Book Review: The Bogleheads' Guide to Retirement Planning
I've been waiting for this book for a long time. About this time last year, the leaders of the Bogleheads investment forum announced a book project and asked for volunteers. I was selected and assigned to write a chapter on defined benefit pension plans. The book was finally published in September and I got my free book from the publisher last week. This is the first time I got the chance to read the whole book.
The title is The Bogleheads' Guide to Retirement Planning. It covers a wide range of topics on planning for retirement. The emphasis is on planning, not saving or investing for retirement, although there are still a few chapters on investing. It starts off with the planning process. Then it goes over the different savings and investment vehicles, investment strategies, how to make the most of social security, withdrawal strategies once you are retired, insurance, estate planning, how to find help if you need it and what to do if you face divorce or too much debt you can't repay.
I like the broad approach in this book. Retirement planning is a complex subject. There can be full-scale books on each of the topics covered in this book. Every chapter covers the main points in about 15 pages so the size of the book stays manageable. If the reader wants to read more about a particular subject, there are a list of additional resources at the end of each chapter. The book serves as a good roadmap for retirement planning.
Investing Is Simple
I haven't written much about investing lately, because investing is simple and I think I pretty much covered everything already. You come up with an asset allocation, open some accounts, pick a few index funds, and you are done. Once in a while you see if anything is out of whack and you redirect your new money to wherever is lagging. It's not complicated at all.
Fellow blogger Mike Piper apparently agrees. He wrote a small book called Investing Made Simple. He's making the PDF available as a free download until October 1. [Free PDF download is no longer available.]
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Download Price Quotes to Microsoft Money After Microsoft Pulls the Plug
There is a small piece of unfinished business in my series for replacing Microsoft Money. After giving my requirements and looking at Quicken, GnuCash, and Moneydance, I came upon two OFX scripts for downloading transactions directly from the financial institutions, outside of Microsoft Money.
Those scripts will take care of the transactions. They will also update the prices for the securities held in the investment accounts that provide transaction download. However, if you have holdings in accounts that do not provide transaction download, the prices for those holdings are still not updated.
With the help of a book from the library, Learning Python, and a lot of Googling, I came up with a new script that gets the quotes from Yahoo! and writes a dummy OFX file for importing into Microsoft Money. Being a Python newbie, I'm sure the script can be made much more elegant, but what I have now works.
Mixing Money With Family and Friends
I picked up this book because of the title and the cartoon on the cover. Isn't It Their Turn to Pick Up the Check is written by a couple Jeanne Fleming and Leonard Schwarz who answer money and ethics questions in their column Do The Right Thing in Money Magazine and on CNNMoney.com.
This little book is all about the messy money dealings between family members and friends: lending and borrowing, gifts, inheritance, sharing expenses, disparity in income and spending priorities, keeping and breaking promises, and so on.
It takes a Q&A format. Every chapter is about one particular topic, with maybe 10 questions and answers in "Dear Abby" style. The answers are both serious and with a touch of humor. I enjoyed them and I learned a lot about human nature.
Replacing Microsoft Money, Part 5: OFX Scripts
This is part 5 in my series for replacing Microsoft Money. I gave my requirements in part 1. Then I looked at Quicken, GnuCash, and Moneydance.
I still haven't found a perfect replacement for Microsoft Money. Money isn't perfect either, but it's working. Well, sort of. I already know the bugs and limitations and I know how to work around them.
Having suffered from being at the mercy of one software vendor, I really don't look forward to jumping into the arms of another vendor with the same policy of automatically disabling features. Meanwhile, the contenders GnuCash and Moneydance still don't match all the functionalities I'd like to have.
Replacing Microsoft Money, Part 4: Moneydance
[Update on Sept. 5, 2009] After evaluating the alternatives, I discovered a way to automatically download the transactions and price quotes and feed them to Money after Microsoft pulls the plug. See follow-up posts Replacing Microsoft Money, Part 5: OFX Scripts and Download Price Quotes to Microsoft Money After Microsoft Pulls the Plug.
This is part 4 in my series for replacing Microsoft Money. I gave my requirements in part 1. I looked at Quicken and GnuCash in parts 2 and 3. This time I'm looking at Moneydance.
Moneydance is a Java application that runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows. Unlike GnuCash, MoneyDance is not free. It's made by a small company called The Infinite Kind. As far as I can tell, the application is primarily developed by one developer Sean Reilly. A Moneydance license costs $40. There is a trial version that limits to 100 transactions. I tested Moneydance 2008r4 on Windows.
Replacing Microsoft Money, Part 3: GnuCash
[Update on Sept. 5, 2009] After evaluating the alternatives, I discovered a way to automatically download the transactions and price quotes and feed them to Money after Microsoft pulls the plug. See follow-up posts Replacing Microsoft Money, Part 5: OFX Scripts and Download Price Quotes to Microsoft Money After Microsoft Pulls the Plug.
This is part 3 in my series for replacing Microsoft Money. I gave my requirements part 1 and I looked at Quicken in part 2. This time I'm looking at GnuCash.
GnuCash is a free, open source application. It works on Linux, Mac, and Windows. I tried the version 2.3.4 on Windows.
Replacing Microsoft Money, Part 2: Quicken
[Update on Sept. 5, 2009] After evaluating the alternatives, I discovered a way to automatically download the transactions and price quotes and feed them to Money after Microsoft pulls the plug. See follow-up posts Replacing Microsoft Money, Part 5: OFX Scripts and Download Price Quotes to Microsoft Money After Microsoft Pulls the Plug.
This is part 2 in my series for replacing Microsoft Money. In part 1 I laid out my requirements for the replacement application.
Quicken has been around for more than 20 years. It's in stores everywhere. If someone is new to Quicken, there are many books about Quicken. Although its publisher Intuit doesn't offer a free trial (there is a 60-day money back guarantee), I'm pretty sure Quicken can do everything I do in Microsoft Money. However, I'm a little worried about what Intuit would do after Quicken becomes a de facto monopoly.
Replacing Microsoft Money, Part 1: Requirements
[Update on Sept. 5, 2009] After evaluating the alternatives, I discovered a way to automatically download the transactions and price quotes and feed them to Money after Microsoft pulls the plug. See follow-up posts Replacing Microsoft Money, Part 5: OFX Scripts and Download Price Quotes to Microsoft Money After Microsoft Pulls the Plug.
Back in June 2009, Microsoft announced they would stop selling their personal finance software Microsoft Money. I have been a Microsoft Money user since it was Money '98. With Microsoft's throwing in the towel, my current version will work as-is until September 2010. After that, two download features will stop working:
- download transactions from my banks, credit cards, and brokerage accounts from inside the money program, without having to go to the web site of each bank, credit card company, and brokerage firm
- download the current prices for my investments
Book Review: The Little Book That Builds Wealth
Ah, another little book. I read and reviewed several of them already. Some are good; some not so.
- The Little Book That Beats the Market by Joel Greenblatt (*)
- The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets by Peter Schiff (***)
- The Little Book of Value Investing by Christopher Browne (****)
- The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle (*****)
- The Little Book That Makes You Rich by Louis Navellier (*)
This book, The Little Book That Builds Wealth, is written by Pat Dorsey. Mr. Dorsey is Director of Equity Research at Morningstar. He's in charge of Morningstar's equity ratings. In addition to rating mutual funds with one to five stars, Morningstar also rates individual stocks on the same scale.
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