The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need
My mother swears by this book. She picked up a copy back when it first came out and used the strategies and knowledge within as the basis for her own savings and investment plan. She's been trying to convince me to read it for the better part of a decade now, and I'm glad I finally did.
The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need is fairly easy to read, considering the difficulty of some of the material. It's short and straightforward. And if I skimmed some of the sections, that's mostly because the information wasn't currently relevant. It's a good reference, though. One I'm sure I'll be coming back to again and again.
Most of the information contained in this book is common sense. Though it's possible I just think that because I recognize so much of my mother's advice as coming from this book: Save at least 10% of every paycheck and don't ever touch that money. Mutual funds are the cheapest, easiest strategy for long-term investments. You cannot beat the S&P 500. Some people do sometimes, but no one can do it consistently.
There were a few things that made me look at my money a little differently. For example, the author holds that a penny saved is actually worth 2 pennies earned. When you consider how heavily taxed additional income is (think about that bonus you only ever saw half of) this mindset makes a lot of sense. He has an entire chapter dedicated to saving strategies, some of which I already use or plan to. Others of which I just don't care about. I'll happily drink a cheaper bottle of wine I bought by the case because I can't tell the difference, or trade cable in for streaming services. But I'm not about to stop buying books.
There's a lot of information in this book, and I did skip certain chapters. I'm not interested in playing the stock market; I have neither the time nor the interest to do it well. I don't yet have kids I need to teach about saving. But those chapters may come in handy in the future. The ones that were relevant to me laid the information out in an easy-to-understand way with lots of examples to back up the author's arguments about smart investing versus gambling. And if those stories were mostly anecdotal, well investing isn't exactly science. If it were, I wouldn't be half as confused by it as I often find myself.
By the time I'd finished this book, I had at least the beginnings of pretty solid plan for my own (and my husband's (our?)) money. I was able to identify our goals, both short and long term, and convince myself that they were attainable. Even better, I only had to tweak our current strategy, rather than overhaul it completely. Like I said, I've already absorbed most of this. But it was nice to be reminded of it.
The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need is fairly easy to read, considering the difficulty of some of the material. It's short and straightforward. And if I skimmed some of the sections, that's mostly because the information wasn't currently relevant. It's a good reference, though. One I'm sure I'll be coming back to again and again.
Most of the information contained in this book is common sense. Though it's possible I just think that because I recognize so much of my mother's advice as coming from this book: Save at least 10% of every paycheck and don't ever touch that money. Mutual funds are the cheapest, easiest strategy for long-term investments. You cannot beat the S&P 500. Some people do sometimes, but no one can do it consistently.
There were a few things that made me look at my money a little differently. For example, the author holds that a penny saved is actually worth 2 pennies earned. When you consider how heavily taxed additional income is (think about that bonus you only ever saw half of) this mindset makes a lot of sense. He has an entire chapter dedicated to saving strategies, some of which I already use or plan to. Others of which I just don't care about. I'll happily drink a cheaper bottle of wine I bought by the case because I can't tell the difference, or trade cable in for streaming services. But I'm not about to stop buying books.
There's a lot of information in this book, and I did skip certain chapters. I'm not interested in playing the stock market; I have neither the time nor the interest to do it well. I don't yet have kids I need to teach about saving. But those chapters may come in handy in the future. The ones that were relevant to me laid the information out in an easy-to-understand way with lots of examples to back up the author's arguments about smart investing versus gambling. And if those stories were mostly anecdotal, well investing isn't exactly science. If it were, I wouldn't be half as confused by it as I often find myself.
By the time I'd finished this book, I had at least the beginnings of pretty solid plan for my own (and my husband's (our?)) money. I was able to identify our goals, both short and long term, and convince myself that they were attainable. Even better, I only had to tweak our current strategy, rather than overhaul it completely. Like I said, I've already absorbed most of this. But it was nice to be reminded of it.
Comments
Post a Comment