Business Money Books

* When you know the common mistakes people make, you will learn from them and will not do the same.
* Not only you will learn the common mistakes, but this book describe clearly on how to correct the situation in details.
* Indeed a fresh knowledge for me. I love this book.

This book will show you how and why people lose or waste money. From ego, to overconfidence, to anchoring, to mental accounting. All of these areas of psychology affect our way of thinking about money. This easy reading book will open your eyes as to how to save more money. You may even laugh at yourself knowing you have fallen for some of these mental traps. Highly recommended.

For more than 20 years I have been fascinated why so many people make financial decisions which defy rationality. Unfortunately, I find it extremely difficult to read and comprehend most of the research papers that has been done in the field of behavioral finance. The last 5 years have seen several good books explaining the results of the emerging field of behavioral finance. This book is one of those good books.

As a fan of index funds, I enjoyed reading this book's explanation and recommendation for suggesting index funds.

This book is very readable and is an excellent primer on the major concepts which are emerging from behavioral finance research.

Socrates was right when he uttered his famous quote "Know Thy Self". One of the hardest things to do is to understand why we do what we do sometimes. This book helps explain some of this natural human behavior, and how we can manage it to make more rational financial decisions.

I would suggest companion books to supplement this book including:

Index Mutual Funds: How to Simplify Your Financial Life and Beat the Pro's
How to Use Psychology to Achieve Your Financial Goals
Are You Using the Right Rules to Plan Your Retirement?
The Richest Man in Babylon
Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor
The Millionaire Next Door
The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio
A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing, Ninth Edition
The Coffeehouse Investor: How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street, and Get On With Your Life
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing

The book is easy to read and it also covers a lot of interesting topics. Highly recommended.

This book is well worth reading. Even though I am sixty-nine years old with an extensive background in finance, I still found the contents of this book very interesting. Much of what is written I already know and have practiced for many years, which has lead me to accumulate a fair amount of wealth to live a comfortable life in retirement.

What I have learned from Messrs. Belsky and Gilovich is an ability to teach my grandchildren (and children, if they will listen) some financial fundamentals which will also allow them to accumulate wealth. My oldest granddaughter who is 23 is well on her way, not only saving in a Roth IRA and 401(k) plan, but also understanding some basic principals, such as saving small amounts and the power of compounding.

I recommend this book to everyone who wants to begin to make smart money decisions and get financially ahead. As Ben Stein says, wealth accumulation is freedom. Freedom from worry and freedom to buy the things you need to enjoy living a comfortable life. If you accept the economic principals presented in this book you will achieve financial freedom.

This book probably presents every scenario you can think of if you want to protect your estate. Reading this book will provide you with intelligent questions while you discuss your estate planning with your attorney.

The book is not only informative, but also entertaining and easy to read. No legaleez to wade through. I highly recommend it.

I felt the book was easy to read. Not one to be read in one sitting, however. I have done extensive estate planning, will preparation, and will updates. However, this book presented some options that I am considering. It also showed me a couple of loopholes that I thought I had closed, that I probably don't. Well worth the money and time to read. I expect to go back to this book several times. I will be taking it with me to an attorney appointment.

Estate planning is so important if you don't want your son in law running off with half your estate in the event of your kid's divorce. This book was a great asset to me ... and a real eyeopener as to what can happen at the reading of your will if you haven't equalized everything. the author even gives you his phone number that readers can call and ask questions free. The book is so good I bought 4 extra copies for friends.

Only estate book I've seen written in an easy-to-read, mini-case-study format. Very practical and thought-provoking advice. Tends to focus on little worst-case scenarios in an attempt to get people to plan properly for all the things that can go wrong in an estate.

For what it's worth, I thought the book was generally best-suited for estates with $100,000 to about $2,000,000 in assets. Don't get me wrong, there's something in here for all estate sizes - especially for people just starting the process of developing a plan. However, don't buy this book looking for technical discussions of advanced tax-minimizing strategies. If you or your clients have estates over this $2MM mark, this book can be a great thought-provoker, but some of the advice isn't really suitable for larger estates.

