Wealth Without Risk: How to Develop a Personal Fortune Without Going Out on a Limb

More than 250 savvy money strategies for personal finance, tax reduction and investment.

Having made and lost two fortunes, popular financial guru Givens says he now has the keys to successamong them, no-nonsense use of credit cards, tax-favorable self-employment and home ownership. Another suggestion: regular investment of 10% of income for 20% annual return through mutual-fund switching among stocks, bonds and the money market according to a formula linked to the daily-published prime interest rate. (He explains separately the tax consequences of this system.) The author also cites, among many such nuggets, a little-known government-backed "parent loan" to help pay for college through near-campus real estate (students always need rooms, right?). Or how about buying local mortgages one-on-one for a 30% "guaranteed" return? One eyebrow raiser: in a general insurance-industry bashing, Givens claims life-policy beneficiaries should be entitled to collect both the policy's face value and its accumulated cash value. With charts, graphs, source lists and anecdotes, this is a top money guideentertaining, exciting and full of new ideas.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Givens assembles the ground rules of his fourth self-made fortune into 268 "strategies" for personal finance, taxes, and investment. His finance rules convey very helpful advice on insurance and credit, and a one-track plan for raising college money: Buy your child a house. Tax tactics stress heavy use of both common and exotic deductions, and the tax-saving virtues of owning a business. Investment ideas range from the prosaic, such as mutual funds and home ownership, to the questionable, such as tax lien purchases and the use of margin accounts. Clear descriptions of many unusual strategies make this work marginally useful for public libraries. Justine Roberts, Univ. of California at San Francisco Lib.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.