Explains the essential concepts of finance—budgeting, forecasting, and planning—to managers who are not financial managers. Understanding Finance contains relevant information on how to: understand what the three basic financial statements and ratio analysis tell about a company's financial health; develop and track a budget; and assess an investment opportunity.
This book is essential reading for college students, faculty, parents of college students, and mid-career professionals. We are all faced with important career decisions throughout our lives, such as where to go to college or graduate school, what field to study, or what career to pursue. We also face important personal decisions, such how to save and spend, how to prepare for retirement, and whose advice to take or reject. This book provides a powerful set of personal finance concepts that will help the reader analyze their choices before the fact and help them make the best decisions possible. They are based on the principles of finance—that is, how we make decisions to achieve the best possible outcomes in the face of uncertainty.
If you’ve ever bought a personal finance book, watched a TV show about stock picking, listened to a radio show about getting out of debt, or attended a seminar to help you plan for your retirement, you’ve probably heard some version of these quotes: “What’s keeping you from being rich? In most cases, it is simply a lack of belief.” —SUZE ORMAN, The Courage to Be Rich “Are you latte-ing away your financial future?” —DAVID BACH, Smart Women Finish Rich “I know you’re capable of picking winning stocks and holding on to them.” —JIM CRAMER, Mad Money They’re common refrains among personal finance gurus. There’s just one problem: those and many similar statements are false. For the past few decades, Americans have spent billions of dollars on personal finance products. As salaries have stagnated and companies have cut back on benefits, we’ve taken matters into our own hands, embracing the can-do attitude that if we’re smart enough, we can overcome even daunting financial obstacles. But that’s not true. In this meticulously reported and shocking book, journalist and former financial columnist Helaine Olen goes behind the curtain of the personal finance industry to expose the myths, contradictions, and outright lies it has perpetuated. She shows how an industry that started as a response to the Great Depression morphed into a behemoth that thrives by selling us products and services that offer little if any help. Olen calls out some of the biggest names in the business, revealing how even the most respected gurus have engaged in dubious, even deceitful, practices—from accepting payments from banks and corporations in exchange for promoting certain products to blaming the victims of economic catastrophe for their own financial misfortune. Pound Foolish also disproves many myths about spending and saving, including: Small pleasures can bankrupt you: Gurus popularized the idea that cutting out lattes and other small expenditures could make us millionaires. But reducing our caffeine consumption will not offset our biggest expenses: housing, education, health care, and retirement. Disciplined investing will make you rich: Gurus also love to show how steady investing can turn modest savings into a huge nest egg at retirement. But these calculations assume a healthy market and a lifetime without any setbacks—two conditions that have no connection to the real world. Women need extra help managing money: Product pushers often target women, whose alleged financial ignorance supposedly leaves them especially at risk. In reality, women and men are both terrible at handling finances. Financial literacy classes will prevent future economic crises: Experts like to claim mandatory sessions on personal finance in school will cure many of our money ills. Not only is there little evidence this is true, the entire movement is largely funded and promoted by the financial services sector. Weaving together original reporting, interviews with experts, and studies from disciplines ranging from behavioral economics to retirement planning, Pound Foolish is a compassionate and compelling book that will change the way we think and talk about our money.
Does fear and insecurity keep you from looking at your bank account? Is your financial anxiety holding you captive? You don’t have to stress about money anymore. YOU can take back control. As a newly divorced single mom making $24,000 per year and facing down $77,000 in debt, Kumiko Love worried constantly about money. She saw what other moms had—vacations, birthday parties, a house full of furniture—and felt ashamed that she and her son lived in a small apartment and ate dinner on the floor. Worse, when her feelings began to exhaust her, she binge-shopped, reasoning that she’d feel better after a trip to the mall. On the day she needed to pay for a McDonald’s ice cream cone without her credit card, she had an epiphany: Money is not the problem. Self-Doubt is the problem. Shame is the problem. Guilt is the problem. Society’s expectations for her are the problem. She is the solution. Once she reversed the negative thinking patterns pushing her toward decisions that didn’t serve her values or goals, her financial plan wrote itself. Now, she’s not only living debt-free in her dream home, which she paid for in cash, but she has spread her teachings around the world and helped countless women envision better lives for themselves and their families. Now, building on the lessons she’s taught millions as the founder of The Budget Mom, she shares a step by step plan for taking control back over your financial life—regardless of your level of income or your credit card balance. Through stories from navigating divorce to helping clients thrive through recessions, depression, eviction, layoffs and so much more, you will learn foundational practices such as: How to use your emotions to your financial advantage, instead of letting them control you How to create a budget based on your real life, not a life of self-denial How to create a motivating debt pay-off plan that makes you excited about your future, instead of fearing it My Money My Way will give you the tools to align your emotional health with your financial health—to let go of deprivation and embrace desire. Love’s paradigm-shifting system will teach you how to honor your unique personal values, driving emotions, and particular needs so that you can stop worrying about money and start living a financially fulfilled life.
