About PennyWatchers

Ben Franklin said, A penny saved is a penny earned”. Most people think this saying is a little silly because it's so obvious. But it isn't obvious. In order for clients to understand this saying, I re-phrase it as follows: “A penny saved is a million earned”. Once you develop a laser focus on pennies, then you'll understand what is being said. For example, most of us have been asked the question, “Would you want a million dollars or a penny which doubled in value for 30 days?” At first, most clients will say, “I'll take the million dollars”. But once you develop a laser focus on pennies, you'd realize that if you could wait 30 days, you'd actually receive $5,368,708.80! Do the math. Use a calculator.

PennyWatchers is a motivational program to help you develop new habits regarding your pennies. PW provides the organization and goal setting objectives which will dramatically assist and help you in achieving your dreams of home ownership, obtaining loans at reasonable rates, saving money and making money. PW can be described as a cyber-cooperative where individuals acting in unison can realize savings that one buying unit (a consumer) cannot achieve on his or her own.

In order to help clients with a higher degree of efficiency and convenience in the training and educational aspects of credit improvement, we have incorporated e-learning into our website.

PennyWatchers has been created along the guidelines of a cooperative which I call a cyber-cooperative of individuals acting in unison with others to realize savings that one buying unit (a consumer) can't possibly achieve on his or her own. For example, under our threaded message board is the category of Group Buying. For example, if homeowners wanted to act as a group and place their home heating fuel needs out to bid, I'm optimistic that they could achieve savings which are only available to large institutions or businesses. Obviously, we will need enough consumers in the co-operative to achieve this result. But I see this as a worthwhile challenge. Namely, the opportunity to work with others in achieving the financial goal of saving money. Also, we have a category of Saving Tips where clients can report on the latest discovery in saving money. For example, let's suppose you had to buy a money order. Many people don't realize that the U.S. Post Office charges $1.00 for that money order and at the service desk of Walmart's, they charge $.46. Someone, however, might know a bank or credit union which gives the money orders for free and nothing beats “free”. We have another category called, Coupon Swapping and PennyWatchers will be seeking to find through client recommendation, interesting and worthwhile web sites for which we could officially provide a link.

I wanted to help consumers in buying and selling products with the possibility that they could turn their junk into gold. Hence, we have a Local Auctions facility right on our website. There are many times when yard sales are rained out or you can't get to yard sales because of your work schedule.

As envisioned, PennyWatchers is a consumer university versus a creditor university. When you go to school all the finance courses are taught from the perspective of the creditor and not from the perspective of the debtor. Many people have said to me, “PennyWatchers is needed in the schools” and yes, I think it is. But the reason it is not presently offered is because all the courses are taught from the perspective of the creditor. If you get a degree in economics, accounting, finance, marketing, advertising, business administration, what do these degrees prepare you for? Obviously, a job with a creditor. How many consumers have consulted with an economist? If you go to the Yellow Pages and look under economist will you find one with whom you can consult? You'll find financial counselors or financial planners but they are usually trying to sell you something like stocks, insurance, etc. There is no real financial education from the consumers' perspective. Therefore, PennyWatchers is offering a new, radical and dynamic perspective on consumer finances.

The essence of consumer finances is found in the compound interest tables and tools of analysis but even most Certified Public Accountants have never even had a course or a chapter on compound interest. Under consumer mathematics, PennyWatchers blows the lid off of the mystery surrounding financial analysis by providing powerful and easy to use tools for financial analysis. And you don't have to worry that you can't do math. We have financial amortization tools on the site—that's just fancy words for a calculator, for people who either don't want to learn consumer mathematics or feel that it's too complicated. On television, the Chicago Economists shroud our economy in great mystery with arcane terms which no one has heard or understands—M1 or M2 money, etc. but PennyWatchers pulls back the curtain and you'll easily understand consumer finances with our user-friendly tools. I realize that you don't have time to take courses in consumer mathematics; therefore, I made certain that you'll have the necessary tools to instantly understand finances and cut through the BS.