Business Money Books

Its pretty good. A lot of complicated tricks. It doesn't deal much with retired people.

This is a book that I wish I'd had (and paid attention to) some years ago, that is, before being sued for divorce. I then had to learn what he says here through talking to attorneys (at $much per hour this is an expensive approach) and by writing my ex-wife big checks (but I got sole custody of the kid so it was worth it).

Dr. Goldstein is talking about protecting what assets you have (after divorce that may be considerably less than you had before). When your major assets have been stripped away, you still need to protect what you have left, but some of the rules change. For instance liability insurance, if you carry a million dollar liability policy and have only $10,000 in assets, this may entice a hungry attorney to sue you while if you only had $20,000 in insurance, he may go look for another target.

This book is very easy to read and provides some excellent general advice and information for readers who are unfamiliar with the topic.

However, it does not provide the detailed information needed by someone who wants to formulate their own tailored estate and/or asset protection plan even though the book implies that it does. For example, some of the 'information' relating the differences between states is outdated and/or wrong.

Read this book for fundamental information and as a wake up call for the need for protection rather than as detailed advice on how you can do it!

Author Goldstein has been an asset protection attorney for many years. His first book, Asset Protection Secrets, was a best seller. This one is for everyone: people with money; people with little assets but they don't want to lose them; young and old; married, divorced and single; savvy or naive.

These chilling words set the tone: "You just never know what a jury will do," and "Juries decide if a case has merit." He states that 93% of Americans have absolutely no lawsuit protection aside from their liability insurance--because we procrastinate and don't think it will ever happen to us.

You don't have to do anything wrong to be sued and lose. You only have to be in the wrong place at the wrong time--or come across some greedy lunatic who things he has a reason to be grieved.

Goldstein's advice and strategies show how you can protect yourself against lawsuits, divorce, creditors, the IRS and other deadly threats to your wealth and assets (money, investments, possession, businesses, etc.).

Bulging with easy-to-understand advice, the book might make you to decide TODAY is the time to start protecting your assets and no longer be non-protected.

From personal experience, I know that money and time spent now can save you a lot of both later. It is shocking that only one in five Americans have even a simple will to define their wishes.

The author ends with four important steps:
1.Commit to action: Set a goal and get started.

2.Organize your team of advisors to protect your assets, including family members, business associates, etc.--people you can trust.

3.Recruit the right professionals: your lawyer, accountant, banker, financial planner/investment advisor, insurance professional--and what criteria to use.

4.Stay proactive in maintaining financial security: Be your own counsel in addition to your advisors; learn, read, be proactive.

Armchair Interviews says: So Sue Me should scare you right into your lawyers and accountant's office, place a call to your insurance man, and generally "look over your shoulder" now that you know how easily you can lose your assets.

If you do not know Larry Winget, the Pitbull of Personal Development, and what he is all about, then this book might be the kick in the butt you have needed to jump start your life. If you do know him, then you will know that HE says what he means and means what he says. This book, like his others, is meant to help, motivate,and encourage greatness. No matter your job, this book, if applied, WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE! Larry Winget does not sugar coat anything. He tells it like it is. I loved reading all the stories of good and bad customer service! It is amazing that there are so many! Buy the book. You will love it! It is worth the few hours out of your life to read this... Isn't it time for all of us to make a change?

I have three of Larry's books. This guy is telling folks the very same things I have said all my life. I later went out and bought 40 copies of the three books I have read so when my friends start their whining I just hand them a copy and tell them to go read it. Maybe they have short term memory issues when I tell them so here is a copy of the same stuff I have preached about for years. GREAT STUFF!!!! Just a lot of the truth that people should take to heart. Grow up and start taking responsibility and STOP EITHER BLAMING THE WORLD OR LOOKING FOR A HAND OUT!!!!!!!!

The book is clear and direct, which is consistent with the advice given about how to be successful in business. Larry's style is entertaining, and all of his recommendations are grounded in his personal business experience. I found the book useful.