I have several estate planning books...the "how to" type and they are great. This is the book you need to read before you start filling in the blanks. I wish my parents had read this book. It would have saved my family relationships. This book gives you the basic information you need before drawing up your trust. Protect your beneficiaries and prevent family conflict by reading this book!

In his latest book "Prophecy", Robert T. Kiyosaki predicts a major stock market crash in the near future. This, he says, is a result of the baby boomers (mostly) saving for their retirement via stock investments and given that a large number of them will retire from 2016 onwards their investments will have to be cashed in as it will be needed and as a result the market will fall if not crash. Apart from that, RK says, that most baby boomers may not actually see their money ever again as more often than not most of it is invested in their own companies, i.e., the ones they work for, and if their employer goes down the drain so will their funds saved for retirement. Kiyosaki uses the demise of Enron as an example to demonstrate this.
Granted, there is nothing really new about all this. If you have spent any time working in the financial field you would know about this - although over the years I felt that people tend to stick their heads in the sand and hope that this will not happen or somehow go away

Apart from complaining about the existing system and the financial illiteracy of the vast majority of the market participants (and that would appear to be the main problem), Kiyosaki in Part II of the book sets out a game plan on how to build your own financial ark.

What I like about Kiyosaki's book is that he is pointing his finger straight at what could potentially happen and he does it in rather convincing style. There is indeed a good deal of information here that Kiyosaki has mentioned in his previous books, but I am not terribly upset about this as it serves to reinforce the message. Besides, if you haven't read any of the previous Kioysaki books, you would be stuck in the middle of nowhere if Kiyosaki left out the previously published information.

The premise of the phrophecy is that the baby boomers will pretty much take their money out of the stock market suddenly and cause it to crash. I suspect the market is far more vast than considered and the baby boomers' 401ks combined represents only a few drops in the bucket. If the market crashes, it won't be because of this prophecy's premise.

Robert Kiyosaki is a motivational speaker that also happens to sell books. If you are looking for a "How To", then you're in the wrong place. The Rich Dad, Poor Dad author seems to always strive to make you think about your financial future, and Rich Dad's Prophecy is no different.

Using scare tactics to elicit a response from you, this book strives to tell you that the stock market is a bad place to invest your money, and presents reasons for this opinion. However, looking historically, this has not been the case. One of Kiyosaki's main points is that the market will crash because all of the baby boomers will be drawing out their money at a rate that the stock market won't be able to handle.

Kiyosaki's point could be a valid one, but there is too much wealth in the world (that is not controlled by the United States' small group of retiring workers) for this speculation to be factual. Read Kiyosaki's book for the motivation it will provide if you need it. Don't read Kiyosaki's book if you're looking for ideas on how to invest your money (unless you're thinking of building a motivational book series with your "Pay Yourself First" funds).
http://rhapsodiesofross.blogspot.com/2008/06/rich-dad-richer-dad.html

Kiyosaki does a great job explaining the decline to come. Par for the course, the author is less than clear with his advice. If you have not read "The Second Great Depression" or other books like it I do highly recommend this volume. However, your money may be better spent on a more technical manual on how to profit during a declining market.

There is nothing to see (read) here. You know now what you will get from this book. Spend your money elsewhere on Amazon.

MV=PQ (and other variations)

Monetary History of the United States is one of the greatest and most historic economics book written. Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize in economics for this masterwork. It revolutionized economics. The only other book that is better is The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. I highly recommend both books.

At the time Monetary History was published, monetary economics had fallen out of favor because of the Great Depression. Economists had thought that monetary forces were ineffective as stimulating the economy in a severe downturn. The phrase "pushing up on a string" became famous. That led to the belief that government intervention of fiscal policy was always needed to keep the economy stable.

Friedman and Schwartz proved beyond a doubt that monetary forces contributed greatly to the Great Depression, contributed to the strong recovery under Franklin Roosevelt from 1933-1937, and caused the recession of 1937-38.

Monetary forces matter. Monetary History has never been effectively refuted, although Peter Temin did show that monetary forces were not the only cause of the Great Depression in his book Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression? The weakly regulated financial system collapsing so easily was partly to blame, as was the gold standard. The New Deal made the financial system stronger so it would not collapse again, and FDR removed America from the gold standard.

I highly recommend Monetary History. I also highly recommend Essays on the Great Depression by Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Great Depression is the ultimate riddle and they understand it.

