients of Financial Planners.

The research found that when a Financial Planner tells a client what to do, the client’s capacity to make financial decisions becomes paralyzed. The difference between a Planner and a Coach is that a Planner tells the client what to do. A Financial Coach teaches the client not only how to make good decisions but how to accomplish what the client wants.

My take: Anytime thinking human beings abdicate responsibility for wealth and happiness to another, they get what they deserve. Very little to no effort is invested into the wealth and happiness today and therefore very little by way of return will result.

We cannot afford to continue down the path on the pursuit of prosperity focusing on the symptoms to our problems. Investing is not the solution. Putting together a sound Spending Plan and learning how to save your money will outperform investing and is the path to peace of mind and financial stability.

• To be honest with you
• I was skeptical at first but
• You can trust me

Perhaps I’m somewhat cynical, but here is what goes through my mind when I hear:

• To be honest with you                so why the tactical change?
• I was skeptical at first, but          I need your money.
• You can trust me                        sure sign that I shouldn’t

Just about anything coming from the government or from a major news outlet has me wondering what part of the story was omitted to prove the bias of the reporter.

Today’s news:

Today we are getting reports on how the $787B government stimulus package has either saved or created around 650,000 jobs.  Rather than watch the television and get the spin – you may wish to check out the website www.recovery.gov. The US map on site lets you see how your state is doing.

There is a difference between a job that has been saved and a job that has actually been created. Regardless, the cost per job appears quite high. So far the government has distributed about half of the $787B to the states.

The government is saying that the total of both saved and created jobs is 650,000 as a result of the stimulus plan. Stop! Consider the source and ask yourself how does the government create jobs? They only print money (inflation) and take away money (taxes.)

The government has spent about half the $787B or a total of $393B. So the average cost per job that the government has created or saved is:

$604,615

In South Carolina, they have spent $220 Million to save or create 146 jobs – that equals $1.5M dollars per saved or created job.

To layer this cake with golden frosting - the Associated Press is now reporting that that 650,000 jobs saved or created is very likely overstated because of faulty reporting. Now there’s a shocker!

No government in the history of the world has spent herself into prosperity and out of a recession.