Your Money or Your Life

9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence: Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

The “the best book on money period” according to Grant of Millennial Money (as featured on CNBC Make It), who followed its advice and became a self-made millionaire entrepreneur in only five years

In an age of great economic uncertainty when everyone is concerned about money and how they spend what they have, this updated edition of the bestselling Your Money or Your Life is an essential read. Millennial Money‘s Grant explains: “The premise of it is that you exchange your time for money. And when you start thinking about how many hours of your life it took to save up the money to buy something, you really start thinking twice about your purchases.”

In Your Money or Your Life, Vicki Robin shows readers how to gain control of their money and finally begin to make a life, rather than just make a living. With this book, you’ll learn how to:

• Get out of debt and develop savings
• Save money through mindfulness and good habits, not strict budgeting
• Declutter your life and live well for less
• Invest your savings and begin creating wealth
• Save the planet while saving money
• And much more!

“The seminal guide to the new morality of personal money management.” –Los Angeles Times

The Simple Path to Wealth

Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life.

“In the dark, bewildering, trap-infested jungle of misinformation and opaque riddles that is the world of investment, JL Collins is the fatherly wizard on the side of the path, offering a simple map, warm words of encouragement and the tools to forge your way through with confidence. You’ll never find a wiser advisor with a bigger heart.” — Malachi Rempen: Filmmaker, cartoonist, author and self-described ruffian

This book grew out of a series of letters to my daughter concerning various things—mostly about money and investing—she was not yet quite ready to hear.

Since money is the single most powerful tool we have for navigating this complex world we’ve created, understanding it is critical.

“But Dad,” she once said, “I know money is important. I just don’t want to spend my life thinking about it.” This was eye-opening. I love this stuff. But most people have better things to do with their precious time. Bridges to build, diseases to cure, treaties to negotiate, mountains to climb, technologies to create, children to teach, businesses to run.

JL Collins about “Fuck You Money”

JL Collins: Did your grandfather take risks?

Unfortunately, benign neglect of things financial leaves you open to the charlatans of the financial world. The people who make investing endlessly complex, because if it can be made complex it becomes more profitable for them, more expensive for us, and we are forced into their waiting arms.

Here’s an important truth: Complex investments exist only to profit those who create and sell them. Not only are they more costly to the investor, they are less effective.

The simple approach I created for her and present now to you, is not only easy to understand and implement, it is more powerful than any other.

Together we’ll explore:

• Debt: Why you must avoid it and what to do if you have it.
• The importance of having F-you Money.
• How to think about money, and the unique way understanding this is key to building your wealth.
• Where traditional investing advice goes wrong and what actually works.
• What the stock market really is and how it really works.
• Why the stock market always goes up and why most people still lose money investing in it.
• How to invest in a raging bull, or bear, market.
• Specific investments to implement these strategies.
• The Wealth Building and Wealth Preservation phases of your investing life and why they are not always tied to your age.
• How your asset allocation is tied to those phases and how to choose it.
• How to simplify the sometimes confusing world of 401(k), 403(b), TSP, IRA and Roth accounts.
• TRFs (Target Retirement Funds), HSAs (Health Savings Accounts) and RMDs (Required Minimum Distributions).
• What investment firm to use and why the one I recommend is so far superior to the competition.
• Why you should be very cautious when engaging an investment advisor and whether you need to at all.
• Why and how you can be conned, and how to avoid becoming prey.
• Why I don’t recommend dollar cost averaging.
• What financial independence looks like and how to have your money support you.
• What the 4% rule is and how to use it to safely spend your wealth.
• The truth behind Social Security.
• A Case Study on how this all can be implemented in real life.

Don’t let any of this intimidate you. Those that have gone before you say:

“….in his patented no-frills and often humorous style, JL makes it both approachable and simple. And powerful.”
“…effective message told in a visual, funny style.”
“…a refreshingly unique and approachable take on investing.”
“JL Collins has the gift of making boring financial concepts funny and interesting.”
“Instead of esoteric equations about measuring a stock’s alpha and comparing it to its beta, he lights up the campfire and starts telling stories.”

Enjoy the read, and the journey!

The Automatic Millionaire, Expanded and Updated: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich

What’s the secret to becoming a millionaire?

For years people have asked David Bach, the national bestselling author of Smart Women Finish Rich, Smart Couples Finish Rich, and Start Late, Finish Rich what’s the real secret to getting rich? What’s the one thing I need to do?

Now, in the newly revised The Automatic Millionaire, expanded and updated, David Bach is sharing that secret.

The Automatic Millionaire starts with the powerful story of an average American couple–he’s a low-level manager, she’s a beautician–whose joint income never exceeds $55,000 a year, yet who somehow manage to own two homes debt-free, put two kids through college, and retire at 55 with more than $1 million in savings. Through their story you’ll learn the surprising fact that you cannot get rich with a budget! You have to have a plan to pay yourself first that is totally automatic, a plan that will automatically secure your future and pay for your present.

What makes The Automatic Millionaire unique:
·        You don’t need a budget
·        You don’t need willpower
·        You don’t need to make a lot of money
·        You don’t need to be that interested in money
·        You can set up the plan in an hour

David gives you a totally realistic system, based on timeless principles, with everything you need to know, including phone numbers, websites and apps, so you can put the secret to becoming an Automatic Millionaire in place from the comfort of your own home.

This powerful little book has the potential to secure your financial future. Do it once–the rest is automatic!

