Personal Finance: An Integrated Planning Approach (8th Edition)

Personal Finance: An Integrated Planning Approach (8th Edition) Review

The goal of this book is two-fold. The first is to have readers appreciate the importance of planning and have a basic understanding of planning techniques. The second is to develop readers' abilities to think critically and to make effective decisions. This book covers financial planning including the time value of money, cash management, buying now and paying later, investment basics, stock and bonds, mutual funds, and protecting your income and wealth. For financial advisors/planners and any individual seeking a sound financial plan.

The Complete Personal Finance Handbook: A Step-by-Step Instructions to Take Control of Your Financial Future With Companion CD-ROM

The Complete Personal Finance Handbook: A Step-by-Step Instructions to Take Control of Your Financial Future With Companion CD-ROM Review

Personal financial planning is the process of establishing your own financial goals and creating a way to reach them. The ongoing process involves examining all existing resources, developing a plan to use them, and systematically implementing the plan to achieve your short and long-term goals. They must be monitored and reviewed periodically to make adjustments to assure that they continue to move you toward your financial goals. Your family's financial future depends in large part on decisions you make and steps you take today. Busy, successful people are often so involved with day-to-day personal and business responsibilities that they don't take the time to plan their own financial future. And unfortunately, financial security and sound investments rarely happen by chance. This new book, written in easy-to-understand terminology, will guide you on the way to financial security for you and your family. You will learn the personal financial basics of budgeting; insurance; marriage, single, and divorce financial solutions; health care possibilities; retirement planning and saving; wills and estate planning; managing and eliminating debt; solving your credit score and credit issues; and home ownership. You will avoid legal issues, obtain documents you need to have, deal with mortgages, taxes, and tax planning. You will invest your money using the latest strategies while responding to life events, starting a small business, getting college financial aid, avoiding debt and bankruptcy, and borrowing money. The new areas of concern are explained: elder issues and identity theft worries. The companion workbook on the CD-ROM contains worksheets, charts, and quizzes to help you set financial goals, budget, find how to reach those goals, set retirement planning goals, and determine the best savings and investment strategies that fit your situation.

Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance In Your Twenties and Thirties

Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance In Your Twenties and Thirties Review

“A highly readable and substantial guide to the grown-up realms of money and business.” —Deborah Stead, The New York Times,

If you've been meaning to get your finances in shape but have no idea where to start, this is your playbook: The all-new edition of the New York Times bestseller Get a Financial Life busts open the system, teaching tricks for becoming master of your own money universe. No matter what's happening in the economy, all the guidance you need is right here. You'll learn how to:

• Pay off your credit cards and student loans and live debt free

• Start saving, even if you're living paycheck to paycheck

• Take advantage of the latest tax rules and save a bundle

• Find smart investments while still supporting socially responsible companies

• Come up with a down payment and buy a home, even in a tough economy

• Afford grad school

• Protect yourself from identity theft

And you'll discover why a 401(k) is your best friend—even if the market is tanking.

From tracking your spending to finding deals on insurance to navigating the new world of homebuying, this easy-to-understand, comprehensive guide provides an up-to-date road map of the world of personal finance. Whether you earn ,000 or 0,000, are single or married, are drowning in debt or just looking for ways to keep your savings secure in uncertain times, you'll find the answers you need in Get a Financial Life.

“A daring book. . . . A life's worth of smart financial advice.” —Newsweek

Personal Investing: The Missing Manual (Missing Manuals)

Personal Investing: The Missing Manual (Missing Manuals) Review

Personal Investing: The Missing Manual (Missing Manuals) Feature

• ISBN13: 9781449381783
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

Did your investments take a hit in the recession? You're not alone. Between 2007 and mid-year 2009, the average 401K lost 31% of its value. Ouch. It's time to take control of your investments with Personal Investing: The Missing Manual. Financial experts agree that with the right guidance, consumers can make investments better than many professionals. This lively and easy-to-understand guide gives you the confidence, tools, and insight you need to evaluate financial products and make smart investments that target success over the long term.

You'll learn how to set long-term goals for critical, high-cost events such as retirement, your children's education, and future health care needs. Then you'll learn what types of investments will best help you achieve those goals. In step-by-step fashion, this book shows you how to research mutual funds, stocks, bonds, and other financial products to create a portfolio of diversified investments.

