June 2014 Money Report

Welcome to the June 2014 Money Report!  This is way late, but better late than never!  I’ve had a pretty hellish month which I’ll get into below, but I really wanted to get this post out.

June 2014 was a good month overall – nothing too extreme

To view all previous monthly money reports and to find out why I publish these reports, click here

Actions Plans for June 2014

Key: Complete/Some Progress/No Progress

• Read the book: Effortless Savings – The author of the book contacted me to review this on the site.  He is sending me a free copy
  • COMPLETE – Here is my book review on Effortless Savings
• Sell at least 5 things on Ebay
  • Only sold three things – here they are:
    • Soccer Cleats – $28 (bought for $2)
    • Wii Sonic Riders game – $12 (bought for $3)
    • Gibson Guitar Amp – $30 (bought for $2)
• Complete the first round of edits on my new book: Stock Market Investing for Newbies
  • COMPLETE – Actually finished up my book and released it!  Read more about my new investing book here!
• Get second editor to review my new book: Stock Market Investing for Newbies
  • Decided to cancel this one and just push the book out, so I’m considering it complete
• Finish my new website: OfficeForNewbies.com and post the first training video (see below for description)
  • COMPLETE – Please check out my first video, how to create a table of contents in MS Word
• Conduct at least two tutoring session for $$$
  • COMPLETE – Actually complete three sessions

June was nice from a goals perspective.  I completed everything except for the Ebay sales which is a little out of my control.  Let’s look at the financial  specifics for June 2014:

Notes on Making Money for June 2014

June’s income was strong!  I was able to maintain my side-hustle income around $700+ and saw a nice dividend boost for the month!  Here are some details.

• Ebay – $69 – sold three items
• Google Adsense – ~$20 – my CPC dropped off quite a bit for some reason?
• Youtube – ~$10
• Guest Posts – $450
• Tutoring – $180
• Dividends – $370

Total side income (dividends plus side-hustles) came in around $1,100!  That’s the highest so far since I started this blog (pats self on back).

Notes on Money Saving for June 2014

Routine expenses for June saw a nice drop over the previous month.  We were able to save on gas, groceries, and eating out this month.

Non-routine expenses were a little higher than I would have liked, but we did have Father’s Day, birthday parties, our anniversary, and materials to seal coat our driveway.  So, all-in-all it wasn’t too bad.

Our total savings rate for the month of June was 47% – acceptable.

Notes on Investing for June 2014

For June, I invested $5,500 in my IRA with 135 shares of  JNK at a price of $41.719.  JNK is the SPDR Barclays Capital High Yield Bond ETF.  This is basically a junk bond fund that pays an annual dividend of ~5.8%.  My target asset allocation for junk bonds is ~20%.  For more on asset allocations, why not check out my new book: Stock Market Investing for Newbies?

Actions Plans for July 2014

Even though July is almost over, here are the goals I setup for myself earlier in the month:

• Publish my eBook and paperback book:  Stock Market Investing for Newbies
• Conduct at least two tutoring session for $$$
• Sell 5 things on eBay
• Get halfway through the book the The Law of Success by Napoleon Hill

I am setting the bar a little lower for July because I am also trying to interview for positions within my current company and this will suck up a ton of my time.

Other Points of Interest

• Here are the posts I created for the month of June – check them out if you missed any:

1. Yard Sale Arbitrage – Soccer Cleats
2. How to Make Money Tutoring
3. Insurance Company Bait-and-Switch
4. Book Review – Think and Grow Rich
5. Turn Off Your Outside Lights at Night
6. Payday Lenders – Are They Really The Ones To Blame? (guest post)
7. Make Money on Craigslist with Flipping (guest post)
8. My Stock Market Investing Book is Almost Complete!
9. Why Should You Invest in Gold? (guest post)
10. Can Cigar Smokers Get Life Insurance? (guest post)
11. Book Review – Effortless Savings

As an aside, my Alexa rank has really been increasing over the past month for some reason.  I have no idea why, but it’s got me frustrated!  Hopefully this will come back down.

What are your money saving, money making, and investing plans for July?

The post June 2014 Money Report appeared first on MoneyAhoy.

For more saving money, making money, and investment ideas go to www.MoneyAhoy.com

Book Review – Effortless Savings

I just finished reading a copy of Effortless Savings by Richard Syrop.  This was gifted to me by the author Richard Syrop as he thought some of the MoneyAhoy readers may be interested.  I agreed to read and review the book in case anyone is considering picking up a money saving book.

Book Review – Effortless Savings – Overview

Effortless Savings is a step-by-step guide that provides ideas on how to save money without sacrificing the things that you love.

