In your Interest (A Guide To Making And Managing Money):

Arrow Books ( Published 1991)

Written By Peter Freeman

Australia

Review 3 Stars – Good Read

How the blurb describes the book:

In your interest. How are you coping financially with the 1990s? Are you really in charge of your finances? Or are you just drifting along – letting your hard-earned dollars slip through your fingers, with little or nothing to show for it at the end of the day?

This fully revised and updated edition of In Your Interest is designed to put you in control of your own money – and help you create more. It covers everything from maximising interest on savings to getting a good deal on a home loan, and from advice on superannuation to controlling the use of credit cards.

In Your Interest gives you detailed and practical advice on such matters as: How to select the right bank, and how to make it work for you – Dealing with shares – Financing children and holidays – Passive versus active investing and finance management – Retiring with and without the pension – What to do when things go wrong.

Above all, In Your Interest shows us all how to set, and achieve financial goals in our daily lives.

Mr Home Budget’s Review: This book was written in 1992. Rewind time to this point and you will find the backdrop of Australia had failing property prices, a recent share market crash and high unemployment.

The author spends the first few pages really trying to calm the reader down. He talks about property prices rising again and telling people the 1990s won’t be as bad as the media has claimed it to be. So reading it in 2011, he gets a tick for predicting the world would survive the 1990s. Predicting the future can be a near impossible thing to do.

However, if you think you’re just getting a book on how to deal with 1990s, think again. While at times the book does show its age, talking about taxes and government regulations which are long gone. But these are minor things which don’t take away from the important overall message in the book.

The book right away challenges your money thinking and where you’re heading in life. He makes you think about if you have clear goals or are you just getting pushed and pulled along by other people.

He has broken just about everything you could think about home budgeting into 20 chapters. These include everything from tax, super, how to do a home budget and superannuation (which was not mandatory back then!)

There was a crash course in how to start and plan for a business. And one on how to take a cheap holiday. Both these chapters are well written, to the point and informative. Also he highlights the importance of travel insurance.

One of the lines which stood out to me was in his chapter on insurance. “The reality is that the need for insurance is one of the costs of owning assets. While some people might be prepared to take the risk of ignoring insurance, this is a foolish approach, especially if you have saved hard for what you have. Throwing it all away due to a lack of insurance would be tragic.”

Another line which made me think was, “If I can get just one message across in this book it would be this: Don’t put off thinking about finances or turn your back on the challenge of working out a long term investment strategy. Rather, stop right now and set yourself some goals – both for your life and for your money”.

However, this is not to say the book is perfect. One of the downfalls is it goes into too much detail on some subjects including policies from what governments might or might not do in the future. The book by its own admission says, “It can be quite complex”.

If you are looking for an interesting read; a flashback to the early ‘90s and how we used to think and some solid financial planning advice, this book is for you.

Pros

Challenges how you think about money, and gets you to come up with a plan.

Covers every possible part of your home budget and money.

Cons

Very complicated in parts.

Far too much about government regulations and taxes.

Due to it being written in the early 1990s some information no longer applies.