#1 New York Times bestseller with over 1.5 Million Copies Sold

The Automatic Millionaire is one of the most popular financial books of our time.  It was a runaway hit when it was first published in 2004, spending thirty-one weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and appearing at at number one simultaneously on the New York Times, USA Today, BusinessWeek, and Wall Street Journal business bestseller lists. It has sold over 1.5 million copies and been translated around the world in over a dozen languages.  This is the first update since 2005 and includes updated information on taxes, investments, technologies and apps to automate your financial life as well as David’s latest systems for making the entire process even easier.

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy

“Why aren’t I as wealthy as I should be?” Many people ask this question of themselves. Often they are hard-working, well-educated, middle- to high-income people. Why, then, are so few affluent? For nearly two decades the answer has been found in the best-selling The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy.

According to the authors, most people have it all wrong about how you become wealth in America. Wealth in America is more often the result of hard work, diligent savings, and living below your means than it is about inheritance, advanced degrees, or even intelligence. The Millionaire Next Door identifies seven common that show up again and again among those who have accumulated wealth. You will learn, for example, that millionaires bargain shop for used cars, pay a tiny fraction of their wealth in income tax, raise children who are often unaware of their family’s wealth until they are adults, and, above all, reject the big-spending lifestyles most of us associate with rich people. Most of the truly wealthy in this country don’t live in Beverly Hills or on Park Avenue – they live next door.

This new edition, the first since 1998, includes a new foreword for the twenty-first century by Dr. Thomas J. Stanley.

Early Retirement Extreme: A Philosophical and Practical Guide to Financial Independence

A strategic combination of smart financial choices, simple living, and increased self-reliance brought me financial independence at 30 and allowed me to retire from my profession at 33. Early Retirement Extreme shows how I did it and how anyone can formulate their own plan for financial independence.

The book provides the principles and framework of systems and a theoretical strategy for attaining that independence in 5-10 years. It teaches how a shift in focus from consuming to producing can help people out of the consumer trap, and offers a path to achieving the freedom necessary to pursue interests other than working for a living. The shift from economic perspective from consuming to producing redefines your value to society: It’s no longer how much you earn or buy, but what you create and produce. Consumers are often forced to buy expensive solutions, producers have the flexibility to create their own solutions at a quarter of the cost. The resulting savings are invested to cover the remaining expenses, resulting in financial independence.

The principles in Early Retirement Extreme show how to break the financial chains that hold people back from doing what they truly want to do in and with their lives. The framework has been used by many people over the last few years to accomplish a variety of goals. It provides people a means to achieve almost any goal, whether it’s debt-free living, extended travel, a sabbatical, a career change, time off to raise a child, a traditional retirement, or simply a desire for a more resilient and self-sufficient lifestyle.

The strategy can also be used to pay off debt, travel the world, volunteer, go back to school, or simply work without worrying about the next paycheck. It offers a compelling alternative to the default choice of getting a college degree, buying a car, buying a house, filling the closets with stuff, and then spending the next 40 years paying it all off.

The book was initially written for people in their 20s and 30s, but its ideas aren’t limited to early retirees. Middle-aged people in the grips of consumerism can use the principles to take back control of their lives. People closer to retirement age who don’t feel adequately prepared can use it to set themselves up for a comfortable retirement in a relatively short period of time. Anyone worried about their financial future can use the principles in Early Retirement Extreme to make their future more secure.

Building Wealth One House at a Time, Updated and Expanded, Second Edition

Make your first million and earn a steady income with this updated, essential guide to real estate investing

The collapse in real estate prices from 2007 through 2012 was the most significant event in the real estate industry since the Great Depression. But today, with the real estate market rebounding, a new generation of investors is entering the field, eager to make their fortune.

Building Wealth One House at a Time, 2nd Edition provides you with a practical way to create wealth through an ethical approach of buying, financing, and managing property. Renowned real estate expert John W. Schaub takes you through his 9-step program and explains how to accumulate one million dollars’ worth of houses debt free in any market, while earning a steady cash flow.

This invaluable guide presents fresh strategies for buying and financing property, reflected in six new chapters on topics such as real estate cycles, financing real estate purchases, negotiation techniques, and retirement investing.

You’ll learn how to:

• Finance real estate purchases without going to a bank
• Recognize and capitalize on real estate cycles
• Improve your negotiation skills in any situation
• Avoid common and costly mistakes
• Create cash flow that lasts forever, and much more

Building Wealth One House at a Time, 2nd Edition reveals how virtually anyone can accumulate houses debt free and earn an income for life.

Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond

From the “guru to Wall Street’s gurus” comes the fundamental techniques of value investing and their applications. Bruce Greenwald is one of the leading authorities on value investing. Some of the savviest people on Wall Street have taken his Columbia Business School executive education course on the subject. Now this dynamic and popular teacher, with some colleagues, reveals the fundamental principles of value investing, the one investment technique that has proven itself consistently over time. After covering general techniques of value investing, the book proceeds to illustrate their applications through profiles of Warren Buffett, Michael Price, Mario Gabellio, and other successful value investors. A number of case studies highlight the techniques in practice.

The authors aim to place their work next to Benjamin Graham’s [Warren Buffett’s teacher] 1950 classic, The Intelligent Investor. It’s a must-read for all disciples of value investing. In 1934, Graham and Dodd created fundamental security analysis. Greenwald reinforces the worth of this approach, incorporates new advances, and takes their work into the twenty-first century.

Bruce C. N. Greenwald (New York, NY) is the Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Finance and Asset Management at Columbia University. Judd Kahn, PhD (New York, NY), is a member of Morningside Value Investors. Paul D. Sonkin (New York, NY) is the investment manager of the Hummingbird Value Fund. Michael van Biema (New York, NY) is an Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University.