Easy Money: How to Simplify Your Finances and Get What You Want out of Life [Paperback]

Liz Weston (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0132383837 | ISBN-13: 978-0132383837 | Publication Date: November 16, 2007 | Edition: 1

Pulliam Weston (Your Credit Score), columnist for MSN Money and author of the nationally syndicated column "Money Talk," provides a practical, easy-to-understand guide to taking control of personal finances and establishing financial security. Like most financial advice books, this collection covers the basics, such as creating a financial toolkit, investing, planning for retirement and saving for college. While Pulliam Weston provides insights into these areas-especially for those without a financial background-she also charts new territory with her "60 Percent Solution" and "50/30/20 Plan," both aimed at spending control, as well as getting the most out of your credit cards and what to do if you've overspent on a car purchase. An advocate of online banking, Pulliam Weston maps out the right way to pay bills and advocates account aggregation and consolidation. She also provides a useful resource guide for finding a financial planner, a tax professional and an estate planning attorney. Checklists are included in each chapter, as well as helpful charts and tables that aid in getting and staying organized. This book will be a valuable guide on the path to financial control and security.

                                                --Publishers Weekly

 

 

“If you want to simplify your life and make solid decisions—fast—this book is your answer. It’s one more reason Liz remains one of America’s most trusted financial columnists. Quick, easy, and empowering!”

—Jennifer Openshaw, Author of The Millionaire Zone and CEO, WinningAdvice.com

 

“As usual, Liz cuts to the chase to provide readers with practical, easy to implement tips for living a rich life. If you follow only half of her on-the-money recommendations you’ll be exponentially better off tomorrow than you are today.”

—Lois P. Frankel, Ph.D., Author of Nice Girls Don’t Get Rich and

Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office

 

Simplify your financial life…

now and forever!

 

• By the Internet’s #1 personal finance expert, MSN’s Liz Pulliam Weston

• Stop feeling overwhelmed by your finances: take control, the easy way!

• Save time, avoid mistakes, and help secure your future

 

Common sense. Easy solutions. Plain English. Best selling author,

Liz Pulliam Weston, takes on the problem everyone has, and nobody talks about: the sheer hassle of managing your money! Weston offers practical guidance and easy checklists for every decision: investments, credit cards, insurance, mortgages, retirement, college savings, and more! Discover how to consolidate, delegate, and automate your finances…save time and money…and live a more rewarding, secure life!

 

www.lizweston.com

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pulliam Weston (Your Credit Score), columnist for MSN Money and author of the nationally syndicated column Money Talk, provides a practical, easy-to-understand guide to taking control of personal finances and establishing financial security. Like most financial advice books, this collection covers the basics, such as creating a financial toolkit, investing, planning for retirement and saving for college. While Pulliam Weston provides insights into these areas—especially for those without a financial background—she also charts new territory with her 60 Percent Solution and 50/30/20 Plan, both aimed at spending control, as well as getting the most out of your credit cards and what to do if you've overspent on a car purchase. An advocate of online banking, Pulliam Weston maps out the right way to pay bills and advocates account aggregation and consolidation. She also provides a useful resource guide for finding a financial planner, a tax professional and an estate planning attorney. Checklists are included in each chapter, as well as helpful charts and tables that aid in getting and staying organized. This book will be a valuable guide on the path to financial control and security. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Liz Pulliam Weston is the most-read personal finance columnist on the Internet, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. She’s also an award-winning, nationally syndicated personal finance columnist who can make the most complex money topics understandable to the average reader. She is the author of the national best-seller Your Credit Score: How to Fix, Improve and Protect the 3-Digit Number that Shapes Your Financial Future and of Deal with Your Debt: The Right Way to Manage Your Bills and Pay Off What You Owe. She also was a contributor to The Experts’ Guide to the Baby Years.

 

Liz’s columns run twice a week on MSN Money, which reaches more than 12 million readers each month. Millions more read her question-and-answer column “Money Talk,” which appears in newspapers throughout the country, including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Palm Beach Post, the Portland Oregonian, the Newark Star-Ledger, Stars & Stripes, and others.

 

Liz appears regularly on numerous television and radio programs, including American Public Media’s “Marketplace Money” and NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” and “All Things Considered.” She was for several years a weekly commentator on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” and has been quoted in numerous publications, including Consumer Reports, Real Simple, Family Circle, Men’s Health, Woman’s Day, Parents, Christian Science Monitor, the Associated Press, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, Forbes.com, and others.

