Smart and Simple Financial Strategies for Busy People Hardcover – January 1, 2006

This outstanding book motivated me to overcome nine years of inertia regarding financial planning. My husband and I have been vaguely worried about not saving enough for retirement or college, but we kept procrastinating research into the myriad of competing plans and investments and strategies.Fortunately, Jane Bryant Quinn has done the research and makes clear, solid recommendations about how to manage family finances. She covers all of the financial bases (including insurance and wills), so that you can be confident you haven't left anything out.She helps you establish clear financial goals, and explains which type of investments work best for various goals. Once you create your financial plan and set up automatic deposits into your investment/retirement accounts, she recommends you leave them alone and make adjustments as needed once a year! No time and energy wasted on buy/sell decisions after each stock market wiggle.Now granted, this investing program is unlikely to provide the spectacular returns that some lucky people have made in real estate or by timing the market. But Quinn argues that people who earn huge returns on their investments are really few and far between. Furthermore, she points out that those investors take on a lot of risk in order to get those kinds of returns.Her book is more than "common sense" however, - in fact, some of her ideas fly in the face of popular belief. For example, I was convinced any financial plan would have to begin with a strict budget that would ruthlessly prune lattes etc... out of our lives. Quite the contrary - Quinn says that the "latte factor" is not a significant factor in a family's financial health - it's the big ticket items that show up on credit card statements.Rather than attempt to budget and plan in ADVANCE where non-essential money goes, Quinn recommends you automate deposits to your savings/retirement accounts because you, in turn, will automatically, subconsciously, and painlessly start reining in your expenses to match the size of your checking account. It's an interesting theory, and one I want to start ASAP, as my efforts to budget every expenditure and invest anything left at the end of the month have not been very successful. She does say, however, that if you are habitually living beyond your means, racking up major credit card bills, etc..., you'll need to get that under control before you can really implement/benefit from most of the strategies in this book.All in all, an excellent book full of sound, straight forward ideas that anyone can implement - no matter how busy.

This is quite simply the best book I've ever read on personal finance. When it comes to investing and personal finance there are two types of people: those who think they know, and those who hope they know. The latter are the 1% who making a living in the finance industry and the former are the other 99%, you and me who watch the shows, read the books and think they can do it. The result? We've either not yet made the first step due the overwhelming array of choices or have been investing personally and not even come close to match the market yet outperform it over the long term. even the so called pros rarely outperform the market long-term.What this book has done is give you the simple strategies you need for your financial health. It actually does your homework for you and researched the best products out there and limited them to two or three for you to choose from. It explains that the key to financial success is find simple and good products, investing regularly in them and then sit back and let them grow. What you learn is that even with average returns, this strategy will more than meet your objectives. Trying to beat the market by individual stock picks however brings unneccessary risk to the table that rarely ever pays off in the long run.This doesn't mean there isn't room for individual stockpicking, but do it if you have time for extensive research and a real interest in the financial markets. Otherwise do yourself a real favour and buy this book.

Very thorough and knowledgeable. This is the best financial guide book I have read.

I bought this book for my 3 adult children about 5-6 years ago. Since then, I have made it a high school graduation gift (with a banknote inside) for quite a number of people. I like the straightforward and succint advice in each chapter. I especially like addtional references at the end of each chapter.To validate Quinn's advice, in the chapter on buying a house, she correctly predicted the bubble bursting.It is an excellent book for every college grad or young adult

Over the past five years I've read at least three dozen books on personal finance--everything from Marshall Loeb's classic tome to Ben Stein's contrarian books--and Quinn's latest is easily the best read I've encountered for the *average* person.Quinn effectively covers budgeting, insurance, wills, investing/retirement, and buying a home. She writes clearly, concisely, and avoids financial jargon. All of the financial advice is sound, there is nothing unorthodox here.Her defining trademark however, is her emphasis on 'Set it and Forget it' solutions that insure your well laid plans are automatically executed without too much intervention on your part. Quinn is one of the few financial experts that actually understands that most people can't spend hundreds of hours managing their money. If you ask folks to do that then it is just a matter of time until life, family, or work interfere and cause damaging mismanagement.Most people are either misinformed about financial management or simply too lazy to do the things which they ought. Quinn's book nicely tackles both sorts with straightforward information and low-effort solutions.HIGHLY Recommended without reservation.

I found this book had good tips and tricks that may not be obvious to everyone. They feel like "conservative tricks," those which work slowly but are reliable. The big problem I had with this book is that most of it deals with financial strategies once you have your finances generally taken care of, almost as if the book instructs you how to be more efficient with your income. I'm young and don't yet have a stable income, so many of the tips this book provided were beyond what I'll call my "financial development".