The book is organized into 10 sections to save money:

1. Telecom
2. Insurance
3. Home Energy
4. Grocery Shopping
5. Health and Beauty Products
6. Clothing and Household Items
7. Automotive Expenses
8. Additional Shopping Strategies
9. Restaurants and Entertainment
10. Vacations and Travel Expenses

As you can see, this book really covers the gamut of areas one should consider when trying to save money.  Let’s dig in to find out what I thought of the book…

Book Review – Effortless Savings – What I Didn’t Like

There is not much I could find wrong with this book.  They are so many tips to keep straight that you’ll likely get overloaded if you don’t keep a list for yourself.  The author actually suggests doing just this so that you can get the most out of the book.  One upgrade I can think of would be to make an actual checklist that the reader can process through to ensure they wring out every little bit of savings they are able to find.

Another concept that may be helpful would be to cover how folks can actually create a game plan to save money.  Identify the “quick hits” or “low hanging fruit”.  Going through the exercise of listing all of your expenses and then ranking them from highest to lowest can really be a great exercise to help folks decide where to prioritize.  I went through this type of thing and it really did help me focus.

Many of the money saving tips were common sense or not very earth shattering.  But, there were several nuggets that I was able to take away from the book and work to implement.  The average person can probably find dozens of new ideas to try.

Besides these critiques, there is not much else to find wrong with this book.  It really is very good.

Book Review – Effortless Savings – What I Liked

The first thing that I loved about this book is how well it is organized.  You can literally jump right to the section that you are interested in and focus there first.  Each section stands on its own, so you do not have to read the whole thing front to back.

This book is also specific and to the point.  There are dozens upon dozens of highly actionable ideas that are very “crisp” in their explanation.  The entire book is less than 200 pages and makes for a very quick read.

80% of the idea in the book are not really all that ground breaking.  They are tried and true money saving tips that anyone who frequents personal finance blogs is sure to have already run across.  The other 20% are new and creative ideas that I just have not seen before.  These are sure to save even the most seasoned veterans of personal finance and frugality some additional money each month.  Very exciting stuff

I am sure everyone will have their own favorite sections after going through this book.  My favorites were the chapters around home energy and restaurant/entertainment to be the most helpful for me.  Our household is definitely leaving money on the table in these areas!

Book Review – Effortless Savings – Overall Rating

5/5 – This book is a great way to jump right into saving money if you are unsure where to start.  I would highly recommend this book.

Book Review – Effortless Savings – Final Thoughts

If you think you are a frugal pro and there is no more money left for you to save, I challenge you to read Effortless Savings and not find at least three new ideas to save yourself money.  There are just too many new and fresh ideas for each reader not to find something they can implement to save money.  What I love about this book is that you are sure to get a return on your investment (by purchasing this book) if you only implement one idea!

Most readers on Amazon.com agree with me – this book has a 5/5 star rating for a reason.  It is very good!

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For more saving money, making money, and investment ideas go to www.MoneyAhoy.com

Book Review – Think and Grow Rich

This month I read the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.  This book was originally published back in 1937.  I was able to get my hands on one of the older copies vs. the newer 21st century edition.  This book was interesting to say the least…

You can find the free version here if you don’t want the fancy Kindle version – this is the 1937 version.

Book Review – Think and Grow Rich – What I Liked

Let me start by saying that overall, Think and Grow Rich was very painful for me to finish.  There were several times where I just considered stopping part way through and cutting my losses.  Nevertheless, I was able to make it to the end.  Here are a couple of things that I could find good about this book:

• It’s written in English
• The principle of autosuggestion – This is basically tricking your mind into doing something through believing it will happen.  This is akin to the power of the positive mental attitude.  If you want something bad enough (wealth) and really believe it, it will translate into actions and reality.  This is about the only real take-away I got from reading this book.
• Some of the stories about Henry Ford were interesting
• The best part about this book was finishing it so that I never have to look at it again.

Book Review – Think and Grow Rich – What I Didn’t Like

Let me say that maybe I just didn’t get Think and Grow Rich.  Apparently, most folks love this book as it has received 4.5 stars on Amazon with over 1,400 reviews.  Here’s some of the points that threw me off with this book:

• It is really outdated – written in 1937, many of the examples and language are hard to identify with now that we are in 2014.  While funny at first, it got to be quite annoying by the time I got towards the end of the book.
• Some of the concepts presented are just bat shit crazy!  Creative ideas entering your mind “out of the ether”, vibrational mind energy, and more.
• There seems to be a whole tangential section around leadership qualities and how to be a superior leader/boss.  This is great information from a personal development standpoint, but it seems way out of place here.
• Most of the advice or ideas offered in the book are too general to put into practice.  When there are specifics given, it is presented in a “do this exactly or you will fail” type of format.
• The format of the book jumped all over the place.  I felt like I was getting whiplash the way topics jumped back and forth.
• A whole chapter dedicated to the transmutation of sex energy into drive to succeed?!?  While an interesting theory, it was kinda a WTF moment as I continued to read this chapter.
• The final chapter of the book describes how to has mental meetings with various characters to think through ideas: Lincoln, Edison, and others bat around his ideas…  Maybe everyone else has mental meetings with ghosts in their head to bounce around ideas, but this strikes me as clinically insane…
• If all this weren’t enough, the book is about 300 pages.  It really was misery to finish – I actually don’t understand how I was able to make it to the end without quitting!

