What Keeps You Poor – 40 Years of Kitchen Table Wisdom

The Book: What Keeps You Poor

The secret to accumulating wealth has always been, and will always be, this: Save more money than you spend.

That's it. No magic formula. No exclusive hack. No guru secrets.

So why isn't everyone wealthy? Because the entire system is designed to make saving hard and spending feel like the answer. This book shows you the traps, the mechanics, and the specific behaviors that keep people stuck—then gives you a clear path out.

Look Inside: Chapter 1 — The Comfort Myth

Comfort feels good, doesn't it? Familiar. Predictable. Safe. There's a certain ease to routine, a soothing quality to the status quo. You pay your bills, you get by, you might even have a little extra for some treats now and then. "I'm doing fine." "I pay my bills." "At least I'm not behind." These are the mantras of financial comfort.

And if you're not careful, comfort is precisely where your financial future dies.

This isn't about advocating for extreme austerity or constant struggle. It's about recognizing that comfort without progress is a dangerous trap. It's a slow, silent killer of dreams. You might not be behind, but are you truly ahead? Are you building anything for tomorrow, or just maintaining today?

Here's the stark reality: If you're not actively, intentionally, and consistently paying yourself first – meaning, making sure your future self gets paid before anyone else does – then you are, by definition, staying poor.

Pay Yourself First: The Golden Rule You Break Every Day

Before you pay your landlord, before you pay Netflix, before you pay the gas station, before you pay Amazon, before you pay the restaurant – you absolutely must pay YOU.

This isn't some abstract concept. It's a non-negotiable directive. Every dollar you earn, a portion of it needs to be immediately and automatically redirected into an account dedicated to your financial future...

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Pre-Publication Assessment

AI Editorial Review

🤖

Gemini (Google)

★★★★½ (4.5/5) • S-Tier

"The Uncomfortable Manual for the 'Comfortably' Broke"

"This is not a 'fun' book. It eats its vegetables. It focuses on the unsexy reality of compound interest and delayed gratification..."

"The Share Secured Loan chapter is the book's 'secret weapon'—it moves beyond generic advice into financial engineering for the average person."

The Bottom Line: "If you want to understand the mechanical failure points silently bleeding your wealth away, this is the manual you need."

AI editorial assessment of manuscript quality, not a customer review.

The Program

Complete Course + Book Bundle

A 15-lesson video course built directly from What Keeps You Poor, combining the book's structure with practical implementation steps.

15 step-by-step video lessons
Full digital book included
Worksheets and action checklists
90-day email support
Lifetime access to all materials

$299.99

Course + Book Bundle

30-day money-back guarantee. If the first three lessons don't help, full refund.

Common Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this course for beginners or advanced learners?

Both. It starts with fundamentals but goes deeper than most basic finance courses. If you're making decent money but can't figure out why you're not progressing, this program meets you where you are.

How is this different from other personal finance courses?

Most courses focus on budgeting or motivation. This focuses on structural traps: the specific financial behaviors and systems that keep people stuck. It's built on 40 years of real conversations with real people, refined from A.L. Williams foundations, with innovations (like Share Secured Loan strategy) you won't find elsewhere.

What if I'm already in debt? Will this help?

Yes. The course addresses debt directly—not just how to pay it off, but how to stop creating it in the first place. Debt is a symptom. This treats the underlying causes.

Is there a money-back guarantee?

Yes. 30-day full refund, no questions asked. Complete the first three lessons and if this isn't for you, just send an email. This only works if it actually helps.

Can I gift this to someone?

Yes. At checkout, there's an option to purchase as a gift. Many people buy this for family members who are struggling financially but might not invest in themselves.

About AU Notes

AU Notes started at A.L. Williams sitting across kitchen tables in the 1980s with a copy of Common Sense: A Simple Plan for Financial Independence and a mission: help families understand money the way wealthy people already do.

When A.L. Williams became Primerica and, in the author's view, lost its way by prioritizing recruitment over education, the mission continued independently. For 40 years. Across thousands of kitchen tables. Watching the financial system evolve into increasingly sophisticated traps.

What Keeps You Poor represents that three-decade refinement: of his mission to help families (buy term and invest the difference, pay yourself first, kill bad debt) plus innovations developed through real field work:

Share Secured Loan strategy (credit building + forced savings simultaneously)
Psychological liberation approach (addressing "money is bad" beliefs)
Modern trap diagnosis (lifestyle creep, FOMO spending, algorithmic manipulation)

This isn't theory. It's field-tested wisdom from someone who chose the mission over the money when the company changed direction.

Ready to Begin?

Start with the full course and book bundle. Structured lessons, practical tools, and support as you apply the material. 30-day money-back guarantee.

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Includes: 15 video lessons • Digital book • Worksheets • 90-day email support • Lifetime access

Save more than you spend. That's it.