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The New Rules of Money: 88 Simple Strategies for Financial Success Today

by Ric Edelman

ISBN-10: 9780062720740
ISBN-10: 0-06-272074-0
ISBN-13: 9780062720740
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-272074-0
Paperback
1999-02-01
Collins


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Editorials


Product Description

Are You Playing By the New Rules?

Forget what you know about personal finance. The old rules no longer apply. Ric Edelman's 88 strategies, tailor-made for today's economy, will show you how to achieve financial success. Ric is famous for making personal finance fun, and you'll discover how easy it is to put his advice into action!

Is it smart to buy company stock with your 402 (k) plan? Discover the right way to handle your company retirement plan.
See Rule #85

Learn why you must carry a big, long mortgage -- and never pay it off!
See Rule #21

Learn why not to invest in the new Roth IRA-and discover the most powerful anti-tax investment available today.
See Rules #69 and #76

Planning to retire? Learn why you won't -- and what you must do instead.
See Rule #88

Find out why those who invest in S&P 500 Index Funds will wish they hadn't.
See Rule #36

Learn why that higher - paying job could actually cost you money.
See Rule #32


Amazon.com Review
Should you save money in your child's name? Is paying off your home mortgage a good idea? Should you invest in index funds? Ric Edelman, syndicated columnist and PBS personality, answers these and 85 other commonly asked questions in The New Rules of Money.

The book covers questions about income and debt, college planning, home ownership, investment strategies, and family matters. Accessible and easy to read, The New Rules for Money is for those who have little time for financial planning but want good, straightforward advice about what to do with their money.


Reviews


Prepare For Your Elder Years, To Feel Secure.
This is an interactive how-to book fulled with relevant comic strips and cartoons -- a very graphic publication. In it, he promotes reverse psychology to get what you want; my sister mastered in this type of child rearing which I could never learn.

This book is about setting goals, not just realistic, but real. Make this goal as though you were living it today. Visualize. By doing this, your enthusiasm will rise, your focus will intensify, and you'll be able to stick to your goal.

Nothing is impossible. Sure enough, one day, you will make it happen, because you'll have made it important to you, vitally important. After you set your goal, you have to plan how to achieve it. Too many retired people are so focused on maintaining a living that they sometimes forget to have a life, and become 'bored to tears!'

Lincoln said: "And in the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." He gives several "what-if" and "if-only" scenarios. Whatever you choose, however you go about achieving your goals, the main end result is to be happy along the way and when you reach your destination. We may not get what we want when we want it. I was told by a stranger some years ago that God does not work on our time, but He has a plan for each of us in His own time.

John Greenleaf Whittier said, "For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are those "It might have been." He tells us that "Bill Gates is rich because he own a whole lot of Microsoft, the software company he started. He's the richest person in America, perhaps the world." Part II shows you how to have your cake and eat it, too: take your choice, pound cake is fixed income investments and stocks; marble cake is filled with both. Cupcakes are fads. Avoid them.

complete waste of YOUR money
this book is contrarian to a fault. i think the author purposely incites controversy. the bottom line is this: every individual's financial circumstances vary and no one answer is correct for everybody. if you have student loans at 8% and a mortgage at 9%, it makes more sense obviously to pay down the higher debt, deductions be damned. many people make stupid mistakes such as making buying decisions based on tax deductions without thinking about the consequences to their budgets. they leave out property taxes, maintanence, etc. that adds up. for most people, paying down other debts first may make sense, but to keep your mortgage unpaid in the hopes of making double-digit returns in the market is foolish...it is much more complicated than that. there is your tax bracket, fees and expenses, time frame, investment risk, etc. such blanket statements are foolish for edelman to make. also, roth IRA's can make alot of sense to those people who qualify for them; his argument to not invest in it is weak at best and is based on loose assumptions. also, in many parts of the country, buying a starter home/townhome can make alot of sense. you can sell it for a decent profit in many cases, at least if you stay more than a couple of years. this beats renting anyday, and in his arguments he never addresses the real losses of renting, including the increase in the annual rent which in some markets can be exorbitant. anyway, read it and draw your own conclusions. there is never a substitute for common sense.

Interesting, but self-promoting
As a young, beginning investor, I have been educating myself about investments, savings, etc. With that in mind, I have been avariciously reading almost all the investment books I can find. Edelman's book first brought to my mind a concern about index funds, because every other academic book I've read supports them. I think Edelman has an axe to grind, being an personal finance manager and simply put, to Edelman, Index funds are the anti-christ and must be eliminated. However, his logic does not make sense, nor do his facts and figures hold up. The index funds simply mirror the market, and this they have done very well. He neglects to go into their low fees, and also he does not address the issue of survivorship of mutual funds, that is, that the current data that is published includes only those funds that survive so they are naturally better. Poor funds are simply eliminated or absorbed into other funds.

His comments on mortgages I found interesting, but consider that if you are getting a 10% return on an investment versus an 8% mortgage, that might make sense, but to get %10 you are going to have to invest in something risky (stocks). Can we reasonably assume that 10% is a good reasonable return? I don't think so.

So in sum, the work is biased toward moving money to professional managers while at the same time providing us with statements that are not well thought out. Better books I'd recommend are Malkiel's 'A Random Walk Down Wall Street' and Bernstein's 'The Four Pillars of Investing.'

Huh what?
I found a review supposedly by a school teacher from Florida complaining about middle income brackets of $54,000. He goes on to to say that he won't see that in 35 years.

I work for a school system in Pennsylvania and I don't know how I'd live on only $54,000/per year. I also know people in Florida who are making 6 figure incomes. One guy I know made over $50,000 last month.

Don't blame your profession, your location or Ric Eedelman. Blame the guy you see when you look in the mirror!


Edelman is a controversial guy
No doubt that Edelman is a very controversial guy--just check out these reviews. However, Edelman is also very knowledgeable and very accurate. He accurately called the Index Fund fallout as early as 1998. HE WAS WIDELY CRITICIZED FOR THAT. But as someone who listened to him, I am glad he was so perceptive!Likewise, Edelman suggests to carry a mortgage vs having a paid off mortgage and invest the difference. As another astute reviewer commented, this is a lot like the old term vs cash value life insurance debate. Which is better?Cash value is generally the better value for the insurance salesman. Likewise, a paid off mortgage is not doing you any good because it is a liability and provides no income. Better to put that extra mortgage moneyin good investments that can grow 20%-25% per year.Edelman may be controversial but his advice is right on.


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