Book Review – Think and Grow Rich – Overall Rating

1/5 – This book is terrible IMHO.  The only reason I finished it was so that I could write this review here.  I would have stopped before half way if I didn’t feel morally obligated to warn you about this book.  Stay away!

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind – Final Thoughts

It seems that most people enjoyed Think and Grow Rich – I am not one of them.  My opinion is that this book is a waste of anyone’s time to read.  Maybe I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind when I read the book, but I cannot bring myself to give it another try.  Or, maybe the vibrational energy of my mind picked up the topics from this book out of the ether and I’ve subconsciously begun to implement them without realizing it?  Or maybe this book is just bad!  Please check over my other book reviews to find something more worth your time.

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For more saving money, making money, and investment ideas go to www.MoneyAhoy.com

Book Review – Secrets of the Millionaire Mind

This month I had the pleasure of reading the book: Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker.  In this book review I’ll cover what I didn’t like about the book, what I loved about the book, and give it an overall rating.

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind – The Basic Content of the Book

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind is broken down into two main sections.  The first part of the book discusses why everyone is destined towards a certain financial endpoint in their lives due to their “financial blueprint.”  The second section of the book covers 17 facts about rich people in comparison to poor people.

So, what the heck is a “financial blueprint?”  This is basically the way your mind is programmed to think when it comes to money.  Are you satisfied with earning $50,000 a year?  If so, that’s about how much you’ll earn.  One year you may earn less, the next you may earn more, but you will average right around $50,000 because that is where you have your “bar” set.  Are you 100% committed to earning one million a year?  If so, you won’t be spending any time watching TV or sitting on the couch until you achieve this objective!  This is what T. Harv Eker means when he talks about a “financial blueprint.”

There isn’t a whole lot to say about the 17 facts short of giving away all of them.  They’re pretty straightforward and easy to understand.  T. Harv Eker makes the difference between rich and poor people extreme as possible when giving the examples so that you’re sure to understand the differences.  I found a spoiler of all 17 facts here along with a bunch of other great quotes from the book.

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind – What I Didn’t Like About the Book

There was not much to dislike with this Secrets of the Millionaire Mind.  At first, the book did seem a little bit like a sales copy for Harv’s live coaching seminars.  But, I got over this skepticism as I got further and further into the book.  By the time you reach the end, it does feel like Harv is genuinely interested in helping you to succeed and reach your full financial potential.

If there were any one upgrade I’d give the book, it would be to make a “master table” of all of the 17 rules for handy reference.  I’ve included them here for your reference , but you will really need to read the book to fully appreciate what each “wealth rule” actually means.

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind – What I Loved About the Book

Let me start off by saying that I thought Secrets of the Millionaire Mind is a phenomenal book!  I read it cover to cover twice in one month and plan to read it again within the next month or two.  It is a very inspirational book and really does help to illustrate that we are our own worst enemy when it comes to making money!  Any constraints we have around making money are almost completely self imposed when you really sit down to analyze things.

The entire book really spoke to me.  Harv breaks down the entire psychology of making money and your “financial blueprint” as follows:  Programming -> Thinking -> Feeling -> Actions -> Results .  Let’s take a closer look at each part of how the financial blueprint works:

• Programming – This is what you learned when you were a kid about right and wrong and how to handle money.  This mainly comes from your parents and close family.  Were your parents cheap skates, spend thrifts, or somewhere in the middle?
• Thinking – Your thinking about money is based on your programming.  Did you resent your parents for being cheap skates and resolve to never be the same?
• Feeling – Your thoughts around money solidify into feelings as far as money is concerned.  Did your family always use money as a source of great comfort?
• Actions – If you feel that money brings you comfort, then you will likely spend it when you are feeling bad to bring yourself some type of comfort.
• Results – each of the parts of the financial blueprint culminate into the results.  You are either poor, middle-of-the-road, or rich.  By going back all the way to our programming, we can consciously make changes to create different results for ourselves.

For example, if your parents were always fighting about money and constantly stressed over it, you will be programmed to think that money brings unhappiness and stress.  This will lead to thinking that money causes pain.  You will develop the feelings that money is bad and you need to get rid of it to achieve happiness.  Thus, your mind will subconsciously want to spend whenever you begin to build up some money.  The result is that you will always be poor.  In this example, the person will have to realize that their programming around money and unhappiness is wrong and re-train themselves to look at money in a different light.  If they are able to do this effectively, the results can be amazing!

Another important point about financial success that I picked up from this book is the power of positive thinking and the destructive energy that comes with complaining.  I realized part way through this book that I’m a habitual complainer!  I don’t know why, I just gravitate towards complaining for some reason.  I think this programming stems from my father – he is a glass is half-empty kind of guy…

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind hit me like a ton of bricks!  Since coming to this realization around the power of a positive attitude, I’ve tried to cut complaining out of my life completely.  It is definitely an uphill battle, but I’m already seeing great results in my relationships and my job.  Positive thinking and avoiding complaining really will make you a better and happier person!

