How To Really Ruin Your Financial Life and Portfolio [Wiley, 2012]

How To Really Ruin Your Financial Life and Portfolio

by

Ben Stein

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My father bought me this book because he thought I needed to learn a few things and I never really read up on these things – perhaps he knew me better than he realised or it was just taking a chance on something off the normal financial advisory title, but this is what he found.

Little did he know that the author is a man I know; not for what is in this book or the like, but I knew him way back as this deadpan teach on The Wonder Years and Jim Careys’ therapist in The Mask and the like – his face and that monotone deadpan of his are unique and I actually read the whole book in that voice, which was an experience all its own in my head.

Well, I did not know that he was an economist and a finance guy and so while I was surprised, I decided to see what he had to say.

The bottom line: It is interesting.

The whole book is written with a tongue in cheek sassyness which on the one hand could be taken as being an ass to the reader but on the other hand, being thusly blunt about it has a way of driving home some points well. This is something that at least for me was good because when it comes to money management and wealth creation and securing your life, it is impressive how little real-world knowledge is given to most people and how convoluted and average-person-unfriendly that world can feel.

The book is replete with commentary on types of market, on investment practices, views on people in that world and understanding them as well as the system and contains a lot of simple but mostly effective points about trying to stick to a modicum of common sense and perhaps erring on the side of caution and being wary of people and things that promise the moon. All of this in very short chapters/headings that given a minimal and crisp take on each topic.

Whether you take his advice or not, I did appreciate it for the fact that it is as stated above and does not have a lot of fluff or jargon or such. The advice is perhaps more conservative about the approach to finances and investing than many might like to hear in our current culture of get-rich-quick claims by the world and their mothers, but I respect having a slight caution to the finance world and not being overly greedy.

If you like reading books on finance and investing, I would add this into the pile to check out a different perspective than some of the others I’ve seen and that many money managers tom-tom.



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