 

Weston is a graduate of the certified financial planner training program at University of California, Irvine. She can be reached via the “contact Liz” form on her Web site, www.asklizweston.com.

 

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Financial Times; 1 edition (November 16, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0132383837
• ISBN-13: 978-0132383837
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (58 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #796,323 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Liz Pulliam Weston is the most-read personal finance columnist on the Internet, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. She's also an award-winning, nationally-syndicated personal finance columnist who can make the most complex money topics understandable to the average reader.

Her first book, "Your Credit Score," is the best-selling book on credit scoring and was recently published in a third edition (February 2009). Her second book, "Deal with Your Debt: The Right Way to Manage Your Bills and Pay Off What You Owe," was published by Pearson Prentice Hall in 2005. Her third book, December 2007, is "Easy Money: How to Simplify Your Finances and Get What You Want Out of Life." She also was a contributor to "The Experts' Guide to the Baby Years" (2006).

Liz's columns run twice a week on MSN Money, which reaches more than 12 million readers each month. Millions more read her question-and-answer column 'Money Talk,' which appears in newspapers throughout the country, including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Palm Beach Post, the Portland Oregonian, Stars & Stripes and others.

Liz has appeared on "The Dr. Phil Show," "The Today Show" and "CBS Evening News with Brian Williams" and is frequently featured on American Public Media's "Marketplace Money" and NPR's 'Talk of the Nation' and "All Things Considered." She was for several years a weekly commentator on CNBC's "Power Lunch."

Weston is a graduate of the certified financial planner training program at University of California, Irvine. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter. She can be reached via her Web site, AskLizWeston.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More than a single reading's worth, January 28, 2008

By 

calmly - See all my reviews

This review is from: Easy Money: How to Simplify Your Finances and Get What You Want out of Life (Paperback)

(What's this?)

This is a book to come back to, there's too much to take advantage of from a single reading. Nevertheless, I found I could write down items immediately that I could take advantage of soon. One excellent advice I hadn't seen before was to take my earnings record from my annual Social Security Statement to get my lifetime earnings (to date), add up my total (taxed Medicare) earnings and compare that to my net worth. Liz suggests aiming for my net worth to be 100% of more of my lifetime earnings by the time I am ready to retire. Whoa, trouble! I can see that I am going to have to read this book carefully as I must be in need of Liz's help.

"Easy Money" is well-organized and seems thorough. Each section is succinct and practically oriented. Some of the advice I've learned over time: the value of an alphabetical filing system, the value of index funds , and whether umbrella liability insurance might be, as Liz puts is, "a good idea". Liz places emphasis on the advice of John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard Funds and explains her recommendation of index funds. She lists a book by Bogle in the "Resources and Recommendations" section of this book. She also discusses why mortgage prepayment might not be wise. She provides what seems to be excellent advice about use of financial planners and when to use a tax professional (tax software just may not handle your situation as well as a professional might). There's a good section on planning for college, something those with young children might not want to delay for too long.

There are some tips I haven't considered. One is the idea of a "buy-nothing month" during which one only purchases true necessities. The intent is to get a feeling for how many and how often one buys non-essentials. Another idea is having a "pause button", i.e. keeping a list of things to buy and having a some "cooling off" period, say 3 days, before considering whether to really buy something one has placed on that list.

Web sites are suggested for "savvy shoppers". For example, the benefit of the Consumer Reports web site, which is relatively inexpensive for a year's access. I've used this web site for several years and refer to it often enough and for major enough purchases that it has been a great value to me.

I'd suggest keeping this book out, perhaps with your dictionary, so that you are reminded of it and can browse through it periodically to see if there is something you can put into practice. Do I really want to keep track of my spending with personal finance software? I did that once and it helped me find a great deal of needless spending, enough in one year to pay for the personal computer I'd just bought. But it does take commitment to keep track of everything ... and a personal computer that one has ready enough access to!

Look at the price of this book here at Amazon, go to Search Inside and at least look at the Table of Contents to see how much Liz covers and how much would be useful to you anytime soon (it might well be a lot). It's not just the thorough coverage that I recommend this book for (there are other books on personal finances I've seen with that), it's the sharp organization, succinctness and practicality. If you know of a better book on personal finances, let me know. For now, I plan to get what value I can out of this one: Liz's "pause button" idea is something I can implement immediately.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Buy any other book this author recommends (see below) instead of this book!, June 20, 2008

By 

komyathy (U.S.A. & elsewhere traveling) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Easy Money: How to Simplify Your Finances and Get What You Want out of Life (Paperback)

(What's this?)