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind – Overall Rating

5/5 – This book is easy to read, relatively short, and will be life changing for me.  I would highly recommend it to anyone!

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind – Final Thoughts

I really cannot recommend Secrets of the Millionaire Mind highly enough.  I’ve already read it two times back-to-back, and plan on reading it again soon.  This book will really help you to understand why you are where you are financially.  It also gives straightforward advice on what you can do today to change your financial position and get in a better place.  It really helped to clarify things for me – it really does seem that 99% of financial success is all about your mindset.  Please do yourself a favor and check out Secrets of the Millionaire Mind today!

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For more saving money, making money, and investment ideas go to www.MoneyAhoy.com

Book Review – The Four Pillars Of Investing

Several months ago, I set out to read the book A Random Walk Down Wall Street.  It was a great book, if a little bit lengthy.  Upon reading my review of it, a business school associate suggested that I pick-up the book The Four Pillars of Investing by William Bernstein.

Well, I finally worked my way through a couple other books that were at the top of my list and got a chance to dive into this one.  Let’s see how this general investing book stacks up against the others I’ve reviewed so far

 Contents and the Basic Premise of “The Four Pillars of Investing”

The basic premise of  The Four Pillars of Investing is that an investor needs to be competent in several areas of investing to really have good long term investing results.  Bernstein breaks these areas down into what he calls “pillars.”  These four pillars of investing are:

1. Theory – This section covers the idea that investors get compensated for the amount of risk they are willing to take.  The more risk an investor takes on, the higher return that should be expected.  This section also discusses that almost all short-term results that are better than the market can be explained purely by luck.  Over time, the results will revert back to the mean.  Some discussion is also placed on the need to properly diversify to minimize one’s risk when investing for the long term.
2. History – This section covers previous bubbles and busts starting with the south sea bubble in the 1700’s all the way through the dot-com crash.
3. Psychology – Section three covers common pitfalls that affect most investors/traders if they are not careful.  From trading too often, not properly diversifying, and overpaying for assets, there are many ways that investors can get wrapped up in what they are doing without stepping back to assess the bigger picture.
4. Business – This section goes into details on how the whole Wall Street system is constructed first and foremost to skim money from unwitting public investors.  This section also gives you a great appreciation for how little many “brokers” actually know about the inner workings of investing and the stock market.  Upon finishing  The Four Pillars of Investing, Bernstein asserts you will know more than 95% of all brokers out there.

What I Didn’t Like About “The Four Pillars of Investing”

Overall, I really enjoyed The Four Pillars of Investing.  I do have a couple criticisms of the book, but they are small in nature.

• The book really was pretty long (300+) pages and went into quite a bit of detail.  It seems that it could have been shortened up a bit and still covered the main points.
• The book did get a little complicated at certain points.  The author did his best to prep the reader for this, but a couple of points may be over the heads of some readers.
• The book is a little outdated as it does not contain discussions from the recent market crash: 2008-2009.  It’s hard to fault the book for this, but I really would have liked to see Bernstein’s analysis of the most recent crash.

As you can see, these are pretty nit-picky.
 

What I Loved About “The Four Pillars of Investing”

As I mentioned, I thoroughly enjoyed  The Four Pillars of Investing.  Even though it was long and detailed, I found that I really picked up some great knowledge from it.  Some of the finer points for me were:

• Pillar #2!  I really enjoyed reading about historical booms and busts and how the public gets drawn into new investing “schemes”.
• Even though I’m well aware of how Wall Street is setup to “fee you to death,” I thought Bernstein’s discussion of this topic was spot on.  Anyone that reads this book cannot help but to look at the investing community in a whole new light.
• Bernstein’s discussion of timing the market, investing newsletters, and hot fund managers was also a great addition.  I like how he boiled it down to: “if someone had the winning formula to make gobs of money, do you think they would share this with you?”  Of course they wouldn’t!!!  So why allow yourself to get caught up in the fantasy?

Rating for “The Four Pillars of Investing”

4/5 Stars – A little long and a slightly beyond a beginner’s book, but a great read to set you straight on how to become a great investor for the long-term.

Who Should Read “The Four Pillars of Investing”

The Four Pillars of Investing is really a good book that everyone should read before they begin investing.  A couple parts do get a little bogged down in details, but that is pretty easy to forgive when there are so many solid words of investing advice to be found.  If you have not read a serious book on investing, then you owe it to yourself to give this book a go.  It will really change your entire investment perspective and put you on a path to investing success!

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For more saving money, making money, and investment ideas go to www.MoneyAhoy.com

Book Review – The Millionaire Next Door

This past month, I had the opportunity to read the Millionaire Next Door.  This book by Thomas Stanley is a best seller and has been touted by some as a much read for folks interested in personal finance.  I thought I would throw in my own two cents and whip up a quick book review on it.