Financial matters are mentioned in the Bible more often than prayer, healing, or mercy. With so many people living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to build their credit and worried they will be in debt the rest of their lives, we need the Bible s words of financial wisdom more than ever. Certified Financial PlannerTM Steve Repak reveals what the Bible has to say about spending, saving, and giving in this 6-Week Money Challenge. His simple, step-by-step program is founded on biblical principles paired with a CFPTM's understanding of modern wealth-management strategies. Steve inspires and motivates readers to change their financial lives by challenging them to commit to his biblical boot camp. In just six weeks, readers will complete practical and achievable weekly challenges designed for group or individual use. Take the 6-week money challenge now and get fit for a healthy financial future.
This book is essential reading for college students, faculty, parents of college students, and mid-career professionals. We are all faced with important career decisions throughout our lives, such as where to go to college or graduate school, what field to study, or what career to pursue. We also face important personal decisions, such how to save and spend, how to prepare for retirement, and whose advice to take or reject. This book provides a powerful set of personal finance concepts that will help the reader analyze their choices before the fact and help them make the best decisions possible. They are based on the principles of finance--that is, how we make decisions to achieve the best possible outcomes in the face of uncertainty.
MEET YOUR FINANCIAL THERAPIST: Improve your financial literary and heal your relationship with money using this 3-part framework combining mindfulness, radical self-love, and body awareness. “An exciting, important voice to the money conversation . . . at once spiritual and practical, this is the education we've been waiting for.” —Lynne Twist, author of The Soul of Money For many of us, the most challenging and upsetting relationship in our lives is with our finances—and it often brings feelings of shame or powerlessness. Enter Bari Tessler, your new financial therapist and money-savvy best friend. Her “Art of Money” program gives you the tools you need to improve your financial literary and heal your money anxiety in 3 phases: • Money Healing: Heal money shame through body-based check-ins, transformative money rituals, and by reframing your “money story”. • Money Practices: Learn to approach money as a self-care practice—with advice on values-based bookkeeping, finding financial support, and setting up helpful tracking systems. • Money Maps: Designed to evolve with you over time, the 3-Tier Money Map helps you make good money decisions and affirm your money legacy. Bari Tessler’s gentle techniques weave together mindfulness, emotional depth, big-picture visioning, and refreshingly accessible money practices. A feminine and empowering guide, The Art of Money will help you transform your relationship with money—and in doing so, transform your life. Check out The Art of Money Workbook for more insights and teachings.
THE MILLION-COPY NEW YORK TIMES, BUSINESS WEEK, WALL STREET JOURNAL AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER IS BACK - COMPLETELY UPDATED! With over ONE MILLION copies sold - Smart Women Finish Rich is one of the most popular financial books for women ever written. A perennial bestseller for over two decades, now Bach returns with a completely updated, expanded and revised edition, Smart Women Finish Rich, to address the new financial concerns and opportunities for today's women. Whether you are just getting started in your investment life, looking to manage your money yourself, or work closely with a financial advisor, this book is your proven roadmap to the life you want and deserve. With Smart Women Finish Rich, you will feel like you are being coached personally by one of America's favorite and most trusted financial experts. The Smart Women Finish Rich program has helped millions of women for over twenty years gain confidence, clarity and control over their financial well-being--it has been passed from generations to generation -- and it now can help you.
“The newbie investor will not find a better guide to personal finance.” —Burton Malkiel, author of A RANDOM WALK DOWN WALL STREET TV analysts and money managers would have you believe your finances are enormously complicated, and if you don’t follow their guidance, you’ll end up in the poorhouse. They’re wrong. When University of Chicago professor Harold Pollack interviewed Helaine Olen, an award-winning financial journalist and the author of the bestselling Pound Foolish, he made an offhand suggestion: everything you need to know about managing your money could fit on an index card. To prove his point, he grabbed a 4" x 6" card, scribbled down a list of rules, and posted a picture of the card online. The post went viral. Now, Pollack teams up with Olen to explain why the ten simple rules of the index card outperform more complicated financial strategies. Inside is an easy-to-follow action plan that works in good times and bad, giving you the tools, knowledge, and confidence to seize control of your financial life.
Personal finance journalist, Michelle McGagh, takes on a challenge to not spend money for a whole year in an engaging narrative that combines personal experience with accessible advice on money so you can learn to spend less and live more. Michelle McGagh has been writing about money for over a decade but she was spending with abandon and ignoring bank statements. Just because she wasn't in serious debt, apart from her massive London mortgage, she thought she was in control. She wasn't. Michelle's took a radical approach and set herself a challenge to not spend anything for an entire year. She paid her bills and she has a minimal budget for her weekly groceries but otherwise Michelle spent no money at all. She found creative ways to live have a social life and to travel for free. She has saved money but more importantly she is happier. Her relationship with money, with things, with time, with others has changed for the better. The No Spend Year is Michelle's honestly written and personal account of her challenge. But it is more than that, it is also a tool for life. There are top tips for your own finances including easy to understand advice on interest, mortgages, savings , pensions and spending less to help you live a more financially secure life.
