This is a fun book of handy advice about handling your money from somebody who obviously knows what she's talking about. I liked this so much I bought five copies for my nephews and nieces so they'll get a good start with their money.

Nancy Dunnan's book should be on one of those page-a-day calendar cubes.

'Sophie Tucker . . . was right when she said being rich is a whole lot better than being poor . . . She moved with the times. So must you.' Nancy Dunnan's latest list of money-making ideas is full of ideas for improving your stance versus the tax authorities, purchasing items for less, making better investments, and living a more intelligent life through accessing key ideas on the Internet.

Here are a few examples:

Never buy a mutual fund in December -- that's when they distribute their capital gains for the year and you'll pick up a tax bill for gains that you really didn't get to enjoy (if you make the purchase in a taxable account).

You can get a higher rate of interest on federally-insured bank CDs by buying them from your regular stock broker -- they look around for the best deal across the country and will charge nothing if you already have an account with them. You can often get an extra half point of interest that way.

If you want to own index mutual funds, own them in taxable accounts and buy high turnover mutual funds with your tax-free accounts. You'll save a lot of taxes that way. Know what the annual trading turnover is on the mutual funds you own or are considering purchasing. Generally high-turnover funds will cost you more money in fees and taxes.

Get a Roth IRA for you and one for each of your children if you qualify. Having been held for 5 years and after age 59 1/2, the withdrawals are tax-free and you can withdraw whenever you want.

If inflation starts to rise and you want interest income, buy the U.S. Treasury's new I bonds that are indexed to inflation. Your interest payments will rise, and your principal will be safe.

Make your airline reservations just after midnight. That's when airlines make more discount seats available.

If you're having trouble getting venture capital, approach the business school you attended. They often invest now in projects sponsored by alumni/ae.

If you like to trade on-line, have two accounts in case one is down because of computer problems.

Double check all of your on-line confirmations. There's lots of good ideas for catching and correcting mistakes.

The only area where I found the book a little wanting was in picking stocks. Many of the old chestnuts (dogs of the Dow, quality growth stocks, etc.) were described. But the latest research has shown better ways to do each of these things than are described here. For example, see ChangeWave Investing for finding high growth stocks. You can check your ideas with the items here, but don't count on this book as a source of cutting edge stock-picking advice.

You'll get your money back many times over however with this fine book, and you'll enjoy the simple, clear writing style. Financial advice doesn't have to be long and complicated to be helpful.

You can't afford NOT to buy this book. It gives you many things in life that we take for granted. For instance, when at a car dealership- never tell a salesman the exact model and color you're looking for. The salesman would try to put extra add ins in the cost, but if you refuse all of it. Most likely to close the deal, the salesman would throw it in FREE. I am happy that I'd read this book before I'd bought my new car. I've saved alot from many other examples in the book and so would you.

Recommendation: Strong Buy

It's small and handy and I refer to it all the time. I even took down some notes in the margin.

Nancy Dunnan has taken 300 important and valuable personal finance lessons and made them fun, easy and interesting to read. Although some of these things you know already, it's not a bad idea to be reminded. In other areas, you'll either get new ideas or better ways to implement them.

Here are some of my favorites:

You can save money on international air travel by being an air courier (if you can live with carry-on baggage), and she provides a telephone number to get assignments.

While abroad, use your ATM card to get cash rather than your credit card. The credit card will start charging you interest right away.

To use that ATM card in many countries you need a 4 digit PIN code. Be sure to change to one before you leave home.

On the other hand, buying things abroad with a credit card is a good idea because you get a better exchange rate that way than by converting currency.

Want a beach home? Buy it in January in North America.

There's a service you can contact to find someone to pay your parents' bills when they can no longer do so, and they live far away.

You can save money by letting vines crawl up a trellis rather than your home.

If your bank is taken over by another one, switch your account to a credit union. Fees will be lower, and the rates paid on your savings will be lower.

Shop with 20 friends, and you can probably get extra discounts.

She shows you how to get rid of junk mail.

