Customer Reviews

Everybody Wants Your Money: The Straight-Talking Guide to Protecting (and Growing) the Wealth You Worked So Hard to Earn

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Boy, does that title ring true! I also noticed on the cover of this book the wording, "Because that hand in your pocket... isn't yours!" You and I know that everybody wants your money in one form or another. However, I discovered some new ways while reading this book that I just finished. It is Written by David W. Latko, who is the co-host for the national radio program, "Money and More". Impressively, David Latko ranks among the nation's top one percent of financial advisors. I can just imagine how 'in demand' he is. He started off in a middle class neighborhood and moved his way up by helping people.

Where do you usually turn for answers with questions regarding investing, real estate, divorce, automobiles, identity theft, and so much more? If you say your family, friends, neighbors, or your own financial advisor, then you REALLY need to read this book to make sure you are steered on the right path. Looks can be deceiving. Do your homework, starting with this book, because it is YOUR money and YOUR financial future you are looking out for. No one else has such a vested interest in your finances as you need to, except for the slime balls mentioned in this book that you have to watch out for who want your money.

David not only presents practical advice in this book. He also shares memorable stories that yank on the heartstrings and gets your blood boiling. Think you are safe from your own family members who are to inherit your money? Think again and take a look at the story examples in this book. If nothing else, you will at least be aware and prepared just in case.

This book would make great gifts for everyone in your life. What better gift can you give them than to make sure they don't make wrong financial decisions that can destroy their future? I'm going to be buying and giving this book to some of my own family and friends as gifts. I am keeping mine to refer to and share with my children when needed. This book is definitely worth it!

... Story example: Willa and Tony, a retired couple who had a horrific experience with their first financial advisor. They came into some money. They had no idea what to do to invest or what to do.

So they solicited some advice from other retired friends. One of them had received a postcard in the mail a week before, and he passed it along to Tony and Willa. It gave the name and number of a financial advisor who worked in a branch office of a major brokerage which they knew of from hearing about it on TV.

In short order, their new advisor "handled" their prosperity problem. He put them into a range of investments that Willa and Tony did not clearly understand. Then, after a month or so of frenetic activity, he stopped calling-or returning their calls.

With their frustration mounting, they mentioned their problem to a person who happened to be a client of Davids. Turns out the other advisor had locked Willa and Tony into investments that carried staggeringly large up-front commissions; others carried long-term (and expensive) surrender charges.

There was little that could be done. The couple were tied into investments that could not be changed without taking a significant financial hit, in the case of Willa and Tony, it was more than a $26,000 loss.

I purchased this book after seeing the author interviewed by Ron Corning on ABC World News Now. The subtitle of the book, "The Straight-Talking Guide to Protecting (and Growing) the Wealth You Worked So Hard to Earn" is only partially true. While there is an abundance of information in the book on PROTECTING your money, the GROWING (your money) part is woefully lacking. Latko provides very little specific information about exactly where to invest your money, depending on your age, income, family situation, etc. Mostly, Latko tells readers where not to invest it. He does not divulge any investment strategies. You will have to hire him (or someone else) as your personal financial advisor to get that information.

Aside from that, the information about how to deal with your broker or financial advisor is helpful. There is also some good information on buying versus leasing a car, buying versus renting a home, how to deal with real estate agents, and the finances of divorce. However, the section on identity theft breaks no new ground and offers no new information about how the prevent ID theft. In fact, Latko quotes an FBI agent as saying: "I can give you some tips. But as a practical matter, nobody has figured out how to stop these people. And between us, it is going to get a lot worse." Well, thanks a lot for that!

Most books talk about how to earn wealth, not how to protect what you've already got: enter EVERYBODY WANTS YOUR MONEY: THE STRAIGHT-TALKING GUIDE TO PROTECTING (AND GROWING) THE WEALTH YOU WORKED SO HARD TO EARN. Now, here's a winning guide which tells how to stay in touch with what you've already got. Chapters come from a self-made multimillionaire who came from a lower-middle-class family and today manages over $100 million in client assets. They speak of how brokers, financial advisors and others get their hands on your money, how to avoid scams and pick pros you can trust, how to manage divorce and wills to keep money options in the best possible places, and more. From common scams and con games to understanding how financial predators work, EVERYBODY WANTS YOUR MONEY doesn't require a million in the bank: even small-scale investors will learn from Latko's wisdom.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I wish to heaven I had found this book three weeks ago, before I ended up paying a week's salary to "learn" about a sure-fire way to make money in real estate. In the chapter about real estate seminars and to so-called experts who run them, Latko described the whole BS pitch that me and a couple of thousand other suckers were fed.

When I read about how we were lied to by a guy who said we could be "automatic millionaires" using his system I saw right off how we had all been taken. Latko laid out how the only guy who could get rich that way was the seminar leader, not those of us in the audience.

