What is the single most critical aspect of a good financial relationship? Personal trust. Further, this is true for all financial relationships, whether these relationships be between you and your accountant, you and your spouse, you and your bank, etc.

What builds personal trust? One thing. Knowing where the money goes. Unfortunately, knowing where the money goes, all to often, involves something most people hate to do. It involves filling out forms.

Do most people hate filling out forms? Absolutely. In fact, we've even met accountants who hate filling out forms. Or at least they hate having to get other people to fill out forms.

Enter Bernie. Bernie is an average "Joe." Or rather, he's an average "Bernie." He has a wife. He has two kids. He pays a mortgage. And he worries about money.

Most of all, though, Bernie struggles with all the forms in his life. Which means, he also struggles with knowing where his money goes.

Sound like anyone you know? Would you like to know a better way?

The Bernie Book is the result of three years of research and development. Our goal? To find an enjoyable way for people to build better financial relationships, beginning with knowing where their money goes.

Have we succeeded? We think so.

As for what you'll find inside, we've basically organized the book into a number of sections, each one part of a person’s financial life. Unlike other financial instruments though, along with our requests for your numbers, we tell stories, we use humor, and we do not ask you to do any math. None at all.

What do we hope? We hope you'll come to love Bernie and his family as much as we do. And get a few laughs in the process. Most of all, though, we hope you will come to enjoy this book as much as we have enjoyed creating it, and that by using it, you, too, can learn to love managing your financial life.