At a dinner party recently, I sat next to a retired business owner and we got into a conversation about money and finances.

In response to one of his questions, I mentioned an important principle of finance, at which point he turned to me and said, “I’m a CPA and an MBA and I’ve never heard of that!”

Actually, it’s fairly common that I meet highly educated people who are unaware of some of the really critical basics of how money and finances work.

Funny thing is that I think many of our subscribers know these principles, even if they don’t have alphabet soup after their names.

Applying a little logic and common sense (which is admittedly in short supply in our society today) is usually all that’s needed.

And to prove my point, I’m holding a contest to see how many of our subscribers can answer the questions below correctly.

If you answer even one of these questions correctly and/or insightfully, you can win a prize.

I know that people deepen their understanding more when they participate and articulate their thoughts, so I decided to “ethically bribe” you to take a shot at it by holding a contest.

Here’s all you have to do to enter the contest…

Just type in your answer to any one or more of the five questions below, no later than Monday, November 14, at midnight.  If you want, you can comment on someone else’s answer to qualify to win.

After the contest ends, our team will pick the best entry (best because it’s correct, insightful, entertaining or a combination of those).  That person will win a $100 Amazon Gift Certificate.  And two runners-up will be chosen to receive their choice of a $25 Dining Gift Certificate, or a personally autographed copy of my best-selling book, Bank On Yourself: The Life-Changing Secret to Growing and Protecting Your Financial Future.

Three more winners will be chosen at random – all entries containing at least one correct answer will be entered into a random drawing for another $100 Amazon Gift Certificate and two prizes of your choice of a $25 Dining Gift Certificate or autographed book.  (Sorry – U.S. residents only.)

Although there are five questions, you don’t have to answer all of them to qualify.

So test your money IQ now by answering as many of these five questions as you want:

If you finance a $30,000 car through a finance company, your actual cost for the car is the money you spend on it, plus the interest you pay, less the value of your trade-in at the end of your loan repayment period.

Question:  If you pay cash for a car, what’s your actual cost for the car?

If you have a $20 stock and it goes up by 40%, how much money did you make on that stock?  (Hint:  This is about a key financial principle, not a math question.)

According to Morningstar, Inc., the top-performing mutual fund for the last decade (ending December 31, 2009) enjoyed an 18% annual return.

However, the typical investor in that fund wasn’t so fortunate.

Question:  What was the annual return of the typical investor in that top-performing fund?  And why was their return so different from the return reported by the fund?

What percentage of mutual funds, financial advisors and investment advisory services underperform the overall market?  And why?

You could have $10,000 in a mutual fund that reports an average annual return of 25% for four years… and at the end of the fourth year end up with only the $10,000 you started with.

How is that possible?

So there you have it – just answer one or more of these questions, or comment on someone else’s answer, no later than midnight, Monday, November 14, to get in the running to win one of the six prizes!

We’ll announce all the winners in a blog post later this month.

So scroll down to the comments box below and start typing!  (Note – all comments are moderated, so there will be some delay before your comment appears.)

Just how far would you go to avoid a full IRS audit or having to tell your loved ones that you’ve lost your home to foreclosure?

Faced with the choice of death or living out your senior years penniless, which would you select?

Already, more than 500 readers across the country have played our fun and very revealing online personal finance game: The Bank On Yourself Fear Factors Challenge.  It takes only a couple minutes to complete.

In the true spirit of Halloween, some of our questions might make you squirm.  We ask you to compare your money fears to other scares involving live snakes, pockets full of worms and even cow’s blood.

What’s so surprising are the responses we’re receiving!

Hint: So far, more than one out of every five game players say they’d rather walk naked down a fashion runway while being photographed than see their dumbest financial decisions published for everyone to view in their local newspaper.

How about you?  Naked or exposed?

There are ten total questions and each is both fun and thought-provoking.  We’ve extended the deadline for playing the Bank On Yourself Fear Factors Challenge until Monday night, October 31, at midnight.

But don’t put it off until the witching hour.  Do it now and ask your family and friends to record their choices as well.  That way you can compare and discuss your financial phobias.

Whatever else you’ll learn from this game, one message is abundantly clear:  Falling down financially is neither trick nor treat.  It’s a tragedy.

That’s why now is also a great time to learn more about the Bank On Yourself wealth-building method.

Bank On Yourself is based on an asset that has increased in value EVERY single year for more than 160 years. It’s never had a losing year… or even a single losing day.

So if you’re tired of relying on the “hope and pray” financial  planning method, and are ready to grow your wealth every year – safely, predictably AND guaranteed – get the nitty-gritty details here.

Were you surprised by your responses to any of these questions? Tell us in the comments box below…

The Dow is down 1,300  points (give or take) in just the last two weeks, plunging more than 500 points today alone

The risk has been increasing daily that we will fall into another recession (if we aren’t ALREADY there), making it likely that the volatility in the markets will only continue – and maybe get worse.

If you have money in the stock market and you haven’t read the article I wrote on “Why You Need Dow 27,000 Today,” I urge you to read it now.

Are you sick and tired of the “hope and pray” method of building wealth?

Do you want to have a nest egg that grows by a guaranteed and predictable amount EVERY single year?

The Advisor selected for you will be able to answer any questions you may still have and show you exactly how much money you can count on having in your plan at any point in time.

If you don’t like what you see, there’s no obligation at all and no one is going to twist your arm or try to hard sell you.

But at least you’ll know whether Bank On Yourself makes sense for your situation.

Wall Street already lost more than 45% of investors’ money – TWICE – just in the last decade

You may not vividly remember the sting of the last crash, but please don’t fool yourself into thinking it isn’t going to happen again.