Book Review – The Millionaire Next Door – What I Loved About The Book

Overall, I thought The Millionaire Next Door was just kinda “blah.”  I had pretty high hopes for it, and I felt a little let down after finishing it.  There were a couple of good things about it that I did find helpful though…

The book covers the following seven main characteristics of millionaires in detail:

1. They live below their means
2. The allocate their time, money, and energy into building wealth
3. They believe that financial independence is more important than flashing around their wealth
4. Their parents did not financially support them
5. Their adult children are economically self-sufficient
6. They are proficient in targeting market opportunities
7. They chose the right occupation

I found most of these insights to be pretty obvious.  However, the ones that stood out the most to be were #4 and #5.  These two were the biggest insights I will take away from  The Millionaire Next Door.  The basic conclusion is that kids that receive a lot of money from their parents are actually less “wealthy” than kids that do not!  “How can that be,” you might ask?  Well, kids that are used to “riding the gravy train” come to depend on the money.  Because they didn’t work hard to earn it, they usually end up wasting it on material things vs. saving/investing it.

Also, many times parents will place their adult children into situations that end up costing the kids more money in the long run.  The perfect example of this is parents partially or fully paying for their adult children’s homes or partially paying for their grandchildren’s private school education.  Because of this “subsidy”, the adult children end up paying more than they would have if there had been no parents money in the first place!  It also breeds a generation of “free-loaders” if the parents are not careful to ensure their kids learn for themselves how to earn a living.

This is a key insight that I think I’ll take with me to my grave.  It has made me totally rethink my whole outlook on paying for our kids college education (if they even choose to go).  Sorry kids, but it’s for your own good

Book Review – The Millionaire Next Door – What I Disliked About This Book

OK, as I said above, I had really high hopes for The Millionaire Next Door.  Besides the key insight I mentioned above, most of the rest of the book was common sense stuff that you’ve probably heard hundreds of times before: live below your means, don’t waste money on cars, invest as much as you can, buy used stuff, plan your field of study carefully, etc.

It’s not that I actually disliked this part of the book per se – I guess I was just looking for something a little more insightful than all the normal stuff we have all heard over and over again…  While there isn’t much to getting rich other than working hard for a decent wage, saving as much as one can, and investing it, the book seemed to take ~300 pages to tell us this 

I felt like most topics had gone beyond the point of beating the dead horse to actually trying to squeeze the blood out of a stone!  The whole point about most millionaires don’t spend much on their vehicles was a good one.  Many people may not realize this.  But, between the countless stories, tables, figures, etc. just to explain this one topic, I kinda wanted to blow my brains out.  Do we really need 40 pages to get just this one point across?!?  IMHO, much of the book follows this formula of taking a concept, presenting it, then giving you 40-50 pages of fluff to re-illustrate the point another five times.  It gets pretty annoying after a while, and I would like to think that most of us are smarter than that

Book Review – The Millionaire Next Door – Rating

3/5 Stars – You may want to pass this one over unless you’ve read just about every other financial book out there.

Book Review – The Millionaire Next Door – Final Thoughts

Overall, I thought  The Millionaire Next Door was just pretty average.  It’s not a bad book by any means, but you won’t really get a good “bang for your buck” or good return on your investment of time reading this one.  If I were you, I’d stick with something a little more concise and actionable such as Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You to Be Rich.

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For more saving money, making money, and investment ideas go to www.MoneyAhoy.com

Book Review – The 4-Hour Work Week

This month, I read another great money book by Tim Ferriss titled: The 4-Hour Workweek.  This book has been a number one New York Times best seller for multiple years, so I had a pretty good inclination going in that it would be good.  Needless to say, I was still pretty impressed and plan to re-read it again just to soak up additional info that I missed on the first read through – It really is that good

Book Review – The 4-Hour Work Week – What I didn’t like about this book

Let’s start out with what I didn’t like about  The 4-Hour Workweek (not that there is very much to talk about in this section). The first thing that threw me a little off was the wide discussion of traveling the world.  If you didn’t have to worry about money, what would your passion be?  Well, it is obvious that Tim’s passion is world travel, and that’s great.  It’s just that there were several sections of the book that seemed to transform into a travel tips discussion versus how to actually only work 4-hours per week.  I caught myself several times saying “OK, enough of these travel details, let’s get back to the good stuff!”

I’ve come to realize through writing several of the book review that I like things pretty nice and neatly laid out.  I’m a real analytic “show me” kind of a guy.  Well, I was hoping for a little more details or examples around creating your own “muse”.  A “muse” is the semi-automated business you’ll setup to generate the cash you need to follow your dreams.  I recognize that the whole point of the book is that you have to find out for yourself what will work and what won’t.  I guess I’m just saying that a little more hand holding in this area would have been appreciated for the folks like me that have a little more trouble getting their “plane off the ground.”

