The new Harry Potter book came out today Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling.  From what I read from People.com this book has “some of the most exhausting fiction ever put to page…

As expected, it all ends with a Star Wars-worthy battle between Good and Evil… Rowling’s fans won’t be disappointed.”  I am excited about reading this one… I’ll be going to get the book soon, and as soon as I’m done I’ll let you know what I think about it… but please keep in mind that I do have a 2 year old and I can only read a few minutes during the day and a few hours at night… so it might be a while before we can do a full review of the book.

We did also hear about a pre release view of the new Potter book on BitTorrent.  It was not very hard to find a guy that uploaded pictures of every page of the book.  It was very hard to read and will cause anyone viewing to have to get thicker glasses than Harry himself.  The big news about this photo upload was that the photographer left his meta data on the camera so this could actually be tracked back to the the type of camera that took the photos and possibly lead back to who leaked the pages.

J.K. Rowling’s Website

The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach - Book Review.

 Another great financial book that we have in our library that I just took time to sit down and read is the Automatic Millionaire, by David Bach. 

 The whole idea behind this book is to setup automatic ways to save your money and pay down your debt so you dont have to worry about them, and also how to become a millionaire by using his strategies. 

 ”Do it once - The Rest is AUTOMATIC” the slogan he uses on the cover and throughout the book.

 Not to be a spoiler but the best parts of this book are the automatic methods to pay yourself first, pay off your mortgage years early, pay your debts off early, save thousands in interest, and even how to automate tithing to your church, charity or organization of your choice.

 Mr. Bach is also the man behind the ”Latte Factor” the simple idea that something like your morning latte, or bagel and coffee etc. that cost a few dollars a day add up to a few hundred a month and thousands of dollars over your lifetime.  If those same thousands of dollars were in your bank account, 401k, IRA, or other investment account earning only 5%-10% you could retire years sooner, pay off your house early or put a child through college. 

When I saw this book at the bookstore I was like yeah right Automatic Millionaire I wish.  Let me clear up what he means by automatic millionaire, its basically to take the choice out of your hands to save some money and have it done automaticaly out of your paycheck before you ever get your hands on it, and over time it can and probably will make you a millionaire if you set it up, leave it alone and give it time to grow.

Just something as simple as a 401k, or IRA, I know I do not have the discipline to put aside a few dollars per day or per month, I always put off my 401k.  After I read a chapter about every dollar your earn is really more like .77 cents after tax from Uncle Sam, but if you do pretax investing that dollar can turn into $1.10 after a year at a 10% interest rate and the dollar you invested and the gains are not taxable until retirement or early withdrawl.  (which you really dont want to do unless your desperate the book briefly covers why its all about compound interest and higher tax rate if you withdraw before retirement age)

Even better is if you have a company match at say a 25% match that same dollar is with $1.38 from the .25 cent match and the estimated 10% annual return.  Image if this is multipled by hundreds or thousands of dollars you invested.  If you look at .77 cents vs. $1.38 its almost double your money that you get at retirement. 

That was really hard for me to understand I read the chapter twice but I am getting it thats the deal pre tax investments are finally us getting our hands on our own money before the government or the banks.  After grasping this concept and how compound interest works its a no brainer that I had to change my methods for saving and investing money.   

The best part is setting up pretax retirement savings plan is quite easy it only took me a few minutes and a 3 page form at my job a medium sized company with a few hundred employees.

 After reading this book that has been sitting on my shelf for months now I actually logged on to fidelity.com and increased the percentage of my 401k.  Since I already had an account established it was an easy change the hardest part was remembering my password since I never log into that site, I am very passive about retirement since it seems so far away I am only 27 and dont see myself retiring any time soon unless I win the lottery or strike it big and get major websites to link to my blog and make millions in advertising, any major website owners reading this, please feel free to link to me, thanks. 

 That was another gem in this book, the author says always select a percentage for retirement not a dollar amount to be deducted each check.  For example I was thinking about just putting aside $50-$100 a paycheck but he says to figure what amount I am comfortable with and turn it to a percentage.  For example, say I am making like $50,000 now (I wish) and I put $100 a paycheck to my 401k but I dont ever touch it again.  What happens in 10 years when I am making $85,000, well I make a lot more but I am still putting away only $100 a check which is way less of a percentage than it used to be when I was making less money.  Just pick a percentage you are comfortable and then set it up, and later on if you want to change it go ahead.  When you get a raise you will be actively increasing the dollar amount you put aside for retirement and its automatic so you can’t really mess it up. 

