Your Money and Your Life

Book excerpt: Your financial health is more than a mere collection of debits and credits on a balance sheet. In fact, the numbers on a financial statement represent a series of decisions that, if made strategically, can ensure that each of us maintains our desired standard of living at every age and stage of life. Many people think that key financial choices are too complicated to make on their own. However, with the right information and guidance, we can all secure our own financial future. Your Money and Your Life is more than your average guide to financial planning and retirement. Acclaimed author and speaker Robert Z. Aliber helps readers to make efficient and effective financial decisions at key moments throughout their lives, such as where to go to college; if and when to buy a home; how much insurance, if any, to buy; how to manage savings and retirement; when the time is right to approach a professional advisor; and how to proceed with estate planning. With an eye toward the issues that are most pressing in today's economy, Aliber clearly explains the sophisticated concepts that underpin everyday money management—with the goal of making this guide the go-to reference in your financial planning library, regardless of your age or wealth. Readers of this book will come away with the sense that Aliber is their own financial planner, offering strategies that will help to guide them toward security in the present and the future. Your Money and Your Life is filled with examples to which readers will be able to relate, as well as checklists of "actionables" to help make their plans realities.