Category Archives: Weekly Review

It’s About More Than the Money (Book Review)

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The book: “It’s About More Than the Money” is written by a Saly A. Glassman who is a Senior Vice President at a major financial institution in the Wealth Management area. 

This book is a bit different the standard run of the mill financial book, so I decided to review it differently.  Instead of a chapter per chapter analysis of the book, I’m just going to tell you what impressed me the most!

Reading this book, it was obvious that the book was written for wealthier investors.  In fact, I would guess that the target segment is the top 10%  of the population with respect to net worth.

What impressed me was some of the thought involved in her writing technique!  She start with a great comparison of the way we make money.  She states that as we are younger we derive most of our money from human capital then later we hopefully make most of our money from financial capital.

Her approach to money is very rational and logical.  She has one of the best approaches towards determining your investing risk that I have read to date.

A major point in her book is to striking what I would call a holistic balance toward life and money.  In such an approach, she advocates health, responsibility and discipline.

This is a book that I’ll probably end up reading again some day in the future when I have more financial investments and assets.

The only part that I wasn’t so keen on in the book was the pushing of getting an financial advisor scattered throughout many of the book chapters.  But if I were in the top 5% or 10 % of the population with respect to wealth, even that element would be good advice.

So would I buy this book?  Yes, but only if you expect to have a net worth in the upper 10% of the population someday.  For me, I’m not at that level yet, but I hope to someday be in that scenario, so I personally would recommend this book to someone who as similar aspirations.  So if you are at least in the top 40% of the population with respect to net worth, I believe you may find that this book is worth reading!

If you think this book may be of some interest to you, click the amazon link below and read some of the other reviews listed on Amazon’s site.

Thanks for reading my review on this unique and original book!

-MR



MR Review 2011, Jan 9 – A Busy Time

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A Busy Time

The start of the new year has been busier that I expected.  So to focus on the direction that I’m trying to accomplish, I’ve decided to miss posting a few days per week for a temporary time period.

Today I decided to list my favorite posts in a random fashion, there will be no order below, it will totally be first site that comes to my mind.

My Favorite Reads of the Week:

First Gen American: Right or Left Brain   – Sandy discusses the differences between right and left brained people!

Aloyas Kitchen:  Tipping practices  Aloyas reveals the confessions of a bad tipper!

Everyday Tips and Thoughts:  Dumb Things People Do Volume IV: Packaging Items Poorly – Sometimes we learn by reading about others mistakes, this is one such case!

Len Penzo:  The Magic 8 Ball Makes Its Predictions for 2011 – Len has the best Magic 8 Ball ever!  I really like his method from making predictions for 2011!

Budgeting In The Fun Stuff:  Eating Out on a Budget – A very wise guest post at Crystal’s site, with great ways to make eating out more affordable.

Krant Cents: Chasing the American Dream – Great article about one of the biggest impediments to achieving the american dream!

Beating the index:  Weekend Edition: More Pain for Natural Gas Producers in 2011 – I was thinking about buying some Natural Gas Dividend yielding stocks, but after reading hit bit of information, perhaps I’ll wait a year or two.

Money Cone:  How To Be A Deadbeat – I admit, I’m a credit card deadbeat.

Watson Inc:  Setting The Course For The Impossible – Shawn brings to light when it’s better to have goals than not.

Retire By 40:  Overheard In The Break Room, an xtranormal animation – Fun video, and correct in content.

Get Rich Slowly:  The Laundry Agreement – J.D. Roth and his wife have separate finances just like we do, but with a bit of a GRS special twist…

Fabulously Broke in the City:  Had a rough work day, and what did I learn from it? – In a different life, I was in a similar scenario, so I understand and feel her pain!  At least being a blogger, she gets to blow off some steam!

BIFS:  budgeting – Crystal talks about the three levels of budgeting.  As you can tell from her title, BIFS is an expert on  budgeting… especially for the fun stuff!

Yakezie.com:  My Secret Financial Desire For The Yakezie Network – My post over at Yakezie.com!  The Yakezie truly is great!

