Personal Financial Planning

Time-Proven Strategies for Getting the Most from Stocks, Bonds, Mutual Funds, Retirement Plans, Insurance, Stock Options, Estate Planning, and More

Personal Financial Planning has long been regarded as the financial planning resource for private individuals and professional money managers. Today, the array of financial products and strategies available to individuals and families--mutual funds, employee stock plans, IRAs, estate and wealth conservation techniques, newer forms of life insurance, annuities--has made informed, decisive financial planning more essential than ever.

Personal Financial Planning, Seventh Edition, contains the information you need to understand each of today's key financial planning issues and questions. Substantially revised and updated for today's fast-moving, online world, its examples, planning tips, charts, graphs, and case studies will help you assemble the ideal mix of investments, insurance, retirement plans, trusts, and other products to build and protect your--and your family's--long-term financial future.

A savings account in the local bank may have worked for your grandparents, but you'll need much more than that to ensure yourself and your family a solid, comfortable financial future. Personal Financial Planning will help you confront the numerous financial choices open to you--and show you where to put your money now for a comfortable and financially secure future.

Over the past quarter century, the six previous editions of Personal Financial Planning have helped more than 135,000 individuals invest and protect their hard-earned income and savings. Through economic recessions, stock market booms and busts, presidential administrations, social upheavals, and technological revolutions, authors and respected personal finance authorities Victor Hallman and Jerry Rosenbloom have continued to update this classic, ensuring accurate and up-to-date guidance for Americans looking to invest their money, insure their families, plan for their estates and retirement, and thus strengthen their futures.

Now, with Personal Financial Planning, Seventh Edition, Hallman and Rosenbloom provide vital new material to reflect the latest trends in financial planning. Issues that didn't exist three years ago but now take center stage are introduced and thoroughly explained. In addition, they revisit and expand the extensive coverage that has made theirs the benchmark reference against which all other financial planning books are measured.

New to this substantially restructured and revised edition are in-depth explanations of the 2001 tax law, explanations of changes in IRS minimum distribution rules, planning guidelines for the repeal of the GST estate tax, descriptions of the new 529 education plans, and more. In addition, this invaluable book provides the latest financial thinking and proven high return/low risk strategies in virtually every applicable area, including

• Index funds
• Asset allocation
• Value investing
• Dollar-cost averaging
• Fixed-income investing
• Profit-sharing plans
• Stock bonus plans
• 401(k) plans
• SEPs
• Roth and other IRAs
• Annuities
• Estate planning
• Gift taxes
• Estate taxes
• Generation-skipping transfer taxes
• Trusts
• Social Security
• Long-term care plans
• Income and capital gains tax planning
• Health insurance plans including HMOs
• Variable life insurance policies
• Real estate investing
• Personal risk management

With its all-encompassing treatment of family financial matters and easy-to-reference layout, Personal Financial Planning, Seventh Edition, will pay for itself time and again. Authoritative, comprehensive, and up to the minute, it is an irreplaceable source of information for anyone concerned with building wealth in today's no-guarantee financial environment.