This is my favorite of Larry's because it gives me a need attitude adjustment whenever I read it.
He is very big on taking responsibility for your situation and remembering that you are employed to make your company profitable, not to be fulfilled or happy or challenged, even though it is good if those happen also, we cannot expect them.

Yes, he is a little harsh on some topics, and I would take some of it with a grain of salt, but he is like a coach that pushes you to do better.

The truth might hurt sometimes, but you are better off seeing the situation in full daylight instead of complaining and playing the victim.

I have also read his Shut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life: A Kick-Butt Approach to a Better Life which shares some of the attitude, but veers off onto his opinions which I just don't care to listen to.

Larry is very specific in his book about knowing your priorities. People are becoming more and more spectators instead of doing. People prefer looking busy instead of getting things done. It is a true reorientation of focus when he said: "It's not how many hours you put into the work, but how much work you put into the hours".

This book is great if you don't know anything about budgets at all. It's a short quick read that doesn't really go in depth, very basic

I gave this book to each of my children as they began life on their own. It is full of good, basic information about budgeting.

This book isn't expensive and it isn't without merit, but I recommend you look elsewhere. With all due respect to the authors, this book is rather gimmicky. The flow of the book is choppy and at several points the authors drop the ball by treating various subject with a degree of shallowness that is disappointing even for such a small pocket book. One example is the treatment of credit cards. They repeat the common mantras about credit cards, but the coverage of situations not to use credits cards is repetitive and there is no discussion whatsoever of point-systems that many credit cards offer--an amazing way for a person on a budget to expand their purchasing power.

I close the cover of this book feeling that I've just hung up the phone with a chatty telemarketer, somewhat impressed with their jovial presentation but feeling hardly educated by the interchange.

I have read several budgeting books, and have even taken a class at my bank about budgeting. All of them left me with the message "you want more money? save some!" without giving me real guidelines on how to do it. I had a financial epiphany when I read this book. I now have a savings account with automatic payroll deduction. This account is for emergencies, fun things like travel, and what I call "sporadic predictables" like car insurance and bills I pay every 10 weeks that often catch me off guard. Then the rest of the money from my paycheck is carefully but flexibly divided into obligations (like mortgage and student loans), controllable necessities (like the electric bill and phone bill), and then spendable money. The confidence I feel now after reading this book is well worth the affordable price. I highly recommend it.

I read this short book in just a couple hours and by the end I had a working budget that is doable for my family's lifestyle. I really like the idea of having separate monthly monetary limits on personal pocket money, family allowance and personal allowance. I definitely had the Starbucks syndrome, where I spend so much money on lunches, coffee and snacks that I was frittering away thousands a year. Having only a certain amount in cash each week in my pocket for all of these little expenses has been really helpful, and I don't have write down everytime I buy a coffee. I also really like the separate savings accounts - for the must fund, rainy day fund, want fund, and other contingencies like insurance and taxes. I just put a certain amount away in a separate account each month and then just pay it when some it comes due. Perfect if you just want a quick guide to making a helpful and uncomplicated budget.

What a great book! In today's difficult times, being a resilient person is probably one of the most important things we should develop and this book shows you how. I especially like that it is written in a clear cut manner with case study examples. This book will help anyone who has trouble bouncing back from life's adversities and teaches strategies to successfully handle stress. A most helpful and interesting read!

RESILIENCE AT WORK shows how to learn the core elements of hardiness that Salvadore Maddi identified in his classic research project at Illinois Bell Telephone twenty years ago. Maddi and Khoshaba explain that "the key to resilience is hardiness," and then show readers how to develop the three core hardiness attitudes:
* commitment
* control
* challenge

To these. they add two vital skills: transformational coping and social support.

RESILIENCE AT WORK reflects decades of practical experience teaching hardiness skills in corporate settings. Many real-life examples illustrate the points. A concluding chapter provides companies with guidelines for improving worker resiliency.