Book Review – The 4-Hour Work Week – What I Loved About This Book

I really liked the setup and intro of  The 4-Hour Workweek.  You really got a flavor of who Tim is and his views on life.  He seems like a really amazing guy, and this shows through as you read through the book.  Going through his personal history at the beginning of the book was interesting and really gave a lot of credibility to the rest of the book.  I appreciated this!

As far as the advice of automating your business as much as possible, the book takes this concept and idea to entirely new levels that I doubt many of us have ever even considered.  This is going to sound corny, but the book really did reshape my whole view and outlook on life and what it means to be successful.  I used to consider success as having lots of material things, working long hours, and gaining the respect of co-workers.  This book really helps one to put things in perspective and realize that time is truly our most valuable asset!  Learn to work smarter, not harder is Tim’s main theme throughout the entire book.

The 4-Hour Work Week flips conventional wisdom and planning on its head.  The exercises throughout the book force you to question and ask yourself what you really want out of life.  From here, you determine how much money you’ll need weekly/monthly to make these dreams a reality.  From here, you’ll develop both short term and long term goals to get jump started.  Then, you develop your muse (automated income generating business) to meet your goal.

Planning out our lives using this approach is obvious once you stop to think about it, but many of us have it backwards!  Most of us slave away at our 9-5 jobs (7am-5pm for me), make some money, spend it with little thought, and mostly wander through life without really engineering our life to help us achieve our dreams.

This is pretty close to what happened for me.  I went straight from high school to college to the work force without thinking through too much about what I really wanted my normal day to look like.  The 4-hour Work Week serves as a wake-up call and will show you how to create a different life path for yourself if you step back and don’t like what you see.

Book Review – The 4-Hour Work Week – Rating

5/5 Stars – I would recommend this book to just about anyone!

Book Review – The 4-Hour Work Week – Final Thoughts

The 4-Hour Workweek is fantastic and really a must read for anyone that wants more out of life than just the humdrum of the 9-5 routine.  Tim is a master at questioning your assumptions of what you can and cannot achieve.  The book is very inspirational and paints the broad brush strokes for showing you how to truly achieve a 4-hour work week for yourself.  One change I’d make to the book is to remove some of the travel detailed information and include a little more info/help on how to actually go about creating your own muse.  Even just a couple more examples would have been helpful to me.  That being said, if you’ve read all the way to the end of this review and haven’t yet read The 4-Hour Workweek, then stop what you’re doing and go get it  I’ve already begun to recognize small changes in my life from implementing some on Tim’s principles!

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Book Review – Rich Dad Poor Dad

Rich Dad Poor Dad is a personal finance book written by Robert Kiyosaki back in 1997.  Since its release, it has sold more than 26 million copies.  It recounts Robert’s upbringing in Hawaii with two different Dads: his biological “poor dad” and his great friend’s “rich” dad.  The book covers some great lessons he learned as a child by juxtiposing the advice he received from both of his “Dads”.

Book Review – Rich Dad Poor Dad – What I Loved About the Book

I really enjoyed the first section of the book that covered Robert’s childhood.  There were plenty of great examples where he covered different lessons that his rich dad taught him.  My favorite was when he was working in his rich Dad’s grocery store and ended up taking the unsold comic books.  He and his friend setup a comic book “library” and charged their friends an entrance fee to read the comic books for 4- hours.  He found this to be much more lucrative than the $0.10 an hour his Rich Dad was paying him.

The other key concept that Robert got across in this section of Rich Dad Poor Dad was to stop yourself from saying: “I can’t afford that.”  In Robert’s words, this shuts down the brain and prevents you from really expanding into new opportunities.  Instead, if you say to yourself: “how can I afford this?”, it gets your brain working and you will often find a solution if you’re willing to word hard enough to get it.

All in all, I really felt like I was there along with Robert and his Rich dad for many of the stories from his childhood.  They were great and really entertaining.

Book Review – Rich Dad Poor Dad – What I Hated About the Book

The later sections of Rich Dad Poor Dad recount more of Roberts philosophy that he’s lived his life by.  These sections of the book are filled with plenty of thoughts and opinions, but light on actual details on how one could implement the ideas in one’s own life.  I did not really enjoy this section of the book for two reasons.  As I already mentioned, this second half acts more like a motivational book than a “how to” book.  I feel that most readers would not really find this terribly helpful.

Also, he gets more into his philosophy about taking high risk, high reward types of chances to get ahead financially.  I felt overall that this is very bad advice for most people.  True, you may not get super-rich by taking a more steady and balanced approach to investing and planning, but you’re also mostly sure that you aren’t going to lose everything.  I feel that Robert’s balls-to-the-wall advice could be quite damaging to most people that are inclined to “bet the farm on red” (to use a gambling analogy).

Book Review – Rich Dad Poor Dad – Rating

3/5 Stars – You may want to pass this one over unless you’ve read just about every other financial book out there.