I hated this book because it's hard to read. I don't like wading through sentences as long as paragraphs full of obscure words that require a dictionary nearby.

I just wanted to get a general understanding of money and the Federal Reserve from a source I trust and admire - Milton Friedman. I don't mind facts and figures but I resent writing that forces me into hard labor to decipher the meaning. I think good writing is communicating in the simplest way possible, not in trying to impress the reader with the author's vocabulary and ability to construct impenetrable, wannabe-sophisticated, long, compound sentences.

Don't get me wrong, I'm an engineer and I've got a decent vocabulary and fairly decent language skills.

I've found the books by Murray N. Rothbard to be much easier to read than this book though not as easy to read as I would like. I'm still looking for the perfect monetary history/economics book. I hope there's one out there somewhere.

Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz' A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 is an analysis and explanation of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Its conclusion, first published in the early 1960s, differs from the two main explanations that existed at the time.

Austrian Business Cycle Theory had argued that the Great Depression was caused by excessively loose monetary policy that fed an unsustainable economic boom during the 1920s, which eventually collapsed into depression. Friedman and Schwartz argued that instead it was excessively tight monetary policy following the boom of the 1920s that turned a run-of-the-mill recession into a depression. (For the Austrian explanation of the Great Depression, see Sir Lionel Robbins' The Great Depression or Murray Rothbard's America's Great Depression.)

Keynesianism argued that the Great Depression had been caused by insufficient consumer product demand and lack of investor confidence, and that government should compensate for this by increasing its spending and financing it with government debt. Friedman and Schwartz argued instead that the problem and solution were not so much a matter of fiscal policy as they were a matter of monetary policy. Government, particularly the monetary authorities, was the cause of the depression, not the solution. Stimulative fiscal policy as prescribed by Keynes would in the long run not lead to an increase in economic growth and employment, but only to an increase in inflation. (For the Keynesian explanation of the Great Depression, see John M. Keynes's The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money or John Kenneth Galbraith's The Great Crash, 1929.)

At the time of its publication, A Monetary History was not immediately accepted by the economics profession, which then was still dominated by Keynesian thinking. But when Keynesian theory could not explain the stagflation (recession combined with high inflation) of the 1970s, monetarism came to rule the day, and Friedman would go on to win the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics.

Friedman and Schwartz's analysis has by now become the standard explanation for the Great Depression. In the very least, the book helped reestablish the importance of monetary over fiscal policy in the stabilization of the business cycle. Money matters, even if it is not the only thing that matters. In addition, the importance of the book was methodological, in that it emphasized the importance of the empirical testing of one's economic propositions. What makes the book so persuasive is the great lengths to which the authors go to sort out the causation behind the correlation-the causation, they found, ran from money to output and prices rather than vice versa or via a fourth variable.

A Monetary History is a classic work in the canon of economic literature. It is on occasion still reviewed in the literature (e.g. Journal of Monetary Economics, August 1994; Cato Journal, Winter 2004). It clearly is an academic work written for trained economists, making it perhaps less accessible to a general audience. But several highly readable summary versions of the book exist, such as chapter 3 of Milton and Rose Friedman's Free to Choose, and even a one-paragraph summary conclusion in Capitalism and Freedom (on p. 45 of the paperback edition), which was published around the same time as A Monetary History. Alternatively, ch. 13 ("A Summing Up", pp. 676-700) is reprinted in The Essence of Friedman.

I read the reviews and found them helpful, but the unnamed reviewer that attributed the Great Depression to causes totally other than this book cites, and bashed Friedman as "not having a leg to stand on" concerned me because it seems the reviewer missed the very point of the book. Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman and his co-author undertook the monumental work of tracing money supply for each year for nearly a century. In doing so, they did the staggering amount of work required to show all of us something very powerful. To say they don't have a leg to stand on is disconcerting because it seems to indicate a review without a reading, or at least understanding. Obviously the Great Depression was the result of of complex interactions within the economy. What Friedman tries to do is show us the EMPIRICAL evidence for interaction between a contracting money supply and a worsening economic situation, and a steady money supply and a bettering economic situation. The Great Depression may have come about because of arrogant decisions and cascading failures, and those who decided to contract the money supply evidently were a very important trigger. I can say "evidently" because Friedman's research gives us the chance to observe the evidence for ourselves. To have advanced our knowledge of economics in a practical way, to have given useful facts for fending off depressions, is a gift. That's why this book will remain a watershed work in the history of economics.

