EverBank Review: Online Bank For High Yield Investment Accounts

EverBank has some great savings products. Check out their unique offerings in the savings account space.

If you’re on the lookout for innovative bank products (like I am) then you may want to turn your attention to EverBank. I’ve been keeping up with them because they are one of the few resources I’ve found that offered interesting financial products that I couldn’t find anywhere else. Plus, they handily address a lot of my personal investment requirements.

Here’s the quick scoop. While EverBank provides many financial services from mortgage banking to investing, they’re actually quite well known for their online banking and consumer products, from high yield checking and high interest savings accounts to money market accounts and CDs that are denominated in both U.S. and foreign currencies. Considered as one of the largest online banks in the U.S., EverBank has received the Forbes “Best of The Web” recognition from 2000 to 2005.

Here’s a quick summary of their product offerings, which are mostly safe savings accounts with a few intriguing exceptions:

For a no monthly fee high interest checking account, you can take a look at EverBank’s Yield Pledge Checking Account. This account was formerly known as the FreeNet Checking Account but has since been renamed. They do require an opening minimum balance of $1,500, but if you can afford it, you may want to check out this account for the following features:

Latest Promo: Receive $60 for opening a checking account. Offer expires November 30, 2011.The yield promises to be in the “top 5% of competitive accounts” across leading banks (as per their “yield pledge”. Currently you’ll make 8X more than the national average with this account.There’s no minimum balance required to receive interest.There are NO monthly charges and NO debit card fees.You will be reimbursed for all ATM fees, regardless of which ATM you decide to use.They are of course, covered by the FDIC.Online bill pay is free for accounts that contain at least $5K as an average daily balance. Also, online and mobile banking is free.They’ll pay you $50 if you decide to take your business elsewhere ($50 satisfaction guarantee!). Numerous awards including Money Magazine’s “Best of Breed” and Kiplinger’s “Best Checking Account”.Open an EverBank Yield Pledge Checking Account and receive $60.

The EverBank Yield Pledge CD is described as a high yielding certificate of deposit (relatively speaking) that is covered by EverBank’s “yield pledge”, which simply means that the bank ensures that their yields will always be at the top 5% of competitive accounts. Their rates range from 0.35% APY for a 3 month CD all the way to 1.90% APY for a 5 year CD. Accounts are FDIC insured. The only downside is that they require a minimum opening balance of $1,500. Some other great features? You can opt for automatic rollovers or ask to be notified by a bank representative when your CD is about to mature (notifications occur 20 days prior to maturity).

Here’s where to sign up for an EverBank Yield Pledge CD.

Another FDIC insured product, the EverBank Yield Pledge Money Market Account has a .76% APY. Again, they require an opening balance of at least $1,500. Also, it’s only free if you maintain at least $5,000 in your account, otherwise it’ll cost you $8.95 a month to keep your money here. Given the relatively lower savings rates at this time, you may get more mileage from the Yield Pledge Checking account, which has some pretty attractive features that are focused on lowering costs instead.

Here’s where to find out more about the EverBank Yield Pledge Money Market Account.
Note: Following are EverBank’s unique foreign CDs. However, note that they are not available at this time and are only offered on occasion.

Okay now we come to the fun part! This is what I particularly appreciate about EverBank — they have a series of “WorldCurrency” products which I look upon as great diversifiers for any investment portfolio. Here’s what I mean: for foreign exposure, most of us own foreign equity mutual funds. But if you’re nervous about the volatility that stocks and currency exchange rates bring, then here’s the perfect product for you: the EverBank MarketSafe CD. What’s interesting is that this offering only comes around once in a while based on current market conditions, so you’ll need to apply for an account prior to a particular deadline (the last application deadline was on October 8, 2009) in order to participate in it.

The MarketSafe BRIC CD has a term of 3 years and gives you exposure to the 4 BRIC currencies: the Brazilian real, Russian ruble, Indian rupee and Chinese renminbi. Basically, you’ll make money if the BRIC currencies gain against the dollar upon the CD’s maturity at the end of its 3 year term. If your investment does not increase or goes down in value, you won’t be losing any money. In this case, you’ll get 100% of your principal back after the 3 years is up. So there’s no downside (except the potential loss of interest over 3 years)! It requires a reasonable $1,500 minimum deposit.

It’s something I’m seriously contemplating on as a great way to diversify my international holdings. You’ll need to check up on it now if you want to be part of their next offering.

If you’re unable to invest in the BRIC CD (because it’s unavailable), then there are still other ways to invest globally with EverBank. They have a ton of other foreign currency based CDs but these carry with them the currency risk inherent in international investments. So it’s safe to say that they’re only FDIC insured for bank insolvency, not for fluctuations in the value of your investment. If you’re interested in exploring diversification through foreign currencies, then you can check out the following products:

For more on foreign currency investments and research, check out this link!

All these products are available through both regular and IRA accounts. There are a whole slew of investment and savings options that are available with EverBank, many of which are not readily available through other banks. If you are looking for no-risk accounts, you can check out their Yield Pledge products. On the other hand, if you’re more interested in diversified foreign CDs or precious metals investments (which aren’t considered staples in most banks), then do take a look at EverBank’s commodity baskets (e.g. WorldCurrency CD baskets and Metals Select Gold and Silver accounts). You can also open an EverTrade brokerage account to trade traditional equity and bond securities.