Book Review – Rich Dad Poor Dad – Final Thoughts

Overall, I thought Rich Dad Poor Dad was merely just OK.  The biggest take-away that I had was to not get in the mode of saying “I can’t afford that,” but to trick your mind into saying: “how can I afford this?”  I think that this advice/trick will serve me well in the future.

However, I think most of the advice in this book is generally pretty bad.  I wouldn’t recommend this book over more practical personal finance books that give you more hands on financial advice like: I Will Teach You to Be Rich.  I’d place  Rich Dad Poor Dad further down on your financial reading list if I were you.

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Book Review – A Random Walk Down Wall Street

There are hundreds of investment and stock trading books out there.  I’ve purchased and read a few of them over the years (mainly in the stock trading and day trading arena).  These were OK books that explained the details of how the market works on a VERY microscopic level, but following their advice actually lost me handfuls of money

Recently, I set a monthly goal to read the book A Random Walk Down Wall Streetby Burton Malkiel.  I could tell before I was even halfway through the book that it would change my life forever in an extremely positive way!

Contents and the Basic Premise of “A Random Walk Down Wall Street”

Malkiel has written a number of investing books over the past 50 years, but A Random Walk Down Wall Street  is the book he is most famous for.  The basic premise of A Random Walk Down Wall Street is that the markets are perfectly efficient in the long run.  This efficient market hypothesis (EMH) means that all bubbles will eventually self correct, and that all stocks will eventually revert back to their true value after some period of time.

Investors often disagree on what the “true value” of stocks are, and from time to time market bubbles form.  There are many different methods to estimate what the “true value” of a stock it, but in the end the EMH always holds true and stocks revert back to their true value.  Malkiel covers several examples of bubbles and their eventual bursting going all the way back to the dutch tulip mania of the 1600’s.

The book dissects several different types of investing/trading systems that are used and basically proves that none of these can beat buy and hold investing in market index funds over the long term because of the EMH.

A Random Walk Down Wall Street is broken down into four main sections:

1. Stocks and their value – This section discusses fundamental analysis and technical analysis.  This describes different methods for how investors attempt to assess a stock’s true market value.
2. How the pros play the stock market – This section covers actively managed funds and their performance relative to market index funds.  It also addresses active trading and market timing.
3. Modern portfolio theory – Here Malkiel discusses the newer theory that investors are rewarded with higher returns only on the additional amount of non-diversifiable risk they are willing to undertake.
4. Practical guide section for getting started – Here several example portfolios are presented with specific mutual fund ticker symbols if you’re ready to jump in and get started.

What I Didn’t Like About “A Random Walk Down Wall Street”

Overall, A Random Walk Down Wall Street was a good read, but I do have just a few criticisms of the book.  Most of these are pretty nitpicky.  Here they are in no particular order.

• The book is really long (450+ pages!).  In many areas Malkiel takes a very long time to get to the point.  This is OK for someone like me that likes some of the details, but it got a bit much at times.
• The fourth section where he lays out the practical guide could have been a bit more organized.  It feels kinda like a data dump at the last minute.
• The book does a good job of getting across investing concepts, but isn’t great at giving the reader actionable steps to help get them jump started.  It assumes you already have an investment or retirement account.
• Parts of the book are pretty complicated, and I had to re-read a couple sections to fully understand the concepts.  You may find some of the concepts presented a little complicated if you’re new to investing, but this shouldn’t put you off from reading the book IMHO.

What I Loved About “A Random Walk Down Wall Street”

Overall, I really loved A Random Walk Down Wall Street.  If someone had beat me over the head and forced me to read this book 15 years ago, I’d be so far ahead of where I am today that it’s almost depressing!

There are so many gems of useful information in this book, I can’t really do it justice here in this review.  While it is a long read, I think just about reader would benefit from it unless you are truly an investing expert.  Here are some of the reasons I loved this book:

• Malkiel gives great descriptions of many of the historical bubbles throughout human history.  From the 1600’s tulip mania all the way to the most recent credit crisis in 2008, he covers each formation and pop in great detail.  I found this fascinating.
• Malkiel compares buying and holding market index funds to many other types of investing strategies that have been developed over the past 70 years.  Malkiel expertly cuts through all the investing crap and explicitly shows why each method is worse than buy and hold.  He proves all of this academically and with historical market data.
• The author gives discussion as to why market timing is a complete waste of time and will ALWAYS leave you worse off over the long run.  If I had read this book 15 years ago, this point alone could literally have saved/made me hundreds of thousands of dollars by now.  At least I know going forward that I would be doing myself more harm than good by trying to time the market.
• He gives a perfect description of the random walk theory and why this can help to explain nearly all of the stock market variation and those “hot shot” fund managers that seem to come out of nowhere, take the world by storm, and fizzle out back into the shadows.
• I really love the humorous examples he uses throughout the book.  One that sticks in my mind is an illustration of the efficient market hypothesis and attempts to beat the market averages:
  • It takes place with a conversation between and economist and a student.  As they are walking down the sidewalk, the student notices what he thinks is a $100 bill on the sidewalk.  “Did you see that?  It’s a $100 bill,” the student exclaims.  “Don’t bother picking it up,” the economist says.  “If it really were a $100 bill, someone else would have picked it up by now.  So, don’t waste your time.  We know that it can’t be a $100 bill.”  For me, this perfectly illustrated the debate between being able to beat the market averages and the efficient market hypothesis!  Good deals are around, buy you’ve literally got millions of people looking around for those loose $100 bills, so they won’t last but for a second before they’re corrected.  This means it is nearly impossible to beat the market average in the long run!!!