What a delightful read! I have been through the Hardiness Training as a student of the authors and am now trained to provide the program to others. This book is a wonderful guide on how to apply the techniques in the workplace; quite timely considering we're all in a world of constant change. The use of real-life examples of resilient and non-resilient individuals was very clever. A brilliantly written book and a truly wonderful legacy for Dr. Maddi and Dr. Khoshaba to give to the world!

The negative effects of stress have challenged people for a long, long time. For years, psychologists have endeavored to offer advice and assistance to those coping with personal and professional issues. For obvious reasons, many counselors, consultants, and trainers have focused on managing stress at work. Employers want smooth operations without the potential serious consequences of stress-induced problems. Careers have been destroyed by inabilities to deal with the ongoing changes in business.

I opened this book with an expectation that I might find some new secrets...perhaps a whole new approach to how workers-individually and collectively-could function much differently. What I found was another book on stress. Others may see some new ideas, but I've read a lot in this field so my expectations are probably higher than the average reader.

The text is organized to explain resilience-essentially having the inner strength to cope because you're doing a good job at managing change. The authors describe this as developing hardiness, the foundation of their Hardiness Institute. The book reports on a 12-year longitudinal study of employees at Illinois Bell Telephone. The stress of all the change over the years caused the departure or failure of two-thirds of the workers. The survivors practiced effective stress management techniques. The keys they promote include approaching change as a challenge, developing sound problem-solving strategies, resolving conflicts, and building commitment.

Readers will find an abundance of case studies that make points for the authors, teaching techniques and offering examples to stimulate thought.

It is refreshing to read a book that is written like a conversation and not like a textbook, yet one that contains the appropriate financial rigors.

If you want to catch up with modern banking and look at it from an analyst's view, this is your book. I enjoyed it very much and use it as a reference often

Edward H. Romney advocates (advocated?) a lifestyle based on voluntary simplicity and self-reliance, and here he gives a whole lot of ideas for achieving this. Some of these ideas are very sensible, such as buying used clothes, paying cash for reliable preowned autos, and avoiding debt.

Some of them, however, are hardly practical. His short "Chapter Three: Saving Up to $37,500 A Year" is an example of impractical thinking. One example he tosses out is "cutting off phone service and using an old citizen's band radio for emergencies". Sorry, but in the real world, a phone is essential for looking for work or doing business if self-employed. Ditto for internet connections.

Another example he tosses out is selling your $250,000 house, moving out to the boondocks "renting for $300 a month, and investing the difference." Sorry, but in the real world, renting is almost never smarter than owning, and while it is folly to buy more house than you can afford (as so many have realized in the real estate crashes of 2007-2008), it makes far more sense to live very frugally and hang onto one's home in the suburbs than it does to strike out for the remote countryside where there are usually no friends, no relatives, no jobs and no business. Amy Dacyzyn's advice makes more sense for those of us living in the real world.

Many of the suggestions the author tosses out are for those people facing the loss of everything and / or who are fed up and want to start a whole new life, away from major metropolitan areas, out in the country. The author also discusses more radical alternatives (or, given Ed Romney's politics, make that more ultra-conservative alternatives) for those who are REALLY down and out. For these people he talks about setting up camp in the woods, converting old school buses into homes, learning to hunt and fish, etc. That may work for some, but is simply not practical for most of us.

So if it's all too often impractical, why is this book great?

1. The book is great because it reminds you to keep your self-respect, not get caught up in the mentality of "I have to have it", and to think instead "Do I really need it?" The author reminds us not to be sucked in to a debt-fueled lifestyle, especially where he says you can be poor but proud, and that you don't have to give up your self-respect due to lack of money. Half the reason lower-income people can't make it is because they have been led to think they're failures--just because they have to be more careful with their money. Sadly that belief is a pretty powerful motivator into debt-fueled financial irresponsibility.