Friedman and Schwartz(1963)did a great deal of worthwhile data compilation.The problem(an identical problem occurs in the 1956 work of Philip Cagan) occurs when they attempt to fit the data to the standard quantity of exchange equation MV=PO,where M is the supply of money(Friedman always selects MI to be equal to M),V is the velocity,P is the price level,O is real GNP(GDP),and PO is nominal GNP(GDP).The correct specification of the equation of exchange is M(Vw)=PO,where w is defined on the unit interval between 0 and 1.w is Keynes's measure of the weight of the evidence or Ellsberg's (rho)measure of the confidence a decision maker has in the information set he will use to calculate the probabilities of different outcomes.Friedman is a lifelong adherent and advocate of the Ramsey-De Finetti-Savage subjective approach to probability which argues that ,while the existence of vagueness(J M Keynes's weight of the A Treatise on Probability(uncertainty of the General Theory) or Ellsberg's ambiguity)is undeniable,it can't be modeled in a decision theoretic context.Only risk,represented by a normal probability distribution and its mean+ or- 3 standard deviations,can be operationalized.Friedman's section 4 of chapter 12,titled "Expectations about Stability ",discusses exactly what Savage called vagueness,Keynes called uncertainty,liquidity preference being a function of uncertainty AND NOT RISK,AND ELLSBERG CALLED AMBIGUITY.Friedman has no variable in his model to deal with it.He admits this on the second paragraph of p.675.Friedman's analysis abstracts from the role that expectations,confidence,uncertainty,and the flexibility of money(Keynes's liquidity preference)play in the demand for money .All of the Friedman-Schwartz analysis needs to be redone using the correct specification of the equation of exchange.Friedman's existing specification only holds in the special case where w=1.0,i.e.,that there is no uncertainty,ambiguity,or vagueness. MV=PO is a correct specification of the equation of exchange only if risk,measured by the normal probability distribution's standard deviation(or the standard deviation divided by the mean),is the only decision theoretic variable.All current forms of the equation of exchange ignore ambiguity and/or uncertainty and conflate risk with uncertainty.The equation of exchange has been misspecified from Hume to Friedman and Lucas.Only Keynes correctly derived a generalized equation of exchange.Keynes's analysis is contained on p.209 and chapter 21 of the GT.Lucas has already admitted that his framework of analysis breaks down completely if Keynesian uncertainty or Ellsbergian ambiguity prevents him from using his normal probability distribution.The massive 50 plus years of statistical analysis by Benoit Mandelbrot of data from all financial markets(stock,money,commodities,futures,currencies,bond) provides overwhelming empirical support for not using the normal distribution.Keynes,of course,would agree that, if the only decision theoretic variable of consequence is risk(Mandelbrot's mild risk),velocity would be stable or predictable.The fact that velocity is not constant or predictable means that Friedman's monetarism is only a very special case of Keynes's general theory,which,in terms of Mandelbrot's definitions,deals with mild and wild risk.Friedman can only deal with mild risk.

Good book for young people to plan the future and what information to compile to leave loved ones.

I am satisfied with the quality of the product and the quick delivery.

This book has sparked discussion and debate amongst my family, and clarification from my lawyer, and my desire to seek out more legal opinions and facts while I'm still young.

Highly recommended for anyone who owns property, and especially for those who are nonchalant about facing the responsibilities of their estates and assets.

The book was written too long ago to be of much use in this century. It needs to be updated or scrapped. It is behind the times and makes some of the information useless if not incorrect. A better choice can be found.

Too dated to be useful in CT, but it did spur me to visit my attorney to get briefed on changes in estate planning.

Another Great book to add to all of his others. I find it a great insperation to those of use on the hard road and looking to turn their lives around. Great lessons on what your bankers see as assests and liabilites. A great idea that comes to mind from his book is when he tells us "to get richer buy a car". Use the things in life that we want to drive us to the goals we need to achieve those things.

