Summary of Worth It...Not Worth It?
Simple & Profitable Answers to Life’s Tough Financial Questions
Business Plus, 2012 more...
Should you buy or rent? Drive a new or used car? Invest in stocks or mutual funds? Jack Otter tells you exactly which and why.
Recommendation
Just when you want to be careful with money, along come confusing life choices: buying a car, renting a house, investing in the market, obtaining life insurance, and so on. Happily, MoneyWatch’s Jack Otter provides superior advice. He lays out a series of either-or spending choices and explains the pluses and minuses of your options. getAbstract – which does not give financial advice, other than suggesting due diligence in light of your own situation – recommends Otter’s savvy mini-essays on financial choices and his nicely illustrated pro-and-con presentation. If you seek clear-headed spending advice in a pretty package, you will appreciate his authoritative, easy-to-understand comparisons. On the other hand, if you find jazzy pages overflowing with big pictures laced with short doses of advice way too distracting, you may think this illustrated manual is a bit over-the-top visually. However, for the inexperienced young person or the financially daunted, the popular packaging may just open the door to sound fiscal counsel.
In this summary, you will learn
- Why most financial decisions are not complicated and
- What are the best options in home mortgages, car buying and other money issues.
Summary
About the Author
Jack Otter is the executive editor of the CBS MoneyWatch site and a former staff member at Newsday, SmartMoney and Dow Jones. He has made appearances on CNN, CNBC and Fox Business.
Comment on this summary
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4 years agoVery easy to read book and summary. The points included in summary are some which are very common and answers that you probably know already. The book is a little more interesting as it has nice pictures for visuals - the summary in that comparison looks a little dry (understandably as pictures are not there).
The book would be most useful for young people who are starting their careers or families.
There are some conclusions that one should use their judgement & the then personal scenario - here are two that I questioned - lease vs buy or used car vs new car. Invariably most authors / journalists suggest is 'buy' and 'used'. The problem with this advice is that, you have not accounted for 'safety'! Most new cars (and therefore lease for that matter) have better safety features than older cars. What is important for you 'saving money' or 'feeling safer'? Also if every one follows suggestions made by the writers to buy used cars - there won't be any used left as no one is buying new cars :) Finally if every one buy used cars - demand is up and hence the prices are up too for used cars ... equation now changes.