2. The author also remembers the Great Depression from his childhood, and his perspective from that era is sobering and inspiring at the same time.

3. I appreciated his thoughts on maintaining a spiritual outlook, keeping one's family together in hard times, and avoiding the pitfalls of too much dependence upon government assistance, and how such dependence often mentally and emotionally cripples and paralyzes the recepients that it is supposed to help.

4. Mr Romney boldly states a truth too many Americans today have forgotten: there is no shame whatsoever in "blue collar" work; much of it can actually be quite skilled. There is also no shame whatsoever in gruntwork, manual labor, or working fast food, if there are no other opportunities available, if one really needs the (extra) work, or if one is a young man or woman just starting out.

5. The author also has more serious business and investment advice, and his chapter on avoiding "redneck economics" when dealing in antiques, collectibles, thrift shopping, or investments of that nature, is well taken.

Because it gives the reader perspective and inspires one to think outside the proverbial box, I recommend the book.

I'm a sucker for any book that tells me how to live a more frugal life. I think we're much too consumer oriented, so I like the idea of living a more simple life. This book touches on many of the "hints" that one can find in any book for more frugal living, but it seems to be filled with many odd tips. Even though the author doesn't condone it, he mentions all of the medications people throw away and implies one could go dumpster diving. Nothing like self-medication. This book seems to be a little more focused on survival and not living. I for one want to live comfortably and responsibly now, but also ensure that I won't have to worry about money or my basic needs down the road. I'm willing to make some sacrifices, but can't quite go this far. Yes, the author does have a very obvious political and religious bent. It is so obvious, that I didn't find it threatening. A little obnoxious though. I wouldn't buy this book, but I would definitely look through it at the library and save a few bucks. :)

I found Mr. Romney's self-satisfied ode to living the life of a small-town scrooge/tight-wad to be arrogant, self-righteous and bordering on out-right offensive in places.

His chapter titled "Save Up to $37,500 a Year and Live on $12,000 a Year" was basically the only useful chapter in the entire book and that was because it gave me my laugh for the day. Among such common sense items as home haircuts, vegetable gardens and doing your own yard work were cutting off phone service and using a $25 citizen's band radio for emergencies, no more country clubs, no more dining in fancy restaurants, and my personal favorite, selling your $250,000 house and renting for $300 a month. Except for one or two items, Mr. Romney's book is virtually useless for anyone living in an urban or suburban area and even if you're living in a small town many of his ideas are out-of-date, impractical or impossible to implement without having resources to start with.

If you looking for a way to save money... or at least not spend so much of it in these difficult economic times... the best place to start is by not buying this book. If you're looking for ways to be frugal or if you just want to live a simpler life, any other book out there that's not this one will give you advice and tips that are just as good, if not much better and more up-to-date, all without having to put up with Mr. Romney's fake-folksy, smug attitude, ripping off fast-food restaurants for condiments and jellies or dumpster-diving for government-surplus food in housing projects because 'Many of the people there are too lazy to cook things like flour and oats and they sneer at the government cheese and Spam.'

The author was older. He had lived during the depression. If you hate hearing your parents and/or grand-parents belittling you because you did not survive the depression you will not like this book.
Romney says to move to a small town where the living is inexpensive. If everyone did that the small town would then be expensive because that is what urban sprawl does to land values. I donated the book to a second hand store where, if nothing else, the charity will receive fifty cents.
I would recommend reading Suzie Orman or Progress & Poverty edited by Bob Drake if you want to have money.

This Book has helped me to save a lot of money and learn to be smarter with my time and money Great Book I Highly Recommend it.

