The Wall Street Journal Lifetime Guide to Money

A comprehensive guide to money management provides organized, up-to-date information and advice that highlights major age groups and addresses such topics as building a stock portfolio, taxes, managing debt, loans, and lines of credit.

This massive guide from the Journal's "Money & Investing" section offers, in distinct units for age groups 20-40, 40-50 and 60-plus, comprehensive advice on a full spectrum of investment choices and family money matters: home and auto buying, taxes, insurance, college costs, debt handling, unemployment survival, employee benefits and retirement funding (including today's often puzzling health-care environment), estate planning?all pretty much in present-day terms, which are of course bound to change. Unlike that of the Beardstown Ladies, who might research their company holdings down to the CEO's sensibly warm socks, the investment advice detailed here?"stick with stocks"?is largely technical, based on what the markets for stocks, bonds and other instruments may do and the pros and cons of transaction procedures, timing and broker relations. Readers zeroing in on their own age group will find?in a friendly if somewhat repetitive text?a diversified personal money program. Money Book Club main selection; BOMC and QPB selections.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This useful compendium of financial planning advice is prepared by reporters who contribute to the Wall Street Journal column "Your Money Matters." Each topic of personal financial planning?e.g., real estate, home buying, and investment?is discussed in terms of three age categories. For example, real estate decisions are described from the point of view of individuals in their twenties through thirties, forties through fifties, and beyond sixty. In addition, there is specific discussion of home buying as well as treatment of vacation home and investment real estate decisions. The quality and readability of the information is exceptional in comparison with other financial planning books, for example, Ric Edelman's The Truth About Money (LJ 11/15/96). Buy with the usual caution that the information is likely to become dated by changes in tax laws and investment performance over time.?Joseph Barth, U.S. Military Acad. Lib., West Point, N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Although several new guides to personal money management and investing have appeared recently, this one from the personal finance staff of the Wall Street Journal's "Money & Investing" section will fill the bill for those libraries looking for an up-to-date, comprehensive, and authoritative all-in-one resource that is not only helpful but readable. In 10 sections that cover planning, investing, insurance, benefits, family finances, estate planning, debt, real estate, taxes, money "mistakes" and consumer fraud, and various "alternative" lifestyle situations, the authors provide the necessary basic facts and advice that enable one to make smart choices and informed decisions. Each section initially tailors tips for three separate categories: those in their 20s and 30s, those in their 40s and 50s, and those in their 60s and beyond. Readers familiar with the Journal's popular "Your Money Matters" column will recognize this guide's uncommon sensibleness and its knowledgeable scrutiny of financial trends. David Rouse