The book is written very well. It is hard to believe that Robert Kiyosaki almost failed his English class. It is more of an Inspiration rather than a "Guide", however most of the advice is applicable in the real life and I would recommend everyone, who needs a little "push" in life to read it too.

This book teaches you to be financially smart with the use of credit cards and that you don't have to cut up your credit cards, but to be financially smart when using them wisely. Credit card companies are just waiting for you to make a mistake and in the world of investing and your portfolio is your report card. Just like in school you've got to maintain that B average and shoot for that A+ card and keep fixing all the little mistakes until you do achieve it.

...unless you've never read any of his other books. Don't get me wrong, I can't say enough good things about Robert Kiyosaki's books. If you haven't read them (Rich Dad Poor Dad, Cashflow Quadrant, etc.), I highly recomemd that you do. But there's nothing new in this book. It just a retread of ideas already presented in his other books, and not as well. If fact, reading it felt like a advertisment for his other books and products.

The way the author explains money makes cents! Really. It's simple, and most people should be able to follow his instructions and get out of debt. It will require sacrifice and diligence, but without these you won't get anywhere anyways!

I was very exited to find a Investment book on John Templeton investment strategies. But after reading this book I am very disappointed. This does not mean I disagree with John Templeton strategies. The main problem is with the structure of this book. To me, author seems to be very confused whether he wants to write Templeton biography, his strategies or history of countries which Templeton used to cover.

To give you an example, chapter 10 runs into 20 pages detailing China's economic and political events. It has got just three main messages. Buy stocks in countries 1) with high savings rate 2) trade surplus 3) and high profits attracts competition.

So If you have patience to read 268 pages, which could well be condensed into not more than 100 pages, this is a good book. I have given it two star, because I do not appreciate anything which waste time.

Easy read about one of the man who looked beyond what others looked for when investing.

If you really want to read this book, borrow it from the library. It's not worth owning; frankly, it's not worth reading either.

It certainly does not compare to One Up on Wall Street or any of the offerings of Peter Lynch. The best part of this book is the foreword by John Templeton; however, there is truly nothing worth reading after that.

The style is engaging; the content is anemic. Sure, there are lots of anecdotes about the highly successful investing style of Sir John and his penurious predilection--nothing new there; his value investing style is well known and documented. There's nothing really valuable in the anecdotes that he provides. If what is written is novel, perhaps the ready shouldn't invest directly in common stock!

Overall, a disappointing book, but I am sure it was a nice present for Uncle John.

The Templeton Way is possibly the best book on stock investing that I've ever read. Between this and One up on Wall Street, one will receive the insights need to invest in stocks successfully. One thing that sticks out to me is the simplicity of thought and wisdom that comes from the pages. If you are serious about strengthening your skills as an investor, this book is for you.

I bought this book hoping to learn more about how to invest in foreign stocks since Templeton was known for that. Unfortunately other than a few simple things like checking to make sure a government's debt is no more than 25% of GDP, there were very few specifics. The author presents a couple of examples where "Uncle John" took advantage of distrust in foreign markets (like investing in South Korea during the Asian financial crises) to make great investments, but doesn't go enough into enough detail to be of any real benefit to anybody.

The book is more about the very basics of being a value investor and the attitudes needed to be successful in investing (ie, don't follow the crowd, buy low P/E or low PEG stocks, diversification). But even that is presented in somewhat of a haphazard way compared to other books, such as Peter Lynch's books or some of the books about Warren Buffet. Chapter 6, "No Trouble TO Short The Bubble", is not much more than a recount of the tech wreck and an admonishment to people who bought tech stocks at high P/Es. The main points of the book could have been made in half the pages. Only the last chapter on China was interesting.

I gave three stars because this would be an ok book for a beginning investor, but for an intermediate or advanced investor this in not much more than a rah-rah book about value investing and is more like one or two stars.

I was thinking about going into finance but was too close to graduation. This book was recommended to me by a finance professor, when I asked for something that really explained how things work instead of just giving a prescription. This was an excellent book that I would recommend to anyone who is interested in financial matters. I keep this book in my library as reference and have turned back to it many times for a reference point when people ask me questions about finances.