This book is long overdue. It typically takes a credit or corporate banking professional several years and several levels (analyst, senior analyst, associate/assistant vice president, and finally, vice president) to piece together the knowledge and analytical skills presented within this wonderful book. The book offers a comprehensive foundation in business, financial, and strategic analysis (among several other related topics) in a very easily digested and understood manner. I guess my only complaint is that I didn't have the opportunity to write it myself!! I would advise every credit or relationship management team leader to purchase this book for their entire team -- particularly for their analysts and associates (although... on second thought, perhaps everyone on the team should have a copy in their desk drawer.) Bottom line: Highly-recommended. AAA+++

I had the pleasure of working with one of the authors 15 years ago. But don't let that sway you. I truly appreciate the scope and effort put into this book. We will use it as an outline for how our analysts should approach analyzing a credit. Chapter 3 alone is worth the price of admission as the authors list the elusive "qualitative" factors that go into a credit rating, beyond what the ratios tell you it should be. While the book barely scratches the surface of certain analytical methods (the Merton Model got 1/2 a page), and it is written more for the layman or student, I still learned many things. And I've been in the business 20+ years. The prior reviewer, and many others will say they wished they wrote this book. I will too. I even briefly started my own version recently. But I first turned to S&P's ratings criteria as an outline. As such, the right people wrote this book. The authors fully used the vast resources and data mining of S&P. This certainly feels like a team effort. The telecom analyst wrote a piece on the rapid decline of telecom credits in 2000-2002, and other professionals added real life examples. The book organizes itself in the top down approach to analysis. It starts with sovereign risk, then moves to industry, then company business/competitive risk. It then highlights the ratios to look for, and also gives data on seniority and recovery values for specific levels of debt. It then uses these tools to analyze a fictional company. It ends with case studies that cover M&A, sovereign risk and other topical reviews that act as a real life summary to what you just learned. Highly recommended. Well done.

I did not like the book, since being in the industry for more than seven years i felt the book is basic. However it is a must read (Cover to Cover) for those who are in undergraduate in the field of risk management or finance. This books gives the introduction to financial model building. But this intro is so brief that it will be your imagination to make full use of it. However for new commers in this field or interested it is good to give it few hours.

I don't generally keep textbooks but this is one that I will hold onto for quite some time. This book has been completely worth it and I keep referring back to it as I have been out of college.

This book was sent in a timely manner and was in excellent condition as stated.

Personally, I think that we would all be better off if we spent more time in our education process teaching people about the realities of their economic lives. This is especially true of their choice of careers, managing those resources, and preparing for their "golden years". I could nominate a few topics I think we could cease teaching in order to have room for the necessary classes to provide people with real life financial management skills that can have a direct impact on the improvement of all aspects of their lives.

This book, "Personal Finance - Turning Money into Wealth" is a fantastic tool for students and ANY interested reader. I wish everyone would work through this book (or one very much like it). While it is never too late to develop these skills, the younger a person gets a plan for their economic life in place, the more power it has and the better off they will be long term.

I like the way Prof. Keown emphasizes basic principles (he has 15 of them) and planning. He begins the book by providing the foundation of financial planning, teaching the student how to measure their financial health and using that to inform their plan, understanding the Time Value of Money (a topic so vital that no one should graduate high school without knowing, in my opinion), and the basics of tax planning.

The author then provides some great information on managing money by understanding the realities of cash and liquid assets, credit cards (open credit) and the traps it represents, using consumer loans in PLANNED BORROWING (another important topic that is almost unknown to most consumers because of the misuse of open credit), and buying homes and automobiles.

I really enjoyed his next discussion on insurance. He talks about the various kinds of insurance, the kinds of protection they provide at what costs, and especially the situations in which buying insurance makes sense and when it does not.

The section on managing investments is good, solid, but BASIC information. Anyone doing anything beyond a few basic retirement plans will need to study other materials. This section is the one where I have a tiny quibble with the author. He differentiates investing and speculation by saying that investing involves putting money in assets that provide returns - stocks, bonds, etc - but that speculating is putting money in things like baseball cards that only have a price based on what others are willing to pay. I sort of understand what I think he is trying to say.