Open an IRA account with EverBank here.
Created September 3, 2009. Updated October 27, 2011. Copyright © 2011 The Digerati Life. All Rights Reserved.

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Ally Bank Checking Review, After 3 Months As Primary Account

(Update October 2011: Ally has just announced that eCheck online deposit is available to all interest checking, online savings and money market accounts. So even if you just have the online savings account, you can deposit checks into it via scanner from home. I’ve updated my review below accordingly.)

It’s been a few months since I opened up an Ally interest checking account to complement my existing 5-year CDs and online savings account. Click here for a rundown of features that show why I made the switch. I’ve managed to try out many of their “perks”, including their official Perks program. Here are my experiences:

Unlimited ATM Rebates Anywhere in US
I’ve made a few ATM withdrawals at random ATMs, and the surcharges have been credited at the end of the month as promised. (I wish they were credited immediately.) Actually being charged those fees made me realize how fast $2-$5 a pop can add up. My fee rebates were almost higher than the interest I earned one month! I actually feel bad making Ally pay for something I could avoid, so whenever possible I still use my local bank’s ATM card for now. International ATMs are not eligible.

Free Overdraft Transfers from Savings
The checking account pays less interest than savings, so it is best to open both and keep as much money as you can in the savings. The Ally online saving account currently pays APY, and is one of the places I keep my emergency fund cash. With their free Overdraft Transfer Service, Ally will automatically transfer the required funds from savings if your checking goes negative. I actually initiated this last month when I wrote a check, here’s the screenshot from my account:

Ally transferred an amount equal to a round number near the overdraft amount plus $100. Alternatively, you can set it to auto-transfer a preset amount over if your checking balance dips to a certain threshold.

eCheck Online Deposit
Ally eCheck Deposit is a feature where you can scan in your checks over the internet with a desktop scanner. A smartphone camera-based app is supposedly in the works. This is now available on all interest checking, online savings and money market accounts. I have made multiple deposits successfully on a Mac after following their instructions carefully. (On Mac OS X, users have to use 32 bit mode for Firefox or Safari and Javascript. Chrome is always 32-bit.)

The process is straightforward. You must endorse your check with your signature, the phrase “For Ally eCheck Deposit Only”, and your account number. You can also deposit directly into your Online Savings account. The funds availability policy is such that checks submitted before 4pm Eastern will post the next business day, otherwise the 2nd business day. Your deposit starts earning interest as soon as the check posts, although for large deposits you may have a hold preventing immediate withdrawal.

Ally Perks Debit Card Rewards
This is a free rewards program that is linked to your Ally Checking debit card. It’s not a % cashback program on everything like that offered at PerkStreet Financial, but instead is more of a coupon-style service that works at specific online or brick-and-mortar merchants. I did see a few opportunities for some easy savings, for example $1 off a $1 minimum purchase at iTunes, $5 off $50 at Lowe’s in-store, and $2 off $7 at Subway.

You don’t need any coupons or codes, just pay with the Ally debit card and the discount amount is deposited directly into your checking account. I plan on checking in from time to time for any useful discounts, but this program certainly won’t convince me to buy things on their debit card. I’ll stick with credit card rewards.

Find more in Banking | 10/26/11, 6:43pm | Trackback

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Citi Forward Card Review & Improved Offer – $100 Gift Card Bonus

As I was reminded in my best cash back credit cards post, the Citi Forward card is a great rewards card for those who spend a lot on restaurants and at Amazon.com. That’s not everyone, but sure sounds like me in my 20s. Okay, okay… it sounds a lot like me now. What can I say, I still love food, friends, and Amazon Prime 2-day shipping. I have this card saved as the default card on my Amazon.com account for the 5x points, choosing this card over the Amazon-branded credit card. Why?

The Citi Forward Card earns 5 points for every $1 you spend on restaurants, book stores including Amazon.com, video rental stores, and movie theaters. On everything else, you get the plain vanilla 1 reward point for every $1 spent. The important part is that I have confirmed that all Amazon.com purchases count as a bookstore under their categorization system (books, textbooks, music, electronics, cool pumpkin-carving tools, etc).

The news here is that they just added a new 10,000 ThankYou point sign-up bonus, redeemable for $100 in gift cards for new cardholders to stores like Home Depot, Macy’s, Gap, etc. You must make $650 in purchases and sign up for paperless statements within the first 3 months. That is the best sign-up offer they have ever had for this card, as I got this card when it first came out.

Alternative for 10k points include a $100 Amazon.com gift card, or you can also get a check for $100 towards your student loan and/or mortgage. You also get another 100 points each month just for paying your bill on time and not going over your credit limit. No annual fee.

Find more in Credit Cards, Deals & Offers | 10/20/11, 5:15am | Trackback

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The Brag Book for Job Hunters: E-Book Review and Tips

Some of my career-services clients have had tremendous success with “brag books" (professional portfolios of career highlights and areas of expertise), propelling them from good-but-average positions to the next level of leadership with accompanying salary and commission increases.

Those in pharmaceutical sales are likely familiar with brag books; candidates may be asked to bring them to interviews. Outside of this industry — in fields as diverse as transportation and speech-language therapy — a professional compilation of achievements, acknowledgements, activities, etc. can also be valuable.

Years before the popularity of personal branding and social media for career building, I worked with clients to create presentations of their professional successes and styles, all in a simple-but-elegant binder (purchased at the office supply store). The books showed their qualifications for specific openings and positioned them as future superstars by showing not only results, but also their unique approaches to developing business, building a team, retaining key accounts, and more.