Be sure to check the register tape at stores that scan items. A 10 percent error rate is not unusual.

If you have student loans, she has lots of information about how to gain advantages in paying them back.

If you are near retirement, she has lots of good data on Social Security and tax issues.

If you take a cruise, be sure to buy any on-board gifts at the end of the trip (big discounts come then).

If you have too much debt, she can point you to those who can help you.

With this book, your money can take you much further. You'll also be proud of yourself for being a more intelligent consumer. So overcome your misconception stalls about how to get the most for your money with this book!

Interesting and useful tips that are mostly common sense, but you just don't think about! I recommend getting it and using it as a resource.

Outdated investing information is worse than no information at all. Don't take any 'data' in this book at face value.
I was really disappointed in the small number of small investments in the book.
I have a more 'holistic' investment perspective, but I know of a lot more small investments;
Pay off high interest debt!!
A shopping warehouse membership.
A freezer.
A 'cushion' in the checking account to keep any checks from bouncing. It can also reduce the fees for a double dividend!

Regular maintenance of vehicles and major appliances.
Energy efficient lights.
Water heater blanket.
Pre-pay phone cards.
Continuing education classes.
A consultaion with a Certified Financial Planner.

Short, concise but detailed, is a good overview of the first investment steps.

The perfect investment advisor for every beginner in the stock exchange - and not only. Find out about on-line trading, maximize your 401(k) investments, save for college, explore funds and bonds and investment clubs.

Good book to have, needs updating regularly.

By Thei Zervaki
author of Globalize, Localize, Translate

New research in Ordinary People, Extraordinary Wealth points out that people who are wealthy from investments in their 50s usually started by making individual investments of just a few hundred dollars. Ms. Dunnan's book is the first I have seen to frankly and thoroughly discuss how to acquire and apply those first increments for investing.

Before waxing too poetic about this book (which is well written and conceptually very sound), I must point out a major flaw (the source of a 4 star rather than a 5 star rating). The book was poorly revised in this edition, and is filled with errors and questionable suggestions. I will list but a few. The National Association of Investors Corporation is listed as the National Association of Investment Clubs in all but one place (which it has not been for more than 10 years). You are encouraged to get stock in Brooklyn Union Gas in several places (which was renamed as KeySpan Energy several years ago, and is correctly identified only once by its current name). A safe corporate bond is listed that of Xerox (which now teeters on the edge of bankruptcy, having drawn down a multibillion dollar line of bank credit recently). I could go on, but you get the idea.

Sticking with the concepts (be sure you do your homework on applying the concepts, because you cannot trust the details here about the stock and bond markets in many places), this is a great book. The list of the 10 dumbest mistakes that people make about investing is worth the price of the book alone.

The book is organized first around helping you acquire and safely hold $50. I agree with Ms. Dunnan that a credit union will often be your best bet. Then, she looks at where to put $500 once you have it. This section is pretty good until she gets to suggesting stocks. For most people, a money market account is a good bet until enough is acquired to get into a diversified stock portfolio through a mutual fund. See John Bogle's book, Common Sense About Mutual Funds, when you are ready for that research. The discussion of tax-deferred opportunities is good in the section on your first $1,000. The information about buying government bonds is good in the remainder of the book.

The book could have been improved by putting the on-line URLs into the text, rather than concentrating them in on appendix. I recommend the Incredible Internet Guide to On-line Investing as a better resource to complement this book.

Be sure to pay attention to the many hints and cautions in the book. They are uniformly good advice!

Realizing that you should do all your own homework, I do hope you will buy, read, and apply this book's valuable way of thinking about investing. You will be well on your way to investment success if you do!

Ask yourself where else an organized approach to getting started could make sense. What about exercise or weight control? Then see if you can find a common sense way to begin with appropriate steps that will build into a lifelong patterns of success. For weight control, I suggest you read Sugar Busters! and Good Fat, Bad Fat. Anyone should do better with weight control after understanding the important messages in those two books.

I heard Ms. Dunnan's book advertised on the radio and considered purchasing it until I heard her interview, including etiquette excerpts from the book. Ms. Dunnan criticized the use of cell phones, stating that only people such as medical personnel, who may have "emergencies" should have cell phones. Many jobs today require people to be accessible 24 hours a day. While "emergencies" in other occupations may not be a matter of life and death, the stakes can still be very high.

Ms. Dunnan also feels it is rude for people with long legs to rest them on seats in front of them. Should people with long legs not go to a movie theater if they can't fit comfortably in one seat? Is it also rude for tall people to sit in front of anyone at theaters, concerts or parades?

Ms. Dunnan should limit her etiquette suggestions to topics of which she has a complete understanding. Her blanket statements and judgements are the foundation on which prejudice, racism and general intolerance of others are founded.

When in doubt, this is the book that comes out first. My husband and I pulled it out several times during our engagement to find out "how" we should do things. From setting the table to working with kitchen staff help this book has it all. (Now if I could just afford the staff!)

Let me just say that before this book I was an absolute disaster. Poor posture, the wrong lipstick, you name it. But then I wised up and picked up a copy of this book and it did wonders for my rather uncouth appearance.

First of all let me say that I am in the securities business and I only bought this book because it was a required text in a class I was taking. I have some fundamental differences of opinion with the offer on some of the advice she offers. Mainly I disagree with the chapter on life insurance and stocks. The author endorses purchasing stocks and for the average investor mutual funds provide the added diversification that most people need, especially in this market with some stocks down 80% from their highs last year. She also says you should only buy annual renewable term insurance and only buy term it if you need insurance for less than 10 years and THEN buy convertible term. Why would you want to convert to cash value insurance? You buy 20-25yr level term and invest the difference if you don't smoke and are reasonably healthy you can get three times the coverage with level term for less peer month. Then you can invest the difference and be self insured by retirement. Now maybe she sells this stuff, I don't know.
I also think that it gives you a lot of information but due to the format it can't give you any sort of in depth information.

I do have to applaud the calender in the front of the book though. It is a good tool to help you keep your financial house in order.

Since becoming an investment professional in 1988, I've been purchasing this book regularly for my library since it caught my eye in the early 90's. Dunnan employs a simple, easy-to-read style in compiling an investment sourcebook that serves simultaneously as a "how-to" manual and a reference guide, without implying that the reader is some kind of dummy.

Each of the 36 chapters contains easy to understand, practical information interspersed with helpful hints and cautionary asides (denoted by a checked box and a little cannonball bomb, respectively) that add a clever dimension to the financial discourse. What impresses me most about this book is that Dunnan has no bias (unlike other noteworthy publications) when it comes to the topic of investment advice and fees. She provides encouragement and insight as to how to get the most out of your own efforts, if you feel comfortable on your own, or out of your investment professional, if you don't. Topics range from beginning to complex investment vehicles, choosing financial professionals, financing major purchases, on-line investing, and considerations related to insurance and retirement. There's even a chapter on the tax status of your investments, arranged alphabetically by subject. All throughout, there are numerous listings of alternative information sources (e.g., organizations and publications) to bolster your education. In the back of the book you'll find a decent glossary (conspicuously absent in other books) of Wall Street jargon. Unless your goal is to day-trade, this book is for everyone who has a question involving the world of money and investments.

I ordered this book on March 2, 2002 and it still hasn't arrived. How can I rate a book I didn't receive? I wish to delete this book and substitute another but find no procedure to do this. Can you help me do this?

This book (which comes out in an updated version every year) is a great way to learn about financial planning, investing, and so forth. The lessons inside can (and SHOULD) be used by anyone.

It might seem overwhelming at first, because it's over 400 pages. Take it in little bits and pieces. It's easy to read, explains all the different things you can do in investing, and broken down in such a way that it works for small investors or big ones, for long-term retirement planning or for "how to live right now" type financial stuff.

This is really a terrific resource, especially for an investing novice like myself. I would urge anyone who wants to start investing and have no clue how too get this book. It clears up so much confusion and answers so many questions. Its paid for itself and then some already.