The Wall Street Journal Lifetime Guide to Money: Strategies for Managing Your Finances

by Staff of the Wall Street Journal, C. Frederic Wiegold (Editor)

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.

Genres: Reference, Finance, Money, Nonfiction

602 pages, Hardcover

First published January 2, 1997

Reviews

[Adrienne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book through the Paperback Book of the Month Club introductory offer. It was a great investment! This book covers your personal finances and how to handle them.

A selection of topics:
dealing with debt
the best deal in real estate
tax advice
estate planning
insurance

There are special sections in each chapter to deal with what you want to do overall based upon your age. It covers from your early 20s through retirement. This book is for people who are not finance wizards and do not have a background in finance. Many people use their friends and parents as litmus tests for what they should do with their money. That can be a mistake. This book gives advice based upon your specific situation and helps you find what you need that the book cannot provide, ie. agents to help you buy insurance, retirement plans, real estate.

I recommend this book to anybody who wants to get their personal finances in order or see what they could be doing to use their money the best they can. This is a big book. I've used the sections I've needed at a given time to help me. I have read the book all the way through. At that time, I caught holes in my financial planning that I would not have otherwise seen. My husband also has read this book. Even though we take care of different parts of our financial situation, we both have a general idea of what is going on overall.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you learn by repetition, this book is for you. The first chapter pretty much says it all, and so does the second, and the third, and .... So, it's not a snappy read, but sometimes it takes having someone nag you over and over to get your will in order and draw up a durable power of attorney and draft a personal finance inventory to get you to actually do it. The style is casual and easy, but the length of the book can be daunting. To be fair, the book wasn't designed to be read cover to cover in a week; the editors expect you to use their tome as a reference guide to personal finance for many years. Now twelve years old, its advice is still useful, but I was a little surprised that there were very, very few Web sites mentioned. Managing your money has become so much easier in the past decade with the advent of online banking, automated ACH transfers, and www.bankrate.com.

[Todd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather dated in it's specific advice since it was published as the dot.com bubble was beginning to implode, but some of the general principles are still correct since good financial principles never change.

[Andrea Norton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, it's one to read over time as it is set for different age groups and needs. It is repetitive but does cover everything financial related. A great resource to have on your bookshelf!