Getting a brag book ready is one challenge. Figuring out appropriate presentation is another.

In How to Design, Write, and Compile a Quality Brag Book, Teena Rose, CPRW (Certified Professional Resume Writer) guides job hunters through the basics of brag-book preparation and presentation. I found the casual tone of the e-book easy to understand, which is especially useful for those who need straightforward direction during the stress of the job search. She also offers valuable tips for senior-level candidates.

Great tips include:

Focus on quality and recentness when compiling a brag book. Choose the best of your accomplishments to highlight, ideally from the last few years.
Create categories with easy-to-find tabs for quick reference when making a presentation. Develop a theme for your brag book. This theme may reflect your brand; for example, one of my clients created categories of professional strengths and then provided documentation to showcase these different capabilities (e.g., the presentations category included a list of public speaking engagements; the community outreach category had press coverage of special events).
Place items such as letters of recommendation, annual performance reviews, and thank-you emails in the brag book. Consider using these items as talking points during the interview.
Ideally, tailor the brag book to the hiring organization. Avoid compiling a "catchall portfolio." Demonstrate that you are an outstanding candidate, not just that you have basic qualifications.
Think carefully about when to present the brag book. Take cues from the interviewer. Look for a natural break in the conversation or reference a page that reinforces a point about your qualifications.

Teena mentions that sales professionals and those who have quantifiable results can benefit most from brag books. I’ll add that those who have less opportunity to produce measurable results may also use brag books. Illustrate soft skills by packaging items such as notes of thanks for going the extra mile or emails recognizing the use of creative ideas to solve a problem.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of How to Design, Write, and Compile a Quality Brag Book for review.

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Review: Financially Stupid People Are Everywhere

Every Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal finance book or other book of interest.

The title of this book convinced me to pick it up at the library recently, but it was the introduction that caused me to actually take it home and give it a full read.

The introduction, entitled “Life as a Sucker,” makes the case that society is stacked against individual financial success unless you already have a lot of capital. Almost every element of modern society and government works against you without a large bankroll in your hand with which to generate more money.

In some ways, I agree with him. The path to personal finance success is not an easy one. I receive far more notes from people in financially disastrous situations than I can ever possibly address in my reader mailbags. There are, of course, reasons for that phenomenon, many of which the author, Jason Kelly, addresses in this book.

1: The First Rule of Finance
Live within your means by spending no more than 80% of your take-home pay. That’s the first rule of personal finance and I absolutely agree with it. If you can commit to doing that on average, you’re going to find yourself building up a lot of money in your savings over time, money that will keep financial disasters (like a job loss) at bay and make moves like buying your own home or buying a replacment car much, much easier. A big key, though, is to bank on that money, meaning that if you take money out of your savings, make extra payments beyond that 20% to restore what you took out.

2: Credit, Cars, and Castles
Kelly identifies these three elements as the most devastating opponents of personal finance success. Your credit cards (and the availability of easy consumer credit, your automobiles, and your home – together, they eat up a lot of your monthly resources if you’re paying off all of these loans. If you’re taking out a big debt for a home or an automobile that goes beyond what you minimally need, you’re essentially locking down your finances each month for the sake of having something beyond what you actually need. You’re chaining yourself to your job and walking a tightrope because you wanted more stuff.

3: Toxic FSP in the Alphabet Industry
The housing bubble only happened because people forgot the first rule of personal finance and allowed themselves to live beyond their means. When lots of people start doing this, you’ll eventually see a financial bubble of some sort, and when the people with a lot of money decide that the bubble is going to burst, they move their money and lo and behold, the bubble bursts. Prices revert to the mean and people who bought in during the bubble are left holding the bag.

4: The Society You’re Up Against
Society in general encourages overspending. It lauds having the latest consumer goods, encourages people to buy the latest and greatest things, and idolizes people who have great material wealth while encouraging others to emulate them. The end result of this, of course, is widespread financial hardship as people use their limited means to chase an affluent lifestyle that they think they deserve. The only people that win in this equation are the people who own the companies manufacturing all the stuff.

5: Government of the Corporations, by the Corporations, for the Corporations
The laws of the United States protect corporations by giving them most of the rights of people but few of the restrictions of people. For example, if a company is neglectful or abusive of someone, they are only penalized a small cash amount – you can’t send a corporation to prison. Thus, corporations push the boundaries of what would be legal or ethical behavior for an individual person because there is minimal penalty for them to act in that way.

6: How Money Is Power
Money is power because it both influences the laws of the land and also influences the methods people have of getting information. The more money you have, the better access to information that you have and the better decisions you’re able to make. In short, if you don’t have money in the bank, the deck of society is stacked against you.

7: Financial Freedom
This brings us back full circle to the idea that freedom is bought by having control over your finances. Kelly makes the point that of the money we earn, roughly a third goes to government, another third goes towards maintaining what we need, and the other third goes towards maintaining what we want. The problem, of course, is that people are clever at extracting money from that third that defines what we want, either by convincing us that it’s a need or justifying the want. The path to financial freedom is understanding that “want” section: knowing what is and isn’t a need and having control over the things you want.

8: Guarantee Your Own Well-Being
The best thing you can possibly do for your future is simply to gain control over your wants and put some of that want money to good use. Money in the bank is the best guarantee we have for present and future well-being that isn’t reliant on banks or government or any other entity to hold us up. If you want to succeed no matter what the future holds, you have to be self-reliant.