 I was pleasantly surprised to see a larger than expected balance in my personal retirement account, I just checked it right now.  Mostly because that since before Christmas I stopped contributing my 5% per paycheck and temporarily set it to zero, but my employer match was still going strong, and interest from my previous savings is still compounding.  I guess my employer kept matching even if I was not, or maybe it caught up after the last financial quarter of the year but I had almost $1000 more in the account than I expected, we all know thats a good feeling.

Well I will leave it at that there are countless other financial gems explained in this book.  Stuff I have heard over the years that you should overpay your credit card and mortgage by 10% and save thousands of dollars in interest over the term of the loan. 

If you want a set it and forget it plan for retirement like I do so you dont have to worry and babysit your money then this book is definately for you. 

 If you just want to get out of debt, pay off your home loan years sooner or just figure out how to keep some money away from the government or in your bank account then I would highly recommend this book.

 I hope everyone that reads this picks up a copy of the book, implements the strategies and becomes a millionaire.

Financial Peace Revisited by Dave Ramsey - Book Review.

 This book opened our eyes to where our money was going and how we could hold on to a little more of it each check.  The author Dave Ramsey is a very motivated and driven writer/speaker.  He is very passionate about what he teaches.  We actually attended a 13 week class, where we watched a video for the first hour then had an open discussion based on the material we learned for the next hour.  We had a workbook, pages to log our spending and saving etc. (We had a coworker watch our daughter for almost all of the 13 weeks it was a great experience for us as a couple to have some alone time and discuss our finances and focus for two hours a week on common goals) 

The class briefly covers all aspects of money, how to spend it smartly, how to save it, where it goes, how to keep more away from Uncle Sam, how to pay off debt, and many other things.

The author writes from his own personal experience as a former realtor, financial counselor and radio host. 

 Dave Ramsey was a self made man that lost it all when the real estate bubble burst on him.  He was leveraged to the max in credit cards, signature loans, personal lines of credit, business lines of credit etc.  Had a nice house, fancy car, nice clothes.  Everything he and his family ever wanted, over $4 Million in assets and real estate.

Then he lost it all.

At first glance he is now a penny pincher, he is frugal with his money, but he teaches others to be “smart” with their money.  He belives in carrying around hundred dollar bills to get good deals.  (I wish I had a few of those at all times like Mr. Ramsey)  He says he does not buy things on credit. The cool part about that is you dont have to have a great credit score because you save money and make your purchase with cash.

It’s amazing at how much Americans have in credit card debt and how much in savings American’s dont have compared to European or Asian countries.  A generation or two ago almost all American’s had savings, today many people live paycheck to paycheck and are barely making ends meet, working a dead end job just to keep the collectors at bay.  (We have been there and done that) 

 This book was an eye opener for my family and Monica says it saved our marriage.  Now were on the same page about money we know that we need to balance the check book instead of just trusting the bank and occassionally having the negative $2 balance resulting in 5 overdraft fees of $25 each, ouch it has happened to us before but not since this 13 week class and Financial Peace book.  If you need some financial knowledge to help you make a change in your financial life this would be a good book to pick up. 

 We highly recommend this book to anyone that needs help with finding out what situation their finances are in and how to turn it around.  (were finally on the right path its not an easy one but its better than playing the credit card finance charge game and trying to float a check until payday)

Dave is all about getting out of debt, attacking it with gazelle like intensity.  He uses the method of smallest to largest then snowballing that small payment into the next and next, and next, so eventually you are making a double or more, car payment/student loan/house payment.  Then after the car is paid off you roll that amount you were paying on the car to your next largest debt.  (In my case that would probably be a student loan)

Imagine having your credit cards paid off, then your car payment, student loans, then your house, or funding the college or retirement account years sooner than you imagined.

 There is actually a savings plan outlined for retirement that shows you how to put aside $11 Million for a two income household by slowly putting away a small amount of you take home pay, by doing it for a full 40 years. 

All I can say is if your 19 years old or younger, run out and buy the book or sign up for the FPU (Financial Peace University) if you follow the methods he tells you how to become a millionaire before most people are ready for retirement.