I was surprised when Ambot
announced that the sack of shit Platinum wanted to see our budget.
“That’s really none of his fucking business,” I responded. “Its not like he
works for a bank and we’re going for a loan.”
“But if we’re serious business builders then he says we have to show him a
budget,” Ambot argued. Yep that was total Amway speak and for the life of me I
couldn’t figure out why the hell the Platinum wanted to see our budget other
than Ambot’s loose explanation that the Platinum wanted to help us create a
budget that we could follow and help us get financially on track. Let’s see -
is he a financial planner? I was pretty sure he has a government job that’s not
finance related? But then I forget that not minding their own business is a
prerequisite for being a sack of shit Amway Platinum.
I had created a budget sometime during the past couple of years after reading a
book written by a financial advisor and one of the exercises was to create a
budget. Then I started reading books by another financial advisor who didn’t
recommend creating budgets because over 90% of people don’t follow them anyway
which is totally true in our case. The budget I had saved on the computer was
good enough for me without updating any changes and I printed it out for Ambot.
The Platinum was impressed and said we were in much better shape than most of
his downline. Well no shit there’s a reason for that particularly because other
than mortgage and business costs we had no debt. We owned our cars and had
investments and savings. This is just part of life experience. People in their
20’s who are starting out still have to save up a down payment to buy their
first house and they probably took out a loan to buy a car. And probably have
credit card debt.
So the fucker wants to see our budget to guide us financially on track when
we’re in better financial shape than him?
In hindsight I know the Platinum wanted to see our budget to see how much
wiggle room we had to buy Amway products and invest in tools when he saw the
difference between our income and expenses. The real reason he was impressed
was that we had no debt on our credit cards with about 100K available. That’s a
lot of Amway products we can charge not to mention we had nothing holding us
back from attending out of state functions. “Just charge it!” We have equity in
our house so again the Platinum must have seen $$$ signs that we could get a
line of credit against that equity if we needed. Oh and he must have loved
decent 401k available that we could cash in to donate to the Amway cult.
While coming up with this post I looked at the revised budget I did after the
Platinum meeting so he must have given me some Amway stuff to add in. Under PV
there is $300 budgeted each month. (If you read previous posts you’ll know that
Ambot purchased closer to $1000 each month for PV. What did I say about not
following a budget????) This is under household where I have things like
groceries, utilities, etc. Under (Amway) “business” expenses are 3 items (HA!):
web page $50 (that would have actually been the WWDB Premier membership),
Communikate $34, and samples $60, totalling $144/month in business expenses.
Plus $300 personal shopping for PV = $444. That’s approximately what I said in
the SaveFirst, Spend Later blog on a lowball monthly Amway
investment. Add in functions and budget $700/month minimum. A little more than
what the sack of shit had us put on the budget.
The budget was never referred to ever again. Kind of like the name list. Just
produce one to show the Platinum that you have one and no need to bring it up
again.
But did the Platinum give us any concrete advice on how much money to put into
the Amway budget. During the first few months when he was “fired up” Ambot
threw away close to $2000/month on various things having to do with Amway -
buying products, buying tools, entertaining fucking assholes in the Amway
upline, etc. After he hit the limit on that credit card the spending was
reduced to around $500/month.
So much for the budget. If I was actually keeping one I’d have to add in a new
column for paying back credit card debt thanks to Amway.
Anna, there's one thing you have to explain.
ReplyDeleteFrom the above post it's clear that you and Ambot were responsible earners, with a sound financial plan and budget, and no debt. You were doing well.
Please tell me -- why the hell did you sign up in Amway, for Chrissakes? What need was there for you to be part of this rotten MLM racket?
Was it your husband's idea only, and not yours? And if it was, why didn't you just tell him that the whole thing was stupid and insane?
Hi Anonymous. I've gone over this in the past on the. And the script that was followed on Ambot is no different than how anyone gets sucked into any cult whether it's Amway or a different cult. The fucking asshole that sponsored Ambot took him to meet his Platinum cult leader. One thing that Platinums and all cult leaders have in common is that they are charismatic. And enthusiastic. And experts at love bombing. This is how they suck in prospects. This sneaking around went behind my back for awhile and then Ambot wanted to introduce me to the cult leader. And I got the fake nicey nice act. But I was determined not to get sucked into Amway. I said the "business plan" might look good on paper but what's the actual chances of pulling it off. You know - you find 6 people and they find 6 people and they find 6 people and so on and everyone eats one Amway food bar and one Amway drink daily and everyone becomes gazillionaires.
DeleteAmbot signed up anywhere and I was not happy but I came along to enough Amway cult meetings that I got the gist and watched the Platinum's true personality emerge - an evil, controlling motherfucking son of a bitch. To the point where I refused to have anything more to do with him.
There are stories all over the Internet by wives and children of Ambots and we all have the same story. The husband/father has a good paying job or is a business owner pulling in a decent profit until they get sucked into Amway and brainwashed and nothing in their life is more important than worshipping and tithing the Great Amway God. And they usually get fired from their job or their business suffers from lack of attention.
Stories of destroyed families, divorces, bankruptcy, foreclosure if they own homes. There's a higher chance that Amway will bring you financial and emotional destruction than gazillions of dollars.
Cult experts say they wish they got a dollar everytime someone asks your same question and they'd be rich by now on why do people join cults. For someone who's never been brainwashed by a cult it's really hard to watch and to understand.
Thank you, Anna.
Delete