9: On the Front Lines of Freedom
Kelly closes the book by offering a few examples of real lives: people who are fighting this battle for themselves, getting control over their wants and their finances for a long-term healthy future.

Is Financially Stupid People Are Everywhere Worth Reading?
I really enjoyed this book simply because it stands out distinctly from the pack of personal finance books out there. It says some distinct, interesting, and thought provoking things about the causes of individual financial malaise and offers some unique angles about how to escape that malaise.

Financially Stupid People Are Everywhere has more of a political tinge to it than most of the books I review – it’s an integral part of the book, one you’ll figure out within fifteen seconds of reading the introduction. Because of that nature and because Kelly keeps that focus throughout, Financially Stupid People Are Everywhere becomes a pretty compelling and thoughtful read.

I don’t purely agree with everything Kelly says in the book, but I do think there are a lot of worthwhile ideas in here to consider, and that makes Financially Stupid People Are Everywhere a worthwhile read.

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Review: The Little Book of Commodity Investing

Every Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal finance book or other book of interest.

Commodity investing is one of those areas of personal finance that I simply don’t know much about. When I think about commodity investing, I think of listening to an AM station where a dry-voiced announcer is saying, “February soybeans two thirty two and a quarter up two and a quarter…” with small variations for half an hour.

Still, the idea of investing in something tangible holds some interest for me. Commodities are tangible, material things, often used in the manufacture or production of other things. Instead of owning a share in a corporation that exists on paper only, you own a thousand bushels of soybeans. That has direct appeal, even if it’s not something I deeply understand.

This week, I decided to correct that lack of understanding by reading The Little Book of Commodity Investing by John Stephenson, the latest book in the wonderful Little Books, Big Profits series. I like the series because it offers gentle introductions to specific investing topics from individuals who are actually involved in that field. John Stephenson is a very experienced portfolio manager who has been in commodity investing for a very long time – he knows his stuff.

This book largely boils down to a sequence of short chapters each dealing with a particular flavor of commodity investing – oil, foodstuffs, natural gas, precious metals, and so on – with a chapter on each end to bookend these pieces.

One | Calling on Commodities: Why Commodity Investing Is a Savvy Bet
The big argument in this opening chapter is that the coming years are going to be a boom for commodity investors as the tendrils of globalization dig deeper into nations like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and so on. These nations are going to be building infrastructure like mad and the ingredients to build that infrastructure, such as steel, oil, and natural gas, are going to be in high demand. This will also give rise to a huge global middle class which will result in consumer goods being produced and purchased at a huge rate, and those goods will be made from – you guessed it – commodities.

Two | Gettin’ Goin’: Companies or Commodities?
Unfortunately, directly owning commodities really isn’t a convenient option for most people. Do you have a place for 1,000 bushels of soybeans or 500 50 gallon drums of oil? For most people, the answer is a resounding “no.” The solution is to invest via a futures contract, in which a producer agrees to sell you some amount of a commodity at a certain price on a certain future date. So, for example, you might agree to a contract for 100 barrels of oil today for $30 a barrel, with the oil to be produced in six months. In six months, you then have 100 barrels of oil which you can sell to someone who will actually use it for the going market rate for that oil – it might be $35 or it might be $25. The chapter describes this market in detail with a tone that makes it quite understandable.

Three | Gusher: Investing in Oil
This chapter and the seven that follow it each give an outline of a particular commodity market, discussing in detail why it works as well as reasons why you might want to (and might not want to) invest in it. I felt that Stephenson’s most compelling case was with oil. He discusses at length how economies around the world are rapidly building infrastructure and moving to automobile transportation at the same time that world oil supplies seem to have peaked. If demand is going up and supply is going down, then prices are probably going to go up. The risk? Nations begin moving to energy sources besides oil for transportation.

Four | Drilling for Dollars: Profiting from Natural Gas
Stephenson doesn’t seem nearly as bullish on natural gas, however. Due to a lot of technological innovations, huge deposits of natural gas can now be accessed that were inaccessible before. While the demand for natural gas seems to be level, the supply has gone up, which means that prices have gone down. This does mean that prices are low at the moment, so an individual who carefully followed federal reports on natural gas reserves could turn a profit, but the general direction here is much weaker than with oil.

Five | Going for Gold: Prospering with Gold and Precious Metals
Gold. It seems to have been the buzzword over the past few years. As with most investing guides, Stephenson points out that gold seems to do best when the United States is having economic struggles – like right now, for example. However, he’s far from a gold bug – he suggests that, rather than hoarding gold and putting all of your money into it, you’re better off just buying a gold ETF (basically, this amounts to buying a stock in gold) as a small part of your investments. He gives short discussions of other precious metals here as well, such as platinum and palladium.

Six | Digging It: Making Metals and Mines Work for You
Here, Stephenson talks about “construction material” metals – steel, copper, aluminum, zinc, and so on. These items fluctuate in line with the global economy, meaning when construction picks up, these items pick up and vice versa. The London Metals Exchange drives almost all of this trading, and traders often keep tabs on supplies of various metals. When the supply drops, the prices will go up.

Seven | Betting the Farm: Bingeing on Food Inflation
I didn’t get a sense of the author’s advice on investing in foods overall. In the chapter, he discussed several trends in foods that point in opposing directions – some pointed towards greater demand, others pointed toward greater supply. I don’t think he was fully bullish on crops.

