Your money or your Life

[Hot dog]

Just wandering what you all thought about the book. I find it very hard to read through and stay focused. I thought a couple months back that I had read somewhere on this board that it was really good because after reading it many had gotten their finances straight. I find the steps a bit too hard and time consuming although anything worth doing is not supposed to be easy. Wondering what you thought of the quote Treasury and agency bonds are the safest, most conservative investments in the world. There can be no legitimate objection to them. They seem to think this is the only way to invest for retirement or to become financially Independent.

[sweeps]

Originally Posted by Hot dog

Wondering what you thought of the quote Treasury and agency bonds are the safest, most conservative investments in the world.

I think there a lot of gold bugs out there that would disagree.

Originally Posted by Hot dog

They seem to think this is the only way to invest for retirement or to become financially Independent.

At what age? Maybe if you're 80.

Investing in Treasury bonds is equivalent to treading water. You may keep pace with inflation if you're lucky. Serious retirement investors should be in stocks.

[Broken Arrow]

I thought it was a very good book. I think people who like personal anecdotes, graphs, and is looking for a book to focus on personal finances will get the most out of it.

The book's weakness lies in the little bit of investing advice its imparts.... If you're looking for a book to learn about investing, I would recommend to look elsewhere.

[aida2003]

Overall, it was a pretty good book, IMO. I liked its 'prologue' (not sure what's the correct term for that section) the most. It made sense to me: people are not citizens anymore, they're consumers. Very sad and true.
I didn't really concentrate on the book because our family is frugal already, IMO, and I didn't see how we'd benefit from tracking each penny.

As regards to SAFE investments, I thought it's outdated. It's an old book afterall.

[mike42]

I really liked the book.

As others have said, the commentary about investing is more than likely outdated (think about the time period the book was written in to understand the investing advice). But the other concepts in the book and the book overall is excellent.

[Broken Arrow]

I don't know if it's out-of-date... because the American stock market has been around for more than a century now, and similar types of practices has been done for centuries longer.... So, people knew about it, and surely the author must have too....

Perhaps the author is very conservative, or dare I say it, still learning the investing ropes like anybody else. What she sought for and advocated was a safe, nearly guaranteed way of producing a stream of passive income. Bonds can certainly do that, but....

Knowing what we know about investing, bonds are only one piece out of at least a dozen different pieces that we need to learn and put together in order to invest effectively....

Again, I don't disagree with her ideas per se. Just that it's an incomplete picture. Please take that part with a grain of salt. Anyway, she spends only a chapter on it I think, and I don't think it detracts too much from the book overall.

[Hot dog]

I don't know maybe I am lazy but it was just too much stuff to do. Make an inventory of every little thing you own. Then all the graphs and tabulations and wall charts. I mean I like the notion of making sure all your values are in line with your spending and what you are buying is worth all the time and work hours you spent to get it but I like it to be a little more simple. I guess I like David Bach's books it just makes it seem easy like anyone can do it. I know you have to add in some other stuff but I like the simplicity of his writing style. You don't have to read it twice to understand what he is saying. They also say inflation is not as much an issue as we think because if we bought the same products as years ago they would be cheaper but we always want the newest technology.

[Gailete]

The book had a lot of great concepts in it and best was learning how to quit spending for stuff you don't need. If you learn to live on less than you make, then you will have money to save. Joe apparently lived this lifestyle until he died from cancer a few years ago. I can only assume Robin still lives it.

Even if you don't want to do all the exercises at least think about want you want in life,why, and do you really want to work all day for name brand sneakers or just an hour or two for generic ones. That is the message they are trying to get people to grasp. Too many people these days think the more stuff they have the better, no so.

[Scanner]

I'd say it depends on where Treasuries are paying.

I think a better book was by Peter Lynch and I can't remember the name of it.

He remarked in his book that 7% is the magic number, a nexus between risk and reward.

He advised that any risk after earning a 7% return is disproportionate to the return involved.

I know it's not easily quantifiable but let's say it works like this:

3% Interest/return. 1 risk unit.
4% Interest /return. 2 risk units
5% Interest/return. 3 risk units
6% Interest/return 4 risk units
7% Interest/return 5 risk units
8% Interest/return 9 risk units
9% Interest/return 21 risk units
10% Interest/return 43 risk units

In other words, the risk takes off exponentially but the reward only progresses geometrically.

So. . .if Treasuries are paying 5, 6, or 7%, you may deduce that for the risk involved (very low), it may be worth to have your entire portfolio in them.

That's the way I understood it anyway. . .I have always filed away that information even if I don't live by it. I figure if I got 7%. . .I did good.