The information in this book was the type that your big sister should have told you. I was lucky enough to have a big sister to explain these things so I didn't need the book. But if you are truly just starting out into adulthood, you'll enjoy the helpful hints such as how to evaluate the checking accounts offered from different banks or how to start a retirement account. If you're very young, if you're very new at being an adult, and if you have nobody to guide you this book has all the essential advice.

I moved to US 7 years ago, so all this stuff on retirement plans, mortgages, investments, was a big cloud of information to me. Very slowly I started learning about finances reading articles over the internet. When I got this book, I couldn't stop reading it. It gave me a great overview of how to put my financial life together. It is very easy to read. Yes, it's not the solution to all your financial problems, but it's a great overview with very enlightening information.
The only thing I didn't find details about was 457 retirement plans (even though it talks about others). That's the only reason I didn't give it 5 stars.

Books like Beth Kobliner's have to earn their place on your bookshelf. After all, these days plenty of personal finance advice is available for free on the Internet. That said, this book is a wise investment for early-career professionals who would like advice about getting out of debt. Although its guidance is solid-if-predictable, it is well-researched and straightforwardly written. Kobliner provides an authoritative "further reading" list for those who want to delve deeper into how to get their finances on an even keel. This book does not promise to make you rich overnight, and it doesn't exactly qualify as a page-turner, but it lends a helping hand. We recommend it to young people whose financial life is just a bit too exciting.

I wish I had this book when I was 19 and applying for credit cards. This book has great information in understandable terms for those who are beginning their financial journeys in life from opening bank accounts to buying homes. It also provides good stories as examples to explain some concepts that are more difficult to grasp, especially for those who are not financially savvy (like me). I will be giving this to my 19 year old brother so that he can be smarter about money than i was at his age (I'm 25).

Easy Money is not a light read, but rather a book to seek guidance from throughout your adult life. There are eleven sections in under 200 pages. Most people will find answers to organizing their finances and planning for their future. The first section on Setting up your Financial Life is basic common sense stuff that I have been doing already for many years.

I filed bankruptcy in 2004 and was able to obtain a car loan in March of 2008. I did obtain my FICO scores from all agencies and got an approved loan rate before heading to the auto dealerships. I was curious about leasing cars having read pros and cons to this.

Easy Money author Liz Pullman Weston suggests not going that route in leasing cars. She also suggests not getting a car loan that is longer than four years. She also stresses that a car is a "need" not a "want".

I have always been a renter and was a bit disappointed that the briefly glossed over renters insurance with barely a paragraph. I have all my insurance policies with Allstate so if I go shopping for another quote for my auto insurance I will lose the discount I have on my Renters insurance and there are specific clauses about pets and home businesses and other children that need clarification for the lay person.

I am a single parent with two special needs kids. I was glad that Liz mentioned special needs trusts for our families and how families need to find the right qualified professional for this trust. She frequently recommends Nolo Press Guides and has an extensive list at the end for further reading. The index has key words in bold and italics making it easier to browse through to find related issues relevant to current needs.

There is a section on Saving and Planning for College. My son is 13 and this is something I am learning about. I liked how Liz gives an overview on College Savings Plans. Luckily California does have them, but I need more guidance due to SSI. This is a section I will be perusing later on as my son enters high school in two more years.

At the end of each section is a helpful checklist. I like the goals section for life. Since I turn 50 in two more years one goal I have considered is purchasing a home. Liz guides the reader on what to do one year prior to this decision, six-months and so on. This is a section of Easy Money I have highlighted and plan to follow as the current year ends.

Easy Money was a nice read to see what I can do currently for my financial situation and help guide my future plans. I recommend this book to be used on a regular basis.

Informative, easy-to-follow book answering many questions that we have (but might be afraid to ask for fear others would consider us stupid!!)....I found the section on investments to be especially helpful, as this is an area in which I know little about. A quick read, and a handy reference tool. I have gone back to the book on more than one occasion to re-read certain sections. A must read, and a must have.