Eight | Ordering the Breakfast Special: Finding Profits in Foodstuffs
On the other hand, foodstuffs, like fruits, coffee, sugar, cocoa, and so on, are items that he seems to be strongly bullish on. Such crops are simply too exposed to the weather (giving them shaky production bases) and in such high demand that the prices will continue to stagger upwards into the foreseeable future, at least as far as Stephenson sees it. If you’re going to do this, he recommends buying ETFs.

Nine | Gaining in Grains: Investing in Grains
Grains are such a fundamental part of worldwide diets that the demand for such items is pretty strong and pretty steady in terms of growth. The issues come in with supply, wich is affected by lots of things from the weather to crop diseases. Another factor to look at is whether long term changes in diets globally will have any impact, though it hasn’t shown a significant impact to this point.

Ten | Bulk Up: Benefitting from Bulk Commodities
Here, Stephenson discusses iron ore and coal, which are used in huge quantities in industrial production. As with oil in the third chapter, Stephenson seems to be very bullish on these things, believing that the future points to more and more industrial production and infrastructure building as nations like China and India build a more sturdy infrastructure than they have.

Eleven | Capitalizing on Commodities: Why Commodities are Happening
Stephenson concludes the book with a short chapter that argues strongly on behalf of the idea that India, China, Russia, and other Asian nations are growing very rapidly in terms of their economy and will do so for quite a while. Since this idea underpins an awful lot of this book, it’s a key one, and Stephenson makes the case very well.

Is The Little Book of Commodity Investing Worth Reading?
If you want a book that will teach you some of the concepts behind commodity investing, The Little Book of Commodity Investing is probably going to be a very enjoyable read for you. It explains why investors would invest in certain commodities and gives some very general suggestions on how to do it.

On the other hand, if you want a step-by-step guide on what to buy, The Little Book of Commodity Investing will not really work for you. The book focuses on passing along ideas, not instructions.

For me, The Little Book of Commodity Investing gave me quite a lot of food for thought. Will it turn into actual investing? Probably not. Did it give me insight into areas I didn’t understand very well and put enough information in place that I now can understand and incorporate new things? Absolutely.

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13 Books Well Worth Reading: The Cream of the Book Review Crop

Every week, I review a different book on The Simple Dollar (those reviews appear on Sunday afternoons, for those who are new to the site). Over the years, that’s amounted to a lot of book reviews – 259 as of today. Here’s a full list of all of the books I’ve reviewed on The Simple Dollar.

Obviously, I don’t currently own all of these books – 259 such books would overstuff a bookshelf. What I find myself doing instead is keeping them around for a bit to see if I return to them as any sort of reference, and if I don’t, I then trade them or give them away. If the book was originally from the library, I see if I find myself wanting to check it out again, then I seek out my own copy of the book.

In any case, what eventually happens is that my personal library of books is small and it consists of a handful of books I return to over and over again for ideas on personal finance and personal growth. Right now, that library consists of thirteen books, with another one on the verge of joining for the long term.

In short, I found each of these books well worth reading on the first read and they’ve also stuck around on my bookshelf, providing continuous insight and ideas. Each of these books is well worth your time to read.

Getting Things Done
David Allen
Getting Things Done does something no other book I’ve ever read has done: it meshes time and information management together in a natural and intuitive way. Rather than treating your time and your information as two separate things, Allen essentially treats them as the same thing – you process appointments in the same way that you process reports and other things you need to read. They all go through the same process and they all wind up on your “next actions” list. The system described in the book is so elegant and filled with so many modular pieces that it has transformed my life and my ability to, well, get things done.

What really sets this book apart from the others is that the system itself doesn’t focus on micromanaging every sliver of time that you have. Instead, it’s all about simply having a trusted system that keeps track of everything going on in your head, no matter what that everything happens to consist of. That’s why it works for me – I handle my professional obligations and my personal appointments and my intellectual concerns all in the same system, with little need for borders.

Sound interesting? Check out my Getting Things Done review series.

The Complete Tightwad Gazette
Amy Dacyczyn
Reducing your spending is often a matter of taking little steps. The Complete Tightwad Gazette is a giant tome that collects more little steps together in one place than you could possibly tackle in a year. The joy of this book isn’t in the tips, though. It’s in the writing and attitude of the author, Amy Dacyczyn, who clearly relishes frugality and pairs it with a crisp and yet down-to-earth sense of humor throughout. Dacyczyn does a brilliant job of making even the most extreme of frugal ideas seem normal, completely accessible, and often incredibly fun.

This book clicks because the multitude of ideas it presents are fun. They practically beg you to have a yard sale or make a price book or make a homemade Halloween costume (could this be an October post?). When you find that those interesting activities put some jingle in your pocket as well, it’s both exciting and empowering.

Sound interesting? Check out my Complete Tightwad Gazette review.

Making It All Work
David Allen
Making It All Work is a follow-up of sorts to Getting Things Done, but it has a much different focus. While Getting Things Done focused on developing a system to handle all of the information in your life, Making It All Work focuses on why you’re handling all of those things in the first place. To put it as simply as possible, Getting Things Done addresses the how, while Making It All Work addresses the why.

The why is absolutely key, though. The why provides your motivation to get things done. It also helps guide you with regards to the constant choices we make between different things that need to get done. How do we prioritize? It all comes down to what our greater goals and priorities are, and Making It All Work does a brilliant job of tying the mundane day-to-day work to the larger things we want out of life, no matter what those things are.

