Queercents

From time to time, Kensington Books provides us with free titles from its Gay and Lesbian section to give away to our readers and contributors. Each book is a gay-themed work of fiction and has absolutely nothing to do with personal finance. But they’re free and there is always something nice about free.

Besides, you have the rest of the recession to read the latest nonfiction money books. For now, take a breather and escape with one of the two books below by telling me why you need a break from our regular scheduled personal finance programming. I’ll pick two winners after the holiday weekend. Here are the books:

Object of Desire by William J. Mann

Danny Fortunato seemed to have it all. He was cute, funny, sexy, smart—the hottest go-go boy in West Hollywood. When he danced on stage, all eyes were upon him and all men desired him. But something always kept Danny from ever really believing he was the golden boy that others said he was…a secret that he’d carried with him ever since he was a teenager.

Twenty years later, living in Palm Springs, Danny is celebrating his 41st birthday—although “celebrating” might not be the right word for how he feels about his life today. To the outside world, he’s still golden: he still has his looks, and he still loves Frank, his boyfriend of nearly two decades. But something is missing in his life. Passion. Romance. Adventure. The same something that’s been missing ever since that day when he turned fourteen, when his sister Becky disappeared and his whole world flipped upside-down. Read the rest of this entry »

Beth Kobliner is a certified financial junkie. She has written about personal finance for the New York Times, Glamour, and Money Magazine. She has appeared on “Oprah” and “The Today Show,” and she has an upcoming TV series on PBS called “Your Life, Your Money.” I recently met Kobliner at the Campus Progress National Conference, where we spoke to an audience of college students about getting a handle on their finances. Kobliner offers up sound advice for young adults in her new book Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your 20’s & 30’s, as well as on her website. But Beth’s advice isn’t just for the 20-30 set. Her practical wisdom is great for anyone who wants to get a better grip on their financial lives.

Get a Financial Life is broken into several helpful sections: expense tracking, banking basics, debt, investments, insurance, retirement plans, home ownership, taxes, and military benefits. I found the chapter about debt to be really enlightening. Kobliner explains the basics of credit cards and tells readers how to get the best deal when they’re shopping around for a loan. The section on buying a car was really helpful – she advises consumers to do their homework before they hit the car lot to get the best deal.

The chapter on “All You Really Need to Know About Investing” is great for someone like me, who doesn’t really understand the ins and outs of money market funds, stocks, and mutual funds. I also found the chapters on retirement planning and home ownership to be really interesting. Both chapters take all the complicated financial information and break it down so the average Jane can understand it.

Follow me after the jump to read my interview with Beth, and to sign up to win a free copy of her book. She’s got some great advice for parents about how they can teach their children about money. Read the rest of this entry »

“Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance on Just One Page” is a 49 page personal finance book. Trent Hamm at The Simple Dollar put it together to summarize the key points on personal finance.

The cover of this document tells you the