• Get crystal-clear, practical advice from personal finance expert Bonnie Biafore, author of Missing Manuals on the Quicken personal-finance program and QuickBooks business finance program
• Understand why you need to invest -- Biafore shows you how savings accounts simply won't outpace inflation or give you the returns you need for long-term goals
• Learn how to evaluate and buy traditional investments, such as stocks, bonds, and mutual funds
• Discover lesser-known investments, such as index funds and exchange-traded funds, which cost you less and provide more tax advantages
• Choose the best funds offered by your employer for your 401K, and learn how to get the greatest tax advantages

How Investing Makes Your Money Work Harder

With inflation’s 3.41% price increases compounding year after year, figuring your expenses produces some galactic numbers. Sadly, you can’t choose whether to accept the compounding of inflation. But what if you could use compounding to inflate the money you save? It turns out that you can, by investing your money and reinvesting all your earnings. You can choose the compounding of the returns you earn on your money, so it’s important to understand just how powerful this strategy is. True, investment returns aren’t as steady as the inflation rate. Some years are better than others, and some years are downright dogs. But for now, assume that your investments increase 7% each year (that’s the return most financial planners tell their clients they can expect on a diversified investment portfolio). Say you seed a retirement account with ,000, as the table below shows. If you earn 7% the first year, you’ll have ,700 at the end of the year. The second year, you earn 9 (7% on ,700) and end up with ,449. If you earn 7% each year for 40 years (from the time you start working until you retire), you’d have almost 0,000! That’s 0,000 of earnings on a single ,000 investment.



On the other hand, what if you invested ,000 and earned 7%, but withdrew each year’s earnings? (That return is called simple interest, because you earn the same amount on your original investment each year.) You’d earn 0 each year for 40 years, for total earnings of ,000 on your original ,000 investment. By letting your investment returns compound, your total earnings are five times what you’d earn with simple interest. The graph below shows how your nest egg grows like wildfire when you let your earnings compound.



Compounding is a powerful force, even when the rate is small, as you’ve seen with inflation. But this technique really shines when you earn higher returns, like the 7% from a diversified portfolio, and give your portfolio time to mature. The graph below shows how a ,000 nest egg grows when you put your money in diversified investments, bonds, money market funds, and savings accounts. Compare the line for inflation to see how investing can help you beat the steady rise in prices. You can see how investments start to take off after 15 years. That’s compounding at work, and that’s why it’s important to start investing for long-term goals as early as you can.



Investing for the Long Term

Although well-diversified investing works like magic when you give it time, it doesn’t make sense for short-term goals. That’s because you have to accept some risk to earn higher returns. Investments in the stock market can decrease during a single year--and do so every several years. The good news is that the risk of losing money decreases the longer you keep your money invested (think decades). During recessions, the stock market can really tank, like the almost 50% drop it suffered in 2001. You wouldn’t want to see half your nest egg go away the year before you retire. However, since 1929, the average annual return on stocks is more than 11% despite battering from the Great Depression and several recessions. Besides, a diversified portfolio isn’t invested solely in the stock market, as you’ll learn in Chapter 9. By investing in stocks, bonds, and real estate, you won’t see drops as big as the ones for stocks alone. Chapters 9, 10, and 11 also tell you how to move money that you need in the next few years into ultrasafe savings so it’s around when you need it. Lots of folks would rather be certain of having a small amount of money than worry about whether a large nest egg might falter right when they need it. You might think that putting money into a guaranteed money market account means you won’t lose money. Think again. If your money doesn’t keep up with inflation, you lose buying power, which is the same as losing money.

A Little Bit of Everything For Dummies

A Little Bit of Everything For Dummies Review

Twenty years ago the very first For Dummies book, DOS For Dummies, was published. From that first printing of that first book came a series unlike anything in the publishing world, one that is global in both geography - we have been published worldwide in some 30 languages - and in coverage. No single volume can hope to summarize what thousands of titles have meant to millions of readers over the years, and we don't claim to do that in this e-book. Rather, this e-book celebrates the breadth and depth of the For Dummies series, offering 20 chapters - in honor of our 20 years - from a list of books compiled by our global colleagues. We are confident the chapters we've included give you a representative glimpse at why - no matter what the topic - our products have meant so much to so many by Making Everything Easier. We've grouped our chapters into five main parts:

Part I:Dummies Classics, offers four chapters from some of our best-loved books. There's a chapter from DOS For Dummies, the book that started it all, and chapters from two of our best-sellers: Windows 7 For Dummies and Sex For Dummies. And just for a bit of spice, we've included a chapter from French For Dummies.

