Personal Finance

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Personal Finance in your 20s and 30s, Third Edition
$18.95
This book truly stands to the series name "Idiot's guides" by being full of extremely basic advice. These authors inform the readers that there exits publics transportation services such as subways and buses as good options to save money. Actually, this advice is not for an idiot but for someone who's been isolated from the world forever. Besides, the advice is only applicable to big cities, and even in those cities there are limitations. USA is basically made for car owners.

Want to compare pros and cons of buying vs building a house? You'd need to get much advice on whom to approach, how to tell good house builders from bad ones, what to do in case of scams, builder's associations to approach, and several more facts. Yet, these authors will only tell you in a long whole page that building a house has the advantage of being made as you want it, while a used one was made according to the previous owner's tastes. They say that "hopefully" (in their own words) you'll get a good builder team. And so it's the rest of the book. "Hopefully" you'll find a good book on personal finance.

But as for this book, you won't learn almost anything about personal finance. All you'll get is a chit-chat talk that you can get from any neighbor, relative, friend, co-worker, etc. I well know that many people have serious communication problems and these simple talks are not so simple for them. If this is your case don't let these authors take advantage of you and seek a good book. The Dummie's series on personal finance is a good alternative. If you also want some charismatic and inspirational reading, my recommendation is Andrew Mathews' books.

There are many scammers out there, self-proclaimed financial advisers. This book's authors are some of them. I think the most famous of all is Suze Orman. They'll tell you ton of very interesting stories, but that's no way to learn about finances. You'd never finish hearing personal stories, yet you'd still need to learn much more. These writers normally focus too much in making their reading fun, actually using a rather juvenile language and these authors' style is particularly juvenile since they wanted to identify with rather young people; they did it too well. These kind of sloppy authors also spent too much time on encouraging readers to save. The topic on saving is quite simple and lets them fill their books. As important as saving is, it must only take a few pages in book. If you do have a problem with saving, you'd better get a full book on the topic.

The big problem with more effective books on finance is that you'll have to deal with more math and less entertaining readings, and judging from the many reviews giving 5 and 4 stars here, I realize that this is a big problem for many people who actually prefer to fool around (or areactually terribly ignorant).

The book has several annoying commentaries that I could put off with if it really were useful, but since it isn't the commentaries just add insult to injury. The authors say, for example, that only like 10% of people around 30 have reached the 5 qualities of adulthood: being financially independent, leaving off their parent's, being married, having children and a 5th one I don't remember. The world is full of people with severely unattended children. And the fact that you are wealthy and with a stable job doesn't imply that you are ready to have children either. I can even say that most middle class and rich parents spend most of their time shopping, watching TV and more personal fun than spending time with their children. And the same applies to being married if you don't work your relationships. Being realistic by being aware that marriage and children is not for you is more mature that making a conventional family, and being able to deal with the loneliness that come with that is definitively mature.

It's a shame that two people, supposedly certified in finance, couldn't make a barely comparable work that what the Dummie's writer did on personal finance.

Personal Finance
$199.95
This book seems to be a good one for my class of Personal Finance. Can not say much more than that as I'm still reading it and still in the class. But it is a pretty easy book to read. It has lots of 'story problems' and tips and hints. Which breaks up the 'boring class' reading a lot I believe.

You Need A Budget Pro - Personal Finance Software Program
$49.95
I have given up on just about every money management program out there. I could never get all the numbers from all the accounts to match up. I could never grasp where my money was or where it was going. I thought it was just me. It wasn't.

YNAB is amazing. It's simple and intuitive. I was up and running within a few days of installing it. I had some questions that were very quickly, and very kindly answered by members of the fabulous forums. Even though, as I see now, they had all been asked and answered countless times before.

Jesse (the creator of this software) and his whole team, not to mention all of the folks on the forums, really and truly want to help you get control of your money. Unlike most of the other programs out there that really just want to get your money, period.

This is truly a case of someone who's first goal was to design a very usable piece of software, and only then decided to make it available for others to benefit from.

YNAB is not for everyone. It does not have anywhere near the bells and whistles of the big name money management options out there. If you want to be able to track the compound interest earned on your millions, this is not the right program for you.

If you're struggling to get out of debt or just to get a handle on where your money goes every day, get this. I have learned to save for upcoming bills, vet care, insurance, car repairs, and all of life's other little surprises. I am no longer living paycheck to paycheck. I hate to sound sappy, but this little program is worth it's weight in gold. Buy it!

Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance In Your Twenties and Thirties
$16.00
This book is packed full of helpful advice on dealing with debt, investing, housing, insurance, taxes, 401(k) plans, and even what papers you need to keep and for how long.