More than $2 trillion of wealth has been wiped out in the past two weeks, but NO one lost a single penny in their Bank On Yourself plan. It’s an asset that has increased in value EVERY year for more than 160 years and remains the ultimate financial security blanket in both good times and bad.

So, request your free Analysis now.

It also hit #2 on the USA Today Money Best Seller list for the week ending March 28th.

If you don’t have a copy yet, you can get it today for only $9.95 – 38% off the retail price.

The hardcover edition was released a year ago and immediately hit the USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Business Week best seller lists.

Find out what all the buzz is about and learn more about this proven, time-tested way to grow a nest egg, so you can take back control of your money and finances today.

If so, you’re not alone – that’s the conventional thinking we’ve long been brainwashed to believe. But a shocking new study reveals just how fundamentally flawed this belief is…

For the last 40 years, ordinary long-term treasury bonds have outpaced investing in the stock market! This is according to a just-released study in the Journal of Indexes (May/June 2009 issue) by Robert Arnott.

So, what does that mean?

It means that for the past four decades, the only “rewards” investors have received for taking the extra risk of stocks and equity mutual funds are sleepless nights and broken dreams of retirement”

Other revelations in the study include…

* During the 20th century, there was a 77-year span with no price appreciation in U.S. stocks, after adjusting for inflation

* Out of the past 207 years, stocks have spent 173 years – more than 80% of the time – either faltering from old highs or clawing back to recover past losses

The author notes that 80-90% of the offerings provided to employees in 401(k)s – which hold the majority of Americans’ retirement savings – are based on equities.

As a result, he asks, “is it any surprise that 80-90 percent of most people’s assets are invested in stocks? And is it any surprise that they now feel angry and misled?”

Arnott concludes…

As investors become increasingly aware that the conventional wisdom of modern investing is largely myth and urban legend, there will be growing demand for new ideas and more choices.”

Well, such a choice already exists. It’s called “Bank On Yourself,” and more than 100,000 Americans already use it. Not a single one of them lost a penny in their plans when the stock and real estate markets collapsed, and in fact, their plans have all continued growing safely and predictably.

You can get all the details by requesting my free Special Report and/or get a copy of my best-selling book.

If Bank On Yourself is so good, why isn’t everyone already doing it?

Here’s why…

If you browse the personal finance section of any bookstore, turn on the TV or open a magazine on finance, you’ll discover that 99 out of 100 financial “gurus” will insist that whole life insurance is a lousy place to put your money. Most will recommend you buy term life insurance instead and invest the difference in mutual funds.

That’s in spite of the fact that, had you invested in an S&P 500 index fund for the past 12 years, your nest-egg wouldn’t have grown at all. And that doesn’t even factor in 35% inflation during this period!

Suze Orman & Dave Ramsey

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Part of the problem is these financial experts know nothing about the specially designed type of dividend-paying whole life policy used for the Bank On Yourself method…

It’s not really their fault. Out of 1,500 major life insurance companies only a handful offer a policy that has all the features required to maximize the power of this concept. That’s one reason it’s not even mentioned in most industry training programs.

And the fact that an advisor who helps a client implement a Bank On Yourself-designed policy takes a 50-70% cut in commission could be another reason why you haven’t heard of this before now.

So how is a Bank On Yourself-policy different from the kind of whole life policies Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, David Bach, and others talk about?

Here are three key differences:

Key Difference #1: These experts say the money you can have access to in the plan (your “cash value”) grows too slowly in a whole life policy, and say you typically won’t have any cash value at all in the first few years.

A Bank On Yourself-type policy, however, incorporates a special rider or option that turbo-charges the growth of your money in the policy so you have up to 40 times more cash value, especially in the early years of the policy. This allows you to use it as a financial management tool from Day One.

Don’t take our word for it – here’s a statement from a Bank On Yourself-designed dividend-paying whole life policy, at the end of just one year.

And here’s an article that reveals the rate of return of a properly designed Bank On Yourself type policy. It puts traditional investments to shame, and it does that without the risk or volatility of stocks, real estate, gold, commodities and other investments.

Each plan is different, so to find out how much cash value you’ll have each year – guaranteed – request your FREE Analysis here.

Key Difference #2: Most financial experts, including Suze and Dave, write about policies where your death benefit stays level for the life of the policy.

However, in a dividend-paying whole life policy, dividends can be left in the policy to purchase additional coverage, while at the same time growing your cash value in the most efficient way possible. This policy statement shows you how the death benefit keeps growing, and proves these policies are different from the ones Suze and Dave talk about.

Please note that this statement is from a policy I started before I learned about Bank On Yourself, and it has grown much more slowly than a policy designed to maximize the power of the Bank On Yourself concept.

Even so, this policy has left my mutual funds and real estate investments in the dust.

Key Difference #3: The financial experts often rant about how, when the policy owner dies, the insurance company “only” pays you the death benefit and keeps your cash value.

But with a Bank On Yourself policy it’s very different, as you can see on this policy statement. It shows you how, had I died on the date this statement was issued, my family would have received a check for more than the original death benefit AND the cash value in the policy combined!

So I am throwing out the gauntlet to Suze, Dave or any expert who wants to challenge me. Just name the time and place!”

I’m so confident that they’ll come around once they get the facts about Bank On Yourself, that I’ve reserved a special place for their endorsements along with the trusted experts who have already endorsed Bank On Yourself.

And remember, Bank On Yourself will beat anyone’s best financial strategy or we’ll pay you $100,000!

No two policies are alike, because each one is tailored to the clients unique situation. So your results will be different. To find out what your bottom-line numbers could be, and how much your financial picture could improve if you added Bank On Yourself to your financial plan, request a free Bank On Yourself Analysis. There’s no obligation.

Be a fly on the wall and watch as our hidden video camera captured Suze Orman and Dave Ramsey discussing Bank On Yourself!