Andrew Tobias' Book

I just finished reading Andrew Tobias' book, "The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need." I think he's right. For anyone who wants the incredibly short version without needing to read the book: Get out of debt, then invest at least 10% of your income in no-load mutual funds.

If somehow that doesn't seem like enough, there's plenty more in the book. Tobias is an entertaining writer, which is hard to do with investment as the topic. I actually laughed out loud a couple of times. (Your mileage will vary. I have an admittedly unusual sense of humor.)

He starts out the book with a bunch of interesting tips on saving money and explains why saving money on your expenses is actually way better than any investment you'll ever find. Well, once I understood how the Microsoft Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) works out to an 89% or better rate of return, I see that it's right up there, but that's an exception rather than a rule. If I could put 100% of my income into ESPP, I'd do immediately. But when he describes how simply buying your favorite wine by the case every quarter at a 10% discount rather than by the bottle once a week works out to a better than 40% return on investment equivalence, you're hooked. (In an appendix he goes on to describe how "better than 40%" in this particular case works out to 177%, which blows the socks off even ESPP.)

Later in the book, after warning the reader not to bother with playing the stock market in favor of those no-load mutual funds, he describes what all the terminology around stocks mean. If you've ever wondered what puts, shorts, limit orders, or margins are, you'll get it after you read this. In other sections, he describes the differences between 401k, regular IRAs, and Roth IRAs, and other mysterious acronyms related to investment.

I'll just say it one more time: what a good book, a must read for anyone that's trying to get back to zero (unfortunately, that's me) or finally has a positive net worth and has no idea what to do with it to make it grow.

Here's one of the things I thought was really funny, just to give you an idea. His definition of "margin calls": A margin call is what alerts you to the fact that your life is going to hell and that you never should have gotten into the market when you did, let alone on margin.

Get it and read it now.