Sound interesting? Check out my Making It All Work review, plus the upcoming series focusing on this book.

Raising Financially Fit Kids
Joline Godfrey
I have three children under the age of five. Teaching them about money is a constant adventure, as they’re also learning about impulse control, patience, and the idea that money is merely a means of exchange between very different kinds of things (work and goods). Even the simplest step of putting a found quarter into a piggy bank is an opportunity for financial learning, let alone big things like running a lemonade stand.

Children don’t come with manuals. On some level, all parents are making it up as they go along, but many parents find it useful to turn to the advice of others on some issues to get more insight on dealing with specific aspects of parenting. To put it simply, Raising Financially Fit Kids is the most thorough guide I’ve yet found for parents looking to teach their children lessons about personal finance, from the basics of saving to the ins and outs of entrepreneurship and from preschool children to high schoolers.

Sound interesting? Check out my Raising Financially Fit Kids review.

Your Money or Your Life
Joe Dominguez, Vicki Robin, and Monique Tilford
Your Money or Your Life is the personal finance book that turned my life around.

The book didn’t accomplish this through great investing advice or tons of specific frugality tips. It accomplished this change by recasting the role money played in my life. Your money and your life are intimately tied together. Money is not just a resource that you use to buy things. It’s a representation of your life’s energy – you work for it, expending your energy, and you get to use it in whatever way you choose.

By reframing the entire personal finance conversation in such a way, Your Money or Your Life completely reshaped my relationship with my finances and put me on a much better path. Money isn’t just something with which to acquire goods – it’s a representation of all of the effort you’ve put in and a representation of what kind of a mark you can leave on the world.

Sound interesting? Check out my Your Money or Your Life review series.

The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing
Taylor Larimore, Mel Lindauer, Michael LeBoeuf, and John C. Bogle
Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing is the single best all-around investment book I’ve ever read. It is always my first reference when thinking about investment options.

Why does it work? It succeeds on two levels. First, it advocates for a conservative – but not overly conservative – investment philosophy that helps people to reap the rewards of economic growth without losing everything in a downturn. Second, it actually explains the logic and reasoning behind the investment choices as the options are laid out. There’s as much why as how in this book and there’s also a refreshing lack of self-promotion and tales of impossible riches. It’s just good, sound investment advice for beginners and advanced investors alike.

Sound interesting? Check out my Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing review.

Born to Buy
Juliet Schor
As my children grow older, it’s so easy to see the influence that marketing has on their daily lives. Even a simple trip to the grocery store is loaded with marketing tactics, convincing children that they need particular products before they have the sophistication to make good choices on their own.

Born to Buy focuses on this very concern: marketing to children. In this modern marketing-saturated world, how can you possibly raise smart consumers that make good choices from an early age? Schor accomplishes this not through heavy-handed advice, but by showing the multitude of techniques marketers use to influence children, reinforcing the notion that merely knowing is half the battle. From there, the book moves onto a few well-illustrated parenting strategies for raising savvy children with regards to marketing influences.

Sound interesting? Check out my Born to Buy review series.

Mindset
Carol Dweck
Mindset hinges on a simple idea with profound implications in personal finance, careers, and everyday life. There are two essential mindsets with regards to how people see their options and abilities. Some people have a “fixed” mindset – a self-definition that is static and doesn’t or can’t change – or a “growth” mindset, meaning that with work and effort, they can change who they are.

Obviously, a “growth” mindset is far more loaded with avenues for success and life possiblities. The book focuses on how to shift your own mindset to a “growth” mindset, as well as advice on how to raise children with a “growth” mindset. We are all limited by what we think our own limits are. When we are willing to step beyond those limits and try new things, even as simple as talking to others and building relationships (my biggest challenge), we are almost always deeply rewarded.

Sound interesting? Check out my Mindset review.

Never Eat Alone
Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz
Speaking of my own challenges with communicating with others, Never Eat Alone focuses on that very concern. How exactly do we build meaningful relationships with others in the modern age? What does a “meaningful” relationship actually mean, and what value does it have, personally and professionally?

Never Eat Alone addresses both of these concerns in a very clear fashion, offering up a set of core ideas on how to build value-based relationships with others. The underlying principle is very simple – give of yourself first and foremost and people will come to value their connection with you – and it truly works. The more you give of yourself, the more others come to see you as a valuable person to be connected with.

Sound interesting? Check out my Never Eat Alone review series.

The Millionaire Next Door
Thomas Stanley and William Danko
The Millionaire Next Door opened my eyes to one simple fact: to be rich usually means the opposite of the pop culture perception of what a rich person is like. The generic idea of a rich person is a media created entity, one designed to sell lots of products to people who aspire to be seen as rich by matching that media perception.

The truth of rich people, as this book shows very clearly through detailed research, is that most people who are millionaires live very humble existences, often driving old cars and living in smaller houses. The people driving shiny new SUVs and living in McMansions often are not rich at all. Perception does not match reality.

Sound interesting? Check out my Millionaire Next Door review

Voluntary Simplicity
Duane Elgin
Voluntary Simplicity goes hand-in-hand with The Millionaire Next Door and Your Money or Your Life in many ways. However, instead of focusing directly on money, it instead centers on focusing on the core things that bring value into your life. What are the things that really matter to you?