Part II: Daily Dose of Dummies, offers the kind of lifestyle, self-help, and business skills that our readers have come to treasure. There's one of our famous Part of Tens chapters from Cognititive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies and a chapter from Meditation For Dummies to help you get your center. Chapters from Leadership For Dummies and Marketing For Dummies help you develop new skills for the marketplace.

Part III, Fun with Dummies, celebrates life and all it has to offer. We've got chapters here from The Royal Wedding For Dummies, Guitar For Dummies, Digital Photography SLR All-in-One For Dummies, Puppies for Dummies, Knitting For Dummies, and Wine For Dummies.

Part IV, Get Social, highlights how we help you grow and develop new skills. Chapters here come from Facebook For Dummies, Social Media Marketing For Dummies, and Dating For Dummies.

Part V, Going Global, shares the worldwide appeal of the For Dummies series. These chapters from British History For Dummies, Canadian History For Dummies, and Rugby Union For Dummies were created by our global colleagues and authors and show how the For Dummies approach applies not only to whatever the subject is at hand, but also wherever the discussion is taking place.

Download and enjoy!

Personal Finance Workbook For Dummies

Personal Finance Workbook For Dummies Review

Hands-on tools and strategies to boost your financial fitness

From analyzing assets to planning for retirement, this new edition of Personal Finance Workbook For Dummies gives you the information and resources you need to get your finances under control.

Personal Finance Workbook For Dummies walks you through a private financial counseling session, using worksheets, checklists, and formulas for assessing financial health, providing for day-to-day financial management, making wise financial decisions, and investing for financial growth.

• Addresses the latest changes in tax and credit laws and regulations
• Strong focus on behavioral finance and how these issues impact decision-making with regard to personal money management
• Tips to plan for big-ticket purchases
• Expanded coverage on building and managing wealth
• Information on how effective asset allocation can help reduce volatility and/or increase opportunity
• Websites and ideas on how to get the most bang for your buck in everyday household expenditures

From budgeting and cutting expenses to getting out of debt and planning for retirement, Personal Finance Workbook For Dummies is a solution for those looking to avoid bankruptcy as well as those looking for something to help them plan for a successful financial future.

From Ramen to Riches: Building Wealth in Your 20s: Or Spending, Saving, Investing and Managing Your Money to Get Rich Slowly, but Surely

From Ramen to Riches: Building Wealth in Your 20s: Or Spending, Saving, Investing and Managing Your Money to Get Rich Slowly, but Surely Review

"You mean to tell me you've been employed as a software engineer for five years and your net worth is 0?" These are not the words you want to hear from your mortgage banker when you're looking to borrow a large sum of money. Despite a well-paying job, the author had managed to spend everything he had earned in the five years after college. The meeting with the mortgage officer was his financial epiphany. He finally got serious about managing and investing his money. Now in his early 50s, the author is debt free, owns a house free and clear, and has built a retirement portfolio that will comfortably sustain him and his wife in the coming years. This book will help people avoid the financial mistakes the author made the first few years after college. In a breezy, humorous, and conversational style, it describes a common-sense approach to spending, saving, investing, and managing your money to build wealth over time. If you are looking to get a grip on managing your money, From Ramen to Riches is for you!

Silver medal winner in the 2011 Living Now Book Awards. Finalist in the 2011 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Personal Finance inYour 20s &30s, 4th Edition

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Personal Finance inYour 20s &30s, 4th Edition Review

A wise investment.

Revised and updated, this new edition of The Complete Idiot's Guide(r) to Personal Finance in Your 20s and 30s explains all the basic information anyone in this age group will need to manage their personal finances or enhance their financial plan to yield better returns on their investments.

*Covers 401(k) and retirement planning plus investment strategies for the next decade
*Budgeting tips for spiraling food and fuel costs, as well as the financial impacts of changing jobs and growing families
*Home ownership options from building from scratch to townhouses and Condos
*Up-to-date information on internet banking and online mortgage brokers
Download a sample chapter.