Put Your Money Where Your Life Is : How to Invest Locally Using Self-Directed IRAs and Solo 401ks

Learn how to stop investing in Wall Street and start investing in your local community with this practical layperson’s guide.

Americans agree on very little these days, but we can all agree on one critical point: Wall Street can no longer be trusted. Yet most of us continue to invest our money in the stocks and bonds of Fortune 500 companies, transferring our capital far from where we live and work. Local investing expert Michael Shuman offers another alternative. He shows how we can use two well-established—but rarely used—investment tools to keep our money close and get a return as good as or better than what we’d get investing in distant, indifferent corporations.

Shuman explains the nuts and bolts of self-directed IRAs and solo 401(k)s and how they can be combined with other recently legalized local investing tools. He details how to set these accounts up, identify and evaluate a whole range of local investment opportunities, and make sure account holders stay on the right side of the law. While the book is written for people without a lot of investment experience—Shuman explains concepts like “liquidity” and “diversification” in simple terms—even if you’re as experienced as Warren Buffett, this book will make you rethink everything you know about investing. With Shuman’s expert advice, you can strengthen your investment portfolio and your community, neighborhoods, and schools at the same time!

“As so many Americans feel powerless to confront a financial system designed to serve the few, Shuman offers us real choices: tools that align our lives with our values. That’s power. I love this highly readable, timely, surprising book.” —Frances Moore Lappé, coauthor of Daring Democracy and author of Diet for a Small Planet

“Local cheese, local beer—and local investing! This is a valuable guide to taking money out of the few giant banks (which are probably using it to underwrite the fossil fuel industry) and putting it to work close to home!” —Bill McKibben, author of Falter

“Once again Michael Shuman has given us a clear manual for how well-meaning, good people (the 99.99 percent of us) can put their money where their hearts are—in communities where they live, in local businesses, trade, and retail.” —Vicki Robin, coauthor of Your Money or Your Life and author of Blessing the Hands That Feed Us

Michael H. Shuman is an economist, attorney, author, entrepreneur, and leading visionary on community economics. He is director of local economy programs for Telesis Corporation, a nonprofit affordable housing company, and currently an adjunct instructor at Bard College's business school in New York City. He is the author of nine previous books, including The Small-Mart Revolution; Local Dollars, Local Sense; and The Local Economy Solution.