Latko tells the hard truth about mortgage companies being in bed with these con men. Too late for me this time, I guess. But now I know a lot more about the real way people can use real estate to actually MAKE money for themselves, and not for real estate agents or get-rich-quick fast talkers.

But Latko also says it straight about how to buy cars without getting fleeced and how to find honest brokers and financial advice people who will give advice that works if you don't want to work your butt off for nothing.

There's also a section on divorce that scared the heck out of me. He talks about how lawyers and judges tend to take the easy way out (for themselves) and usually try to make both sides agree to a 50/50 split of all the assets.

Latko shows how this usually works out great for men, who tend to make more money anyway, but shows through a spreadsheet used by trained financial divorce analysts how those settlements almost always bankrupt the woman in a few years.

His solution to all this may be a lot more fair to the woman, but it's a shocker to me as a man. He says that in a few years, as the spreadsheet he uses gets used in more and more divorce negotiations, it's going to cost the man a lot more as the woman gets a more fair deal. Like I said, scary for the higher-earning partner, but I guess it is time divorcing women get a fairer shake.

This guy sure knows his stuff and writes about it in a way real people can understand. The writing is witty and the way he tells the stories is at times laugh out loud hilarious. He talks from his own experiences, and lays out how he himself learned from being scammed by the sharpies laying in wait for all of us. The tales of his clients, many of who escaped being taken only because of his dead-on-target advice, really brings his messages home.

This is the first book of this kind I've read that REALLY tells it how it is.

David Latko's "Everybody Wants Your Money," skillfully outlines the dos and don'ts of asset management. After reading this book I feel like I've dodged a financial bullet. It is so easy to take the easy way out and do as our advisors recommend without looking at the big picture.

Throughout this book, Latko uses numbers and charts to help visualize his arguments. In this way he effectively shows how the decisions you make today will have an impact on your finances in the coming years.

The advice and wisdom that I took from this book are priceless. He is a master of his field and honestly believes that everyone should make informed decisions.

David Latko pretty much sums it up in his preface:

"To paraphrase Blanche DuBois, late of the still-soggy wasteland that was once New Orleans, we've all come to depend on the kindness of strangers -- a level of naiveté not dissimilar to that of the wildebeest calf who saunters toward the waterhole, assuming that those lurking shapes awash near the shoreline are merely harmless logs.

The result: today's alligators are sleek and well-fed, both those found in nature and their two-legged brethren alike..."

The entire book is a clever, easy to understand manual on how to hang onto your money.

As I turned the pages of this book, I realized that I often am caught in the financial traps that these so called advisors and experts lay out. Latko explains that we need to learn to protect ourselves and our assets; no one is going to do it for us (even if that's supposed to be their job).

Latko knows what he's talking about. I think everyone should take the time to read this book and protect their future!

There is no doubt about it - Latko doesn't try to sugar coat the cold hard facts of the financial world in his book, "Everybody Wants Your Money". He writes in a way that is easy for everyone to understand which makes his points even more powerful.

I found one of the most important messages in one of his last chapters: The "Fiendish Five": The Biggest, Baddest Financial Mistakes Around... Here he really explores how it is not only "the man" who tries to get into our pockets but that we as individuals have the tendency to rob ourselves.

Latko explains that it is our resistance to change that can stifle our finances and eventually ruin us.

This book really opened my eyes to the traps that my friends, my family and I so frequently find ourselves in. It is truly a lifesaver!

After reading David Latko's book I realize how trusting most people are. So many of us put the future of our financial stability in the hands of our "advisors." In reality, these people are out to make a dollar too!

Latko does a beautiful job of outlining the typical financial pitfalls that we all face in a way that is not only easy to understand but fun to read.

This is such an important book for everyone to read. Even if you think you have nothing to worry about - this is really an eye opener!

Excellent for personal money and life management, very limited in investment management information and techniques. Protecting, Excellent; (and Growing) unfortunately is below what I expected.

There's very little information in here about protecting your wealth and none about growing it. We do learn a lot about the author's homes, vacation clubs (11% of the book is dedicated to why you too should join), Ferraris, Porsches (he claims to have bought over 300 cars in his life), and rather vague fear of identity theft.

His section on Brokers and Advisors is a good warning to people that haven't really thought about what their wirehouse broker is really doing with their money, but he almost totally ignores fee-only registered investment advisors (as opposed to brokers). I think he could have done a much better job of explaining some of the other options in the market for financial advice.

This is one book I actually considered leaving in the airport when I was done with it.

I will say that Chapter 14 (Divorce - The Real Equal Rights Amendment?) was a fascinating read. If you are divorcing someone who has more assets or more earning power than you, reading Latko's theory of equitable division will make you salivate. Of course, your attorney will also love it because attempting to employ it will blow the entire settlement apart...