Customer Reviews

Jim Cramer's Stay Mad for Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer)

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

In Stay Mad for Life, Jim Cramer addresses a whole range of financial issues that he hasn't dealt with on his Mad Money TV show and in his prior books. He takes a step back from his primary focus of teaching his viewers and readers how to select individual stocks and presents his approach to broader issues of personal financial management that one deals with from cradle to grave. In this sense the book deals with quite basic topics such as avoiding or getting out of credit card debt (about nine pages), creating and following a budget (about twelve pages) and obtaining health and disability insurance. These topics may seem elementary, even boring compared to the topics of Jim's earlier books, but are issues that people of limited financial experience need to learn about.

On the topic of retirement planning he talks about the advantages and disadvantages of 401(k) plans and of traditional and Roth IRAs. He likes 401(k) plans for their employer-dollar-matching feature but dislikes their limited choice of offered funds and their associated expenses. He advocates funding your 401(k) only up to the point where you've reached the maximum employer match. Beyond that he strongly advocates putting additional retirement dollars into an IRA where the range of choices of investments is so much broader.

In the category of family finance he advocates getting your children interested in investing as young as possible and lists six stocks that you might want to buy just one share of for your child that might pique their interest. That same chapter covers college and home financing.

In his prior books Jim has created lists of rules for investing and he does so again in this book. These twenty rules came from distilling his experience with the investments he makes for his charitable trust that he often mentions on Mad Money. For example one of these new rules that I've found myself prone to violating is "Don't quit when you get back to even". If you've taken on a position in a stock and if the price then drops significantly, it's easy to feel so grateful if/when it comes back up to your break even point, you bail out with a small profit. Jim contends that if the fundamentals of the stock are still good, hang in there with it for additional upside.

In the next to last chapter, Jim really hangs himself out on a limb by selecting five sectors that he thinks will be strong for the next five years and climbs even further out on that limb by naming twenty stocks that he thinks will do well over that time frame. I'm a subscriber to his Action Alerts e-newsletter where Jim announces the buys and sells that he plans to make for his charitable trust. At the time of this review, 16 of the 20 stocks are presently held by the trust and the other four are stocks that Jim has mentioned many times on Mad Money.

In the final chapter Jim makes what must be a major concession for him since he's such a strong advocate of selecting and holding individual stocks. At several places in the book he recommends that if you really aren't willing or able to devote the time and effort to individual stock selections (remember - his tough homework rule is one hour per stock per week!) your next best choice is a low cost passive index mutual fund such as the Vanguard VFINX. However if you REALLY want to invest in an actively managed mutual fund, Jim has conducted research and come up with a list of 13 recommended funds. In doing this research he looked at historical fund performance for the seven-year period 2000-2006. He gives especially heavy weight to fund performance in the three down-market years 2000-2002. He also emphasizes the importance of the fund manager and considers only funds where one manager ran the fund.

I recommend the book for those wanting a good (strongly opinionated) survey of the major issues of personal finance. For those not so interested in basic personal finance, just skip the first five chapters and read the final four chapters which stand on their own and will be of interest to the regular followers of Jim's books and TV.

Jim Cramer has really produced another great book. This one starts out as a personal finance book explaining how to budget and the importance of saving money in a retirement account each month. He advises to contribute whatever is needed into your 401K plan at work to get the match. (Most companies offer a 80%-100% return on your money off the top with the match). I can tell you from my experience that is the #1 reason I have a hefty net worth at 35 years old. Cramer then advises putting money beyond the match into an IRA for more investment options than the 401K offers.
His advice is to put the money in an S&P index fund if your 401K does not offer excellent funds to invest in. He advises to never put this money in your company's stock, the risk is to great. Cramer explains bonds, bills, and treasuries in this book along with the percentage of your money to hold in them. You will see that he is much more aggressive with his recommendations for the percentage of your money to hold in stocks as you age. I agree with him.
You will also learn Cramer's twenty new rules for investing. These rules are great for investors and traders. My favorite two are:
1. Don't let the market shake you out of a good long-term thesis.
2. Don't quit when you get back to even.
You will learn the ten things pros do but amateurs get wrong.
1. Pros always have cash.
2. Pros don't worry about the quarterly report.
3. Pros try not to invest in things they don't know.
4. Pros recognize that everthing is not analyzable.
5. Pros want to know the downside, not the upside. (This one is excellent).
6. Pros always look, they never avert their eyes from a down turn.
7. Pros accept that not everything works at once.
8. Amateurs worry they are not making enough, pros worry they are making to much. (Which means taking on to much risk).
9. Pros do their homework.
10. Pros understand the upside, but know things can go wrong.
Cramer picks out the five bull market sectors he believes have a long term upside. Aerospace and defense, agriculture, oil and oil service, minerals and mining, and infrastructure. Learn his theories on these markets and why he sees long term earnings increases.
He also names twenty stocks that he believes are excellent long term investments. There are four of these that I also think will do outstanding in the coming years: Google, Pepsi, Boeing, and Caterpillar.
Cramer finishs with the best guide to mutual funds I have ever seen, recommending 13 of the most outstanding funds out there. Judging them not only on there long term results but more importantly how they performed in the down years of 2000, 2001, and 2002. The true value of actively managed funds is the ability of the manager to protect you against the markets downside. If they can not do this it is better to just invest in a S&P index fund and beat 80% of actively managed funds and save the management fees.
I can personally attest to making several thousand dollars following Jim Cramer, he proved his abilities running his hedge fund and we are fortunate he enjoys educating the rest of us on investing instead of hanging out at the country club all day. Buy this book if you want to learn more about investing and trading and make some Mad Money, I did.