The central argument of Voluntary Simplicity is that you can essentially let go of those elements that don’t really matter to you in order to focus your energy and resources on the handful of things that do matter. If you don’t value living in a big house, why live in one? If you truly do value it, then you are willing to devote the time and energy it takes to maintain it. If you’re investing your resources into something, yet you don’t value it enough to actually utilize it and maintain it, you’re misusing your life’s resources. Elgin expands upon this central idea in many different ways, with a lot of profound conclusions.

Sound interesting? Check out my Voluntary Simplicity review.

Outliers
Malcolm Gladwell
What elements make a person able to succeed in what they choose? Is it God-given talent? Is it luck? Or is it something else. Outliers proposes that time and time again, no matter the field, the people that rise to the top are the people that sink a lot of hours into their field. Their skill, earned through tremendous hard work, opens doors for them.

Why do I keep returning to this book? With a lot of research to back it up, Outliers emphasizes the value of hard work and preparation as the most valuable things a person can do for themselves in life if they want to succeed. Fortune favors the prepared, they say, and Outliers makes that statement very clear.

Sound interesting? Check out my Outliers review.

The Total Money Makeover
Dave Ramsey
The Total Money Makeover is the best all-around “getting out of debt” book that I’ve ever seen. The advice is simple, very concrete, and very achievable if you’re willing to put some work and patience into it.

That’s not why this book stands out to me, though. It works because of Ramsey’s voice, which comes across as a stern but lovable coach. His ability to motivate personal finance success through the written word is quite incredible and I often simply enjoy the fervor and positive attitude he puts forth in some of the passages, even if the ideas themselves are simple.

Sound interesting? Check out my Total Money Makeover review series.

And, one honorable mention…

The Checklist Manifesto
Atul Gawande
The Checklist Manifesto has been a big influence on my thinking over the past month or so and I find myself rereading sections of it quite frequently. As I mentioned last Sunday in my review of the book, the central idea is that we often lose track of little details of the routines that are part of our lives. We are so familiar with them that we lose a step or two, and those little steps are often the ones that turn out to be absolutely crucial. A good checklist, therefore, is one that handles a specific situation in your life thoroughly, and following it each time you engage in that situation ensures the kind of continuous success that you can build a career and a successful life upon.

Sound interesting? Check out my Checklist Manifesto review.

Hopefully, you’ll find a book here that can change your life. If not, then there’s always my own book.

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Review: Psych Yourself Rich

Every Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal finance book or other book of interest.

A couple years ago, Farnoosh Torabi wrote You’re So Money, I book I succinctly described by saying “this book pitches personal finance advice for consumerism addicts.” Nevertheless, I concluded that the book did offer some very solid advice to the crowd that would not allow their Gucci handbags to be pried from their cold, dead hands.

Torabi’s follow-up book takes a decidedly different tack on the arena of personal finance, moving on to the idea that your personal mindset has a good deal to do with whether or not you find money success.

For me, this is the area where personal growth ties deeply into personal finance. Personal growth is all about becoming aware of your actions and choices and considering how you can improve those actions and choices. When you put that spotlight on your money, you can often reveal quite a lot about improving your personal finances, and that’s the sweet spot this book swings for.

Personalize Rich
What does “rich” mean to you? Once you sit down and start answering that question for yourself, you begin to realize that “rich” doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. You need to figure out what you define as “rich,” which is, in essence, simply setting, in a very vague way, your long term goals. For me, rich is often defined in security – is my family safe from whatever may come? Others may define it very differently.

Establish Goals
From there, Torabi takes the ideas of what makes a person “rich” and transforms them into specific, tangible goals that a person can use. What does it mean for my family to be “safe from whatever may come”? When I’m able to transform that into a specific goal, like a big emergency fund, then I have something to work towards that’s real, as opposed to the vague notion of something that I might just be dreaming about.

Craft Your Money Philosophy
What you’ll find as you move through the process of figuring out what “rich” means to you and establishing goals based on it is that some particular values are going to be important to you. For me, family is a really, really key value, for example, and thus for me, my money philosophy centers deeply around providing for that family. I value having an emergency cash reserve and I’m less interested in chasing big financial growth.

Embrace Your Relationship with Money
The idea here is that many people are detached from their money in many ways. They don’t connect their hard work to the money they have, and they also don’t connect their checking account balance to all of the things they spend their money on. This leads to a deep sense of “where did all the money go?” and often to a sense that there’s something deeply wrong without really understanding what that is. The solution, of course, is to spend time focusing on this type of connection. Keep careful track of how you’re spending money. Talk about money with your loved ones, even if it’s uncomfortable. Keep it in your mind and embrace it.

Organize, Don’t Agonize
Another issue many people have with their money is that it’s difficult for people to figure out what they have and what they don’t have. Their records are disorganized and the information they need isn’t available when they need it, which makes it all the more difficult to really embrace your relationship with your money. The solution is an efficient filing system, where you keep the relevant information you may need in the future in a known place that can easily be retrieved when you need it.

Be Your Biggest Advocate
Another key step is becoming your own advocate – in other words, having a backbone when it comes to talking to people who have an impact on your finances. Don’t be afraid of the customer service representatives. Your approach should be to know what to expect from them before you even talk to them and when they don’t provide it, be insistent and keep going for what you expect (provided your expectations are reasonable, of course). Companies aren’t your advocate – you are.

