Review of Smart and Simple Financial Strategies for Busy People (Hardcover)

This outstanding book motivated me to overcome nine years of inertia regarding financial planning.My husband and I have been vaguely worried about not saving enough for retirement or college, but we kept procrastinating research into the myriad of competing plans and investments and strategies.

Fortunately, Jane Bryant Quinn has done the research and makes clear, solid recommendations about how to manage family finances.She covers all of the financial bases (including insurance and wills), so that you can be confident you haven't left anything out.

She helps you establish clear financial goals, and explains which type of investments work best for various goals.Once you create your financial plan and set up automatic deposits into your investment/retirement accounts, she recommends you leave them alone and make adjustments as needed once a year!No time and energy wasted on buy/sell decisions after each stock market wiggle.

Now granted, this investing program is unlikely to provide the spectacular returns that some lucky people have made in real estate or by timing the market.But Quinn argues that people who earn huge returns on their investments are really few and far between.Furthermore, she points out that those investors take on a lot of risk in order to get those kinds of returns.

Her book is more than "common sense" however, - in fact, some of her ideas fly in the face of popular belief.For example, I was convinced any financial plan would have to begin with a strict budget that would ruthlessly prune lattes etc... out of our lives.Quite the contrary - Quinn says that the "latte factor" is not a significant factor in a family's financial health - it's the big ticket items that show up on credit card statements.

Rather than attempt to budget and plan in ADVANCE where non-essential money goes, Quinn recommends you automate deposits to your savings/retirement accounts because you, in turn, will automatically, subconsciously, and painlessly start reining in your expenses to match the size of your checking account.It's an interesting theory, and one I want to start ASAP, as my efforts to budget every expenditure and invest anything left at the end of the month have not been very successful.She does say, however, that if you are habitually living beyond your means, racking up major credit card bills, etc..., you'll need to get that under control before you can really implement/benefit from most of the strategies in this book.

All in all, an excellent book full of sound, straight forward ideas that anyone can implement - no matter how busy.



Click Here to see more reviews about: Smart and Simple Financial Strategies for Busy People (Hardcover)