The best minds in personal finance gathered at a conference in New Orleans.  The best and brightest literally lined up to bestow their wisdom via rich tips.

The LMM team headed south to The Big Easy for FinCon, a conference that brought together hundreds of well known players in the world of personal finance blogging and podcasting.  Matt and Andrew capture some rich tips for the LMM audience.

Chris Ducker from from The New Business Podcast stopped by to add a touch of British class to the proceedings.  Grant Baldwin from the How Did You Get Into That? podcast tells us how to qualify for airline status if you’re a hard core travel geek.

We compiled some great rich tips from the conference attendees.

-Eat in expensive restaurants for lunch, not dinner.  Same food, cheaper price.

-Buy generic drugs.  The FDA mandates that the active ingredients are the same as the brand name for a much lower cost.

-Start investing NOW, with any amount of money, just start somewhere.

-Pay yourself first.  Set up an auto deduction from your checking account into an investment account.  That way you won’t even miss the money.

-Do not spend your promotions, invest them.  Avoid lifestyle inflation.

-The tens times test.  If you are buying something that is a want and not a need, you must have ten times the cost in cash to pay for it.  If you don’t have that amount, you can’t buy it.

-Automate everything to do with money, bill paying, investing, saving.  It saves you from the screw ups all humans make.

-Separate the utility meals from the special meals.  Splurging for dinner Friday night is ok, splurging for lunch every day is not.

-The difference between the rich and the poor is that rich people buy value increasing assets and poor people buy value decreasing assets.  The difference between buying a rental property and a shiny new car for example.

-Go on a cruise when there is going to be a stock market crash.  There is nothing you can do about it when you’re in the middle of the ocean.  Um, ok.

-Buy a 7-10 year old car.  Saves money on insurance and depreciation.

Thanks to everyone who contributed.  See you next year!

Show Notes

Hopitoulas IPA:  A local Nola beer named after Tchoupitoulas St in New Orleans.

Betterment:  Where you can start investing NOW!

Make Sure It’s Deductible: Killer book recommended by our friend Tom Drake from Canadian Finance Blog.