How to simplify your finances, is how this book is billed, yet the appendix lists 18 books to consult for further information/insights/ideas/strategies. Moreover, this book's 173 pages (160 if blank pages aren't counted, or about 100 if the print wasn't so huge) seems confused whose its audience is. A third or so of the book recommends how one ought to go about finding a certified financial planner (CFP) to help well-off folks with their investments, or to choose the right mortgage. But an even larger portion of the book addresses people who are probably totally clueless and without much if any net worth. You be the judge whether these "tips" will be of use to you. Everyone, Ms Weston states, needs to save more money and, if possible, spend less on housing costs. No more than a third of your income should be spend on housing, she posits. What to do if you're spending more? Try getting a boarder! Or a roommate! That's what the author suggests, or perhaps one ought to consider refinancing, she adds, or even move. Other ways to save money, according to the author, include the following: run your washing machine only when full; discontinue high-speed internet access or even cable TV; brown bag it for lunch now and then, or even plant a vegetable garden!; pay off your credit cards with the highest interest rates first. Interestingly too, concerning the latter "tip," the author notes that only 1 out of 14 folks, on average, carry a credit card balance over $10,000. But then, oddly, she spends the next ten pages on people who might be in this situation. Shop for lower interest rates, ask your card companies for better rates, make a budget and try to stick to it, and finally, she suggests that folks should just stop using their high-interest cards. Put them on the shelf, she says. I expected a lot more from this book than that. Frankly, you'd be better off just buying one of the books she recommends in her appendix than reading this catalog of the obvious (buy index funds instead of individual stocks, do research before visiting a car dealer looking for a new car, do your banking online and link your various accounts, and so on).

The books she recommends (that I daresay you would be better off consulting than this book): Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independenceby Joe Dominguez & Vicki Robin; Personal Finance For Dummies, 5th editionby Eric Tyson; "Smart Couples finish Rich" by David Bach; "Plan your Estate" by Clifford and Jordan; "100 Questions Every First-time Home Buyer should ask" by Ilyce Glink, "Saving for Retirement" by Gail MarksJarvis, and "The Little book of Common Sense Investing" by John Bogle.

Or I'd add, just consult The Wall Street Journal. Complete Personal Finance Guidebook (The Wall Street Journal Guidebooks).

Good Luck!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Keep it simple, keep it real, February 18, 2008

By 

Nathan Andersen "film lover, philosophy profe... (Florida) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Easy Money: How to Simplify Your Finances and Get What You Want out of Life (Paperback)

(What's this?)

I sometimes wish that self-help and money management and business books would take on realistic titles -- that didn't promise something bigger than they can deliver, something that is not so obviously a publisher ploy to attract readers. In the case of this book, though, the title fits -- Ms. Weston has a very simple strategy for dealing with what can seem to be an overwhelming set of considerations. It won't bring in new income but will help make the most of what you've already got, and makes things about as simple as they can be without resorting to unhelpful platitudes.

The basic strategy of the book falls under a few simple headings: (1) develop a system that lets you track exactly where you are and where you need to be; (2) make this system as simple as possible and as automatic as possible -- the book has completely left behind the old check register system and enthusiastically endorses online banking and automatic bill pay as much as and wherever possible (and she reminds us that it is possible with so many banks that you really should just find one that lets you do what you need); (3) get clear about your essentials and priorities, and see where you can shave costs off of ongoing and enduring and essential expenses; (4) after that, there isn't much to say about saving change here and there by substituting cheap coffee for an expensive latte (though she does mention a few opportunities to stockpile small change in order gradually to build a savings buffer), since when you are clear about essentials, and have a system that tells you exactly how much you have and how much you need to take care of your priorities, then frivolous expenses appear as such. It's easier to focus on priorities when you are aware of what it takes to reach them.

I read books like this for the same kind of feeling as I get when I hear a good sermon or a good lecture or see a good movie. It doesn't tell me anything really all that new but puts what I know in a new perspective and serves as a kind of call to action and call to change -- a call to do the things I always like to say and think I ought to do but don't always do as well as I like. Where this adds is offering a clear strategy for going about that change. There is no magic pill in this book, and "easy" may be too strong of a word -- but she does keep things as simple as can be to help you keep things as real as can be.