My Favorite Post From MoneyReasons.com:

Draining My Hot Water Tank To Save Money if not just because it was my first DIY project of the year!

Parting Thoughts:

I hope to get back on track (or actually create my own track), soon.

-MR

MR Cache 2010, Dec 18 – Ghost of Christmas Past

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Ghost of Christmas Past

I was watching the recent Disney version (with Jim Carrey) of “The Christmas Carol“, when I saw the ghost of Christmas Past.  I thought to myself, “what a dumb looking ghost”!  The movie itself was okay, I’ve seen too many version of “The Christmas Carol” over the years to get too excited with this one.

I kept coming back to the ghost of Christmas past, with the flaming head and the candle extinguisher.  It was the candle extinguisher that really got me thinking how out-of-place this ghost was…  So I fired up my good friend Mr. Google, and entered the search query “Ghost of Christmas Past”

After reading a few site, it appears that the Disney representation of the Ghost of Christmas Past may be the most authentic representation that Charles Dickens intended.

Favorite Christmas Post for this past Christmas Week:

Christmas Experiences During The Great Depression I humbling include this link from my own site.  It’s very personal and the message is to realize how good we have it!  Back then even food was considered a great gift (ex. an orange).  This is why you’ll hear older people associate Christmas with an orange or tangerine.

Why I Love Christmas: A Guest Post from My Daughter, Nina At 11 years old, Nina post a great article on why she loves Christmas.  She did a spectacular job with the article, and sounds like one of my kids!  I really do look forward to reading more from her in the future.  The apple truly doesn’t fall far from the tree. (at LenPenzo)

Merry Christmas! Come Take A Peek At Our Tree! A rare look at a blogger’s real Christmas tree picture.  Kris reminds us that the holiday season for a parent is a kid first occasion, as she point out her favorite ornament on her tree called “Pipe Cleaner Mess”, sounds hilarious! (Everydaytipsandthoughts)

What We Are Spending For Christmas? Guest post from Mr. Credit Card that explains what he’s spending for Christmas gifts from Christmas!  I’ve ever even hear of Ugg Boots!  (BudgetingInTheFunStuff).

Everyday Feels Like Christmas The Financial Samurai’s childhood sounded a lot like mine growing up!  I had the same feeling and excitement!  Somehow he was able to expand and build on the feeling and excitement so that he feels like every day is Christmas.  I’ve read about others that have the same feeling.  For example, Warren Buffet says he is always excited to get to work in the morning too.(FinancialSamurai)

Lessons for Children from a Frugal Christmas Kids develop interestingly with respect to money and gifts.  Christmas is really about giving, so kudos for Jessica that her kids have progressed to that level of Christmas spirit! (Monvesting)

Holiday Rush

There are other truly great posts out in the blogosphere, but unfortunately I’m going to have to cut this short, I’m off to celebrate Christmas birthdays…

-MR

MR Cache 2010, Dec 18 – Perfect Christmas Lights

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Weekly Thoughts:

The snow and the unusually high number of houses with Christmas lights, the outside aesthetics has been a thing of beauty!  The Christmas lights shining thought the snow covering bushes and trees made practically every house that had Christmas decorations out look like something out of a classic Christmas movie!

This Saturday evening as I left for dinner, I had to stop and just walk around the driveway admiring all the beautifully light houses along the street.  I usually don’t do this, but everything looks so spectacular, I couldn’t resist!  Plus the brisk chill in the air made me think how pure and crisp the air was.  I was a great experience and I’m honestly thinking about walking around the neighborhood just to enjoy the experience.

My Favorite Post from MoneyReasons.com for the Week:

This week, my favorite post was Christmas Experiences During The Great Depression!  This was a post that was wrote from the heart and to date one of my best posts!  It involved a personal tragedy to my grandmother when she was a child and how she overcame the childhood experience to make Christmas a special time for her children and grandchildren.

Closing Thoughts:

Where I live it truly is beautiful!  This may be the only time that I’d rather live in my city than California or other warmer, ocean front areas.

-MR

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