MONEY TALKS

Ever go on a diet? The diets I see all remind me of infomercials: namely, they all promise immediate results with no effort. Some are flat-out stupid. "Take a pill and lose unwanted pounds while you sleep!" Others seem more reasonable. Take the Atkins diet, which I've actually tried.

You read the book, and good old Doc Atkins keeps repeating how you're going to be able to eat until you puke and still lose weight. And not just eat, either. You're going to be able to eat the stuff you love. Lobster, butter, steaks, eggs, cream, cheese, yada yada yada. Of course, there is one tiny catch. You can't eat bread, potatoes, fruit or anything with sugar in it. But who cares? As you're reading this book, you actually convince yourself that this is a diet that you can live with. In fact, it's going to be a riot! Who needs bread when I can eat steak every night? Who needs ice cream when I can eat a burger at midnight if I want? And the book is filled with quotes from people who have lost a million pounds while eating up a storm.

So you get all fired up to lose some serious weight while stuffing your face with fat. But then comes the time when the book ends and the actual diet begins. About two weeks later you're ready to murder a bird for the breadcrumb in its beak. You're so sick of burgers and eggs that passing a farm is enough to make you retch and passing a bakery makes your mouth water like Pavlov's dog. Bottom line? While it may work, it ain't as easy as it sounds, or more accurately, as the author promised. And what happens is you ultimately leave it behind. (But isn't that first breadstick the best you've ever had?)

What you're about to do is kind of like going on a diet, but I'm not going to be an infomercial and promise you gain without pain. What I will do is promise that we can minimize the pain. How? By maintaining your lifestyle and still finding extra money to erase your debts. When you go on a diet, you might substitute cottage cheese for meat. An alternative, but one that's hard to live with, much less enjoy. But when you go on a money diet, you can substitute a new $1,000 leather chair with a used $100 leather chair.

Here's another example. Stop reading this and go have a look in your medicine cabinet. If you happen to have some Excedrin (or any name brand pain reliever) on hand, you paid more than twice what the identical generic would have cost. This is something that gives me a real pain. I've actually interviewed people in Walgreen's as they were picking up some name-brand aspirin and asked them why they were paying twice as much when inches away sat the identical product in generic form. (Notice here that I'm using the word "identical." Generic buffered aspirin isn't close to Bayer, or nearly as good as Bayer. It's identical! Read the label and you'll see for yourself.)

The answers ranged from "This is what I've always bought" to "Well, if it costs more, it must be better." If there's a greater testament to advertising than those statements, I can't imagine what it is. Judging by our actions, we're apparently so concerned with Tylenol's bottom line that we're willing to literally donate several dollars to the cause every time we buy a pain reliever! Do you really think that your headache will go away faster with a name brand simply because the TV said so? If so, wake up and smell the (generic) coffee. Then start reading some labels.

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