Book Review – A Random Walk Down Wall Street – Rating

4/5 Stars – A little on the long and complicated side, but worth it if you can get past that.

Who Should Read “A Random Walk Down Wall Street“

Unless you’re a recognized investing master, I highly recommend picking up a copy of A Random Walk Down Wall Street from the library or Amazon.  There really is something here for everyone who is interested in increasing their wealth.  I learned so much from this book around I can improve at investing that it isn’t even funny.  I can honestly say to you that this book will change the rest of my life in a hugely positive way!  How many times do we get to say that?!?  Please do your future self a favor make the commitment to read it today!

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Book Review – The Art of the Start

There are many business startup books out there.  I’ll have to admit that I have not really read any of these types of book before other than how to correctly organize your business (an LLC vs a Inc for example).

I recently had a chance to read the book The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki as an assignment in my MBA program.  Kawasaki has written numerous books on marketing, entrepreneurship, and beating your competition.  He even worked at Apple back in the days of the Apple IIe.  More recently, he’s formed his own venture capital company Garage.com.

Contents and the Basic Premise of “The Art of the Start”

The basic premise behind The Art of the Start is that anyone can start a successful business if they truly care about what they are doing and they feel that their business can bring true change and meaning to the world.

The book is organized into five main sections.  The first section discusses developing an idea that has true meaning for you.  The next section talks all about positioning, pitching the idea, and then writing a business plan.  The third section talks about different strategies to manage the company’s finances in the critical first years, recruiting key talent, and raising capital.  The “proliferation” section discusses how to really get the company off the ground by partnering, branding, and finding a “rainmaker”.  Finally, there is a final section thrown in about networking and being a mensch.

What I Didn’t Like About “The Art of the Start”

The biggest gripe I have with this book is that it seems to be all things to all people.  It seems like it wants to cover each and every facet of running a startup company from scratch.  That is fine, but there is one main issue – the organization of the book is horrible.  The topics and themes seem to jump all over the place!

If you look at the table of contents, the natural progression the author tries to take us through seems to make sense on paper.  But, once you get into the book it seems like the author is flying around like a hummingbird.  At the end of it, I felt like I had just come off some sort of Triple Spin ride you might find at a Six Flags.

There were lots of good gems and tidbits of information thrown out throughout the book, but the disorganization was just a bit too distracting for me.

What I Loved About “The Art of the Start”

What I loved the most about The Art of the Start was that there was a virtual treasure-trove of “gems” that could be used by just about anyone starting up their own company or trying to be a leader in a large corporation.  Here are some of the great tips that I picked up on and plan to use:

• Make your business have true meaning for you – this will keep you in the game when things get tough (and they will).
• Have several women review the business model – most men with the Y-chromosome have the “kill the competition” mentality.  This is great, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have a good business model.
• When positioning an idea, make it personal – he uses this when discussing the idea of pet death insurance.  The presentation went “9 million pets are euthanized each year”.  He thought it could be much better positioned as “what will you do when Skippy needs to be put down?”
• 10/20/30 rule – When pitching or giving a presentation in general, use 10 slides max, 20 minutes, and 30 point font.
• Take the oldest person in the room and divide their age by two – this is the minimum font size you should use for presentations.
• The Business Plan should really be down played – only draft one once you’ve honed your pitch 10 or 20 times.  Otherwise it is just throw-away work.
• Employee recruiting should be a continuous process – you need to give employees a reason to continue to work at your company or they’ll begin to look outside.  Give them a good reason to stay with you.
• When giving a presentation, always tell stories that involve kids – your kids, friend’s kids, neighbor’s kids, co-worker’s kids, etc..  Everyone loves a story that involves kids.
• Interview you customer and ask what the want or need – then you change your offering or explain how your product/service can give the customers what they need!
• Plant many flowers – If customers begin to use your product for an unintended application then let them and encourage it!

The Art of the Start – Rating

4/5 Stars – A little poorly organized, but overall a good read.

Who Should Read “The Art of the Start”

I would suggest that anyone that has ever been interested in starting or running their own company check out The Art of the Start.  As I said, the organization is a bit cumbersome, but there are some real gems in the book that can be of help to just about anyone trying to start their own business.

Does anyone else have experience with a good business startup book??

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