DYB

This is going to be short because there's not much to the book. Imagine all the real basics of money management - spend less than you earn, think before you spend, buy things that matter, plan out your financial needs, prioritize sensibly. Weston has a nice writing style but her point seems to be that she comes by a lot of this naturally and those of us who don't should Get With The Program. Fair enough. But, unless you are really immature or very unfamiliar with concepts like cause and effect, if you engage in unhelpful behavior, whether it's financial or of other kinds, it usually means that something deep is going on and that there is something you need to address - either by changing behavior (surface manifestations) tiny bit by tiny bit until you've paved the problem over or by digging down to the problem, taking it on, and getting rid of it, and then building over the new foundation. There are advocates of both approaches and this is not the place to sort that all out. Suffice it to say that these depths are unaddressed in any useful way in this book.
Bottom line is that if you don't understand basic concepts like don't waste money, know what you're spending it on and why, etc., this is a pretty passable book. If you want real substance, look elsewhere.

Easy Money is an easy-to-read, graphically appealing guide to financial basics:

1. How to organize one's accounts and records to ease monitoring and control
2. How to set up a realistic budget
3. How to control credit card spending
4. Basics of investing
5. Basic shopping tips
6. Basics of insurance
7. Basics of homebuying and car-buying
8. Setting long-term goals

Each section is so brief that I almost overlooked the 15-page section that was of greatest interest to me: homebuying and car-buying. The section on mortgages was especially brief: six pages, just enough space to define terms, quickly itemize a few pros and cons, and demonstrate monthly payments for a 15- or 30-year, $250,000 mortgage. The section does not even mention state and federal programs for first-time homebuyers -- a critical oversight given these programs' ability to make down-payment and closing costs feasible for young buyers.

This book is ideal for someone who may be just out of high school and getting started in life, or for someone suffering from overall financial malaise and confusion, who is looking for a quick and easy way to simplify, organize and focus. Since much of the book is a glossary of basic concepts, it is not targeted to non-beginners.

Persons looking for thorough discussion of various money-management, investing, or real estate strategies should first re-read the book's title: "Easy" Money. And since the book simply seeks to simplify the basics of personal finance, it should not be viewed as a sure guide to making money.

How to simplify your finances, is how this book is billed, yet the appendix lists 18 books to consult for further information/insights/ideas/strategies. Moreover, this book's 173 pages (160 if blank pages aren't counted, or about 100 if the print wasn't so huge) seems confused whose its audience is. A third or so of the book recommends how one ought to go about finding a certified financial planner (CFP) to help well-off folks with their investments, or to choose the right mortgage. But an even larger portion of the book addresses people who are probably totally clueless and without much if any net worth. You be the judge whether these "tips" will be of use to you. Everyone, Ms Weston states, needs to save more money and, if possible, spend less on housing costs. No more than a third of your income should be spend on housing, she posits. What to do if you're spending more? Try getting a boarder! Or a roommate! That's what the author suggests, or perhaps one ought to consider refinancing, she adds, or even move. Other ways to save money, according to the author, include the following: run your washing machine only when full; discontinue high-speed internet access or even cable TV; brown bag it for lunch now and then, or even plant a vegetable garden!; pay off your credit cards with the highest interest rates first. Interestingly too, concerning the latter "tip," the author notes that only 1 out of 14 folks, on average, carry a credit card balance over $10,000. But then, oddly, she spends the next ten pages on people who might be in this situation. Shop for lower interest rates, ask your card companies for better rates, make a budget and try to stick to it, and finally, she suggests that folks should just stop using their high-interest cards. Put them on the shelf, she says. I expected a lot more from this book than that. Frankly, you'd be better off just buying one of the books she recommends in her appendix than reading this catalog of the obvious (buy index funds instead of individual stocks, do research before visiting a car dealer looking for a new car, do your banking online and link your various accounts, and so on).

The books she recommends (that I daresay you would be better off consulting than this book): Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independenceby Joe Dominguez & Vicki Robin; Personal Finance For Dummies, 5th editionby Eric Tyson; "Smart Couples finish Rich" by David Bach; "Plan your Estate" by Clifford and Jordan; "100 Questions Every First-time Home Buyer should ask" by Ilyce Glink, "Saving for Retirement" by Gail MarksJarvis, and "The Little book of Common Sense Investing" by John Bogle.

Or I'd add, just consult The Wall Street Journal. Complete Personal Finance Guidebook (The Wall Street Journal Guidebooks).

Good Luck!