However, all investing is in some sense speculating. The buyer and seller have different views of the future (speculating about the future) and so they make opposite choices at a certain price. Either of them would change their view, presumably, at some other price. Stocks do not have a built in return and many do not pay dividends and too often nowadays their residual value is zero. Too often people buy stocks simply because they are going up (the greater fool theory) and get badly burned as we saw in the Internet Bubble collapse in early 2000. In any case, the caution the author advocates is sufficient and sound. I am just concerned that others use the terms "investment" and "speculation" differently than the author and might confuse those trying to enter the fray for the first time.

This fine text ends with a discussion of life cycle issues such as retirement planning, estate planning, and how all the pieces studied fit together into the grand plan.

The author also provides online helps such as problems, quizzes, and especially many useful spreadsheets that the student can not only use, but study to help them build their own that will be tailored to the student's specific situation. There is also a workbook with the basics of using a financial calculator and the worksheets called for in the text.

This is a superb text on a vital topic. Strongly Recommended for general readers as well as students in a class on this subject (which EVERY college student should be REQUIRED to take - or pass out of by test).

Before you give it as a gift, take the time to read it yourself and mark half a dozen pages that you consider are of special value to the recipient. It may stimulate them to read more. Oh yes, and don't forget to buy yourself a book also.

At last, there is a book for the nonfinancially astute that discusses money matters in such a clear, understandable way that it motivates people to apply some of the 101 tips to their own situations and look forward to a richer future. In GROW YOUR MONEY 101 EASY TIPS TO PLAN, SAVE, and INVEST, Jonathan D. Pond covers every aspect of handling income from first allowances to honoring heirs in estate planning. The book is a fluent reading of investment topics sprinkled with humor and illustrated with basic arithmetic. Points are well formulated, inarguable, and easy to implement. They give hope to everyone, no matter what stage in life nor how many resources to squeeze for more value. Besides the book itself, the author maintains a website for readers to get most up-to-date information for individual needs.

Everyone has to think about how they will manage money, but it is difficult to find uncomplicated material for advice. And, as the author points out, financial experts give confusing explanations that can be biased in a way that will "grow more money" for themselves from fees, sales, and/or commissions. Best objective advice is in this book. I was particularly impressed with advantageous tax savings I can take and would not have known about. I also was relieved to learn how to make affordable sound investments with a limited budget and without the risk or difficulty I previously imagined.

This is a book that will benefit everyone. It is a "must have" for every household, basic for a secure financial future.

This is a wonderful educational book on numerous areas of personal finance. It includes topics such as:

Buying and Maintaining a Home
Profiting from a Fabulous Career
Reducing Taxes
Investing in Stocks, Bonds and Real Estate
Retirement Planning
Estate Planning and Insurance
Educating Children about Money and Personal Finance

This is the most comprehensive finance book I've read and it's easy to read with some humor thrown in here and there. The author uses numerous detailed examples to illustrate his points which really help the reader understand the ideas. The book also has a companion website where the reader can go for more information or more up-to-date information as this book ages.

This is not a book that has to be read cover-to-cover. I did that, but if you want to find topics relevant to you, the author includes an age-based checklist in the front. I also really like that the end of the book includes a checklist by month of the things you should be doing throughout the year. It makes keeping up with your finances look less daunting!

The author made it easy for me to come away from the book with my own "To-Do" list, so I definitely got something out of reading this book! I also gained some new perspectives on certain areas - for example, it's a good idea to plan for early retirement because some people plan to retire later, but end up having to retire early. (You don't want to run out of money) I think the author has good insight and great ideas and I agree with his financial strategies.

Great book for all to read!

I really like the tips in this book. They work for all ages from someone just getting into learning about money to retirement. It is easy to read and you can skip around as you need to. I only give it a 4 because I wish a few tips had some more detail or at least suggestions of where to get more detail.