A lot of self-promotion and repetitive statements.
I've followed Cramer for a year now buying his books and watching Mad Money. He does make financial education more entertaining and I've enjoyed his personality.
I felt this book was not up to his usual standards. The first part of the book went over and over why you should save for retirement. One chapter would have made the point, why the need to pound it in? I got tired of the endless self-promotion in the book as well.
I feel that pages were added of repetitive information in order to finish it for Christmas sales.
There is good information in the book on Retirement accounts, different types of cash savings, mutual funds and stocks. Buy the book for the last four chapters.

Not a bad book and easy to read. But unless you are just starting out, this is an overtly simplistic book. I don't mean this as a shot, if you have read his previous books, this one is a step backwards.

If you are young & just "starting" to invest, this would be a good read before getting to stocks / trading, as it deals with 401(K), and basic personal finance.

He says it in the intro: he may be teaching people how to invest because he is a nice guy OR he wants to be perceived as a nice guy. THat's the type of unabashed marketer Cramer is. Combined with his ego, that's one side of Cramer that shows up in all of his book, especially his latest- "Stay Mad". THe other side to Cramer is his smart investing sense. He takes positions long (like a good value investor) and he promotes individual knowledge about the stocks people invest on--a good bit of advice that alludes to my favorite social theories from the book The Wisdom of Crowds.

Cramer purports that "anyone can beat any manager" (financial managers) and it's true. Most managers are looking to make the once in a lifetime pick that turns $3000 in a million instead of the commonplace investment that turns $10,000 into a $100,000.

All good investment takes is homework, according to this book- and Cramer provides the first few lessons. Create a budget, save money, manage your own stocks (based on quarterly reports, earnings, and most important-personal knowledge of the stock). He hits on something I've always said- if you like a company enough to buy their products regularly- you probably should buy their stock. I did this with AAPL and have patting myself on the back ever since!

The biggest problem is getting to a point where you can save and invest money. The budgeting mentioned in this book helps, but there are other clever ways to increase your personal profit (How to Take Advantage of the People Who Are Trying to Take Advantage of You: 50 Ways to Capitalize on the System).

If you're ever bored as you channel surf, switch it up by turning on Jim Cramer's TV show. He offers valuable financial recommendations which I sometimes have trouble writing down because he talks so fast and he's really funny. That's why I love to read his books.

This book, like many of his others, shows the more serious side of this slapstick financial genius, by providing solid, doable investment/money management tips for regular folks, although I have a feeling the other guys are watching/reading him, too. He is really a brilliant financial advisor, and as someone said recently, most of us couldn't afford to pay this guy for financial advice, and yet he's giving it away free on TV and really affordably through his books. It's an amazing opportunity for those of us who need some help in this area.

Expect a bit of a rehash in this current book, but there is a lot of new information, some general stuff geared to the current US economic investment climate, and a lot of specifics on accumulating more $$$ and keeping it.

For those of you who can't get far enough past his TV shenanigans to really take Cramer's advice seriously, definitely buy this book. You will get a lot more than you paid for, and you may develop a different attitude toward that guy you see on TV screen, after reading it.

This is an excellent book and I highly recommend it.

I quess I expected too much. I was disappointed with the way Mr. Cramer spent so much bashing the credit card companies. Additionally, I found the book to be verbose. The contents could have been edited to eliminate excesses, but this is more the character of Mr. Cramer.

Since purchasing this book I have received no less that 20 offers to join one of Mr. Cramers money making schemes using this book as the free premium for joining.

I am truly disappointed. To the point that I no longer enjoy the TV program hosted by Mr. Cramer. Obviously Mr. Cramer doesn't have to worry about the risk of investmnet, just jot down a few inconsequential notes and exploit.

I read and used his first three books and started a new portfolio from scratch at the beginning of last year. I have a balanced ten stock portfolio that returned just over 20% last year and wish I had learned what he has taught years ago. This book is a useful and much needed addition to his library. This book addresses how to manage your retirement account in detail and gives specific investment recommendations for placing your money into. This is a must have book for anyone...especially for those who have other people manage their money. Buy it.

Namaste, Brooks Helms

Its a good book. There is a section in there where Jim gives 20 points to what a Professional does versus what a amateur will do. For eg he devotes 5 pages as to why it's not a good idea to buy before earnings report. Why one must look beyond a quarter in holding a good stock. Some of the best returns are got when one holds for a long term a good quality stock till the technical's break down. The two chapters on rules is itself worth the money of the book and more if one wants to be in the game of a complicated mind game called stock market.

Good luck to all!!

Mr. Cramer is a well educated and very entertaining personality. This book was given to me for Christmas, so I read it. There is some good information in the book, but I question some of the facts. I would strongly recommend readers do a little research of their own before acting on any of the advice in this book.

I believe there are better informative books available and would not recommend purchasing this one. Just one persons opinion.