Make Your Money Count
When you do start to get ahead financially (meaning your net worth – the total of your assets minus your debts – is going upwards), make sure you’re putting your money in places where it really counts. The more return you can consistently earn on your money, the better. If you’re putting it into savings, look for savings options that provide a better return. When you’re considering which debt to pay off, look hardest at the debt with the highest interest rate.

Think Five Years Ahead
Almost always, your best financial choices are made if you ask yourself, with every dollar you spend or invest, what will have the biggest positive impact five years from now. Sometimes, it’s a tricky question, but that question will point you (almost always) in several positive directions: towards frugality, towards repaying debts, and towards good choices with regards to making your money count.

Break from the Norm
For many people, these types of personal changes are very difficult because they’re different, not only from what they’ve been doing before, but it’s different than what the people around them are doing, too. You’ve got to recognize that you’re breaking from the norm in doing this, and this is often the best time to break from the norm in other regards, too. Revise your social circle. Look for new people to associate with. Break other bad habits in your life. Keep the changes simple and straightforward.

Embrace the Entrepreneurial Spirit
One final step is to embrace the idea that you are an entrepreneur. Everyone who exchanges work for money is essentially a small businessperson on some level, and every single small businessperson owes it to themselves to always seek out the best exchanges of money for their time and effort that they can find. This means not only looking for side businesses to start, but also it means focusing on improving yourself, including your abilities and skill set.

Is Psych Yourself Rich Worth Reading?
Psych Yourself Rich does a very good job of taking the broad ideas of the connection between psychology, personal finance, and self-motivation and transforming them into specific tactics that anyone can apply in their life.

From my perspective, psychology and understanding yourself are absolutely key elements for personal finance success. This book makes those ideas tangible and actionable.

The only weak spot, to me, is that Torabi doesn’t dig too deep into these issues at times. This book begs for some follow-up reads, from books like Your Money or Your Life or Mindset.

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Review: Confessions of a Butcher

Every Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal finance book or other book of interest.

I didn’t expect that I would like this book.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from Vickie Smith, the wife of John Smith (the author of Confessions of a Butcher). She had stumbled across The Simple Dollar and had read through some of the site’s archives. She thought I might be interested in her husband’s self-published book, outlining some of the things he’d learned about saving money on meat purchases through his thirty year career in the meat packing industry.

When I received it, I really didn’t get much of an impression from it at all. It was a thin volume that, when I leafed through it, seemed to mostly just list cuts of meat. Not very appealing. However, I’m starting to become a strong supporter of the self-publishing industry, so I decided to give it a read.

This isn’t going to be my usual “walkthrough” review, because that would be very difficult to do with this book. Instead, I’m going to simply summarize the three main sections of it and why they’re valuable.

The Cuts
The first half of the book essentially is a reference guide to various cuts of meat, as mentioned in the introduction of this review.

Why is this useful? First, this book is small enough that you could easily stick a copy of the book in your purse or back pocket when you head off to the grocery store or butcher shop when you’re considering buying meat. Second… well, it’s probably best explained if I quote an entry describing a cut, from page 36:

Beef for Stew
Money-saving alternatives: chuck roast, rump roast, cross rib roast, round steak, brisket, flatiron, chuck flat strip
Stew meat is made from the trim that is left over from the day’s cuttings. Even when stew meat is on sale, it may not be as cheap as many other cuts. Boneless chuck roasts and round steaks on sale will be cheaper, sometimes a lot cheaper. Find the cheapest and the leanest cut of meat and cut into cubes for stew or ask the butcher for his assistance. Now having said all that, the best meat for stew, in my humble opinion, comes from the brisket, flatiron, or the chuck flat strip. These three cuts should cost you less than the stew meat in the counter, but meay not be the best deal you can find. They will however be the best stew meat you can find.

Each entry in the book consists of the same basic elements as this entry: a list of money-saving alternatives to the cut you’re looking at, some notes on what the cut consists of and how to maximize the value of the meat at the butcher’s counter, and some recommendations on other cuts to choose. In other words, this material is a gold mine for a value-conscious meat eater, and it’s also a handy reference to have with you when you do shop for meat.

The Tips
This very short section is found in the center of the book. It essentially collects 14 key principles for saving money on meat purchases. An example (one I strongly agree with):

7. Do not buy ground beef. Wait until round steaks, chuck roasts or steaks, or any other cheap cuts are on sale, and have the butcher grind them for you. The quality will be great and, if you buy right, so will the savings.

In other words, by timing your purchases and taking advantage of the full service of a full-service meat counter, you can save a lot of money while also getting much better ground beef.

The Appendix
The latter half of the book consists of several essays, seemingly attached to the book as an appendix and quite possibly overlooked by people who pick up the book for a quick glance. The essays are quite varied, from a small collection of great recipes for leftover turkey to butcher etiquette as well as recommended “tools of the trade” for handling meat at home. This section provides almost as much value as the preceding one.

Is Confessions of a Butcher Worth Reading?
Recommending or not recommending this book is very simple: if such a money-saving meat-buying reference seems like it would be of use to you in your food buying routines, then this book is well worth purchasing. If you’re a vegetarian (or mostly vegetarian) or are very confident of your current meat-purchasing routines, then this book won’t offer much value.

I, for one, have started carrying my copy of this book in my glove compartment. The advice on specific cuts, particularly the stew meat material illustrated above, has already saved me some cash while also upgrading the quality of my meals. That’s a great resource, in my opinion.

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