Motley Fool : How to Invest When You Don't Have Any Money - Softcover

Spink, Chris

3.89

19 ratings by Goodreads

9780752271682: Motley Fool : How to Invest When You Don't Have Any Money

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0752271687 ISBN 13: 9780752271682

Publisher: Boxtree Ltd, 2000

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The Motley Fool Web site at www.fool.co.uk is the most popular Internet site devoted to investing. It aims to cut through the jargon so beloved of financial professionals, and enable you to beat the experts and invest effectively.Investing money may seem ridiculous for people who have just graduated from university, started their first job or are simply hard up. But it is possible and the Fools can light the way.Following the phenomenal success of The Motley Fool UK Investment Guide, the Fools are designing this book especially to meet the needs of people who would never normally consider investing. It will help students, people starting work and those with restricted incomes to:*Set priorities for paying off debts*Get in a position to invest*Learn about investing before rushing into any commitments*Translate baffling jargon and terms*Start investing without using expensive professionals*Weigh up the benefits of renting against buying a property*Use the Internet on a budget

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Review:

Here's a new one--investment for the hard-up, profits for the penniless, money for nothing. Possibly your kicks for free too. The Motley Fool have an enviable habit of coming up with the right book at the right time, and here they've hit on the perfect title too. With mainstream media promising to do for personal finance what it has already done for DIY and gardening, investment is hot on the cultural agenda and poised to sweep like wildfire through a population primed on IPOs and high-tech stocks.

Of course, the Fools are stretching the truth. If you can't flash the cash, you can forget about nurturing that millionaire portfolio. How to Invest When You Don't Have Any Money is about manoeuvring your finances into a position where investment spend is supportable, it's not a magic formula for rags to riches fairytales--only the final third addresses how to go about investing when that holy grail of financial control has been attained. So, it's clearing debt, "gleaning cash by constricting your money outflow" and boosting income in whatever ways possible--legal propriety observed always. Here, for the first time, we have Fool-style career development, Fools on footwear and the Motley line on food. The science of penny-pinching has a tendency to be unintentionally hilarious and at times visions of the Motley Scrooge loom large ("You won't find me splashing out on bells for my jangly hat") but then it's only a means to an end. How to Invest When You Don't Have Any Money could be just the thing to get you there. --Iain Campbell

From the Author:

The secrets revealed!
How many people say the reason they don't invest is because they "don't have any money"? This perception probably puts more individuals off investing than any other single thing. However, it's a misconception.

This latest Motley Fool book aims to show you it is possible. It suggests various ways of achieving this happy state without killing yourself. The first half tells you how to get into a position to invest by getting your cash under control, and sort out essentials such as accommodation cheaply. The second half explains the basics of investing without rushing into anything or using expensive professionals.

In any case it's not as if most people honestly have no money at all, unless of course they really are penniless and living hand-to-mouth on the streets. No, it's just that at the end of each month, just before pay-day, money tends to become scarce. There rarely seems to be any cash left over to put aside. We all know the feeling. In this situation saving, let alone investing, seems virtually the last thing one can do.

Many in this cash-strapped position dismiss investment as a rich man's game: something you can only do if you have loads-a-money. However, if this scenario seems familiar to you, don't despair! It is possible to invest easily, simply and cheaply with limited means. You don't really need a lot of money to start and certainly don't need to get your hands on a substantial surplus of funds to get going.

Nobody can any longer dismiss saving and investing as something only wealthy people can successfully accomplish. Everybody, rich or poor, needs to think about the future in these uncertain times. The State can't afford to provide for all universally as once it did. The ageing population has stretched social security budgets to the limit. The job-for-life has all but gone. So have many generous company pension schemes.

These various factors mean that we will probably all need to provide for ourselves at some stage during our lives. It's never too early to start and you don't need a lot to get going. The first thing to do is to sit back and assess your current cash (or cashless) position. You may not think you're investing. But even just sorting out your supposedly shambolic financial picture is a vital first step.

Consider how much money you are actually saving each month. Perhaps you put money into a building society regularly. Maybe you have a pension scheme with your employer. Possibly you are paying off a mortgage. All of this is investing. However, if you also have to service high interest debt, such as money owed to credit card companies or hire purchase scheme operators, then your savings are effectively wasted.

The money going towards such savings probably grows at a slower rate than those expensive debts. That's how finance providers make money, by lending at a higher interest rate than the rate at which they pay interest on savings lodged with them. In this situation it would be better to devote any savings to paying off fast-growing debt.

That is only a start. But getting in a position to invest, and building a secure platform before buying shares is as vital a move as anything else. You shouldn't view investment as something that happens in isolation to anything else in your personal financial life. If your debts aren't under control, your living arrangements not sorted out, or your pension problems unresolved then these will all affect your investment views.

How to Invest When You Don't Have Any Money will give you ideas on how to sort out all these issues Foolishly and then begin to invest, without the Wise. Simple schemes such as dripping in regular sums into index trackers, or following other mechanical strategies, are all covered. So are methods of constructing portfolios of individual shares logically, easily and cheaply.

So much of investing depends on how you look at things. If you think the idea of investing money is ridiculous, take a look at this book for some ideas about how to bring it within the realms of possibility.

I hope you enjoy the book and trust it will help you set a secure base for your financial life, so you don't have to worry about it. You may even get quite excited by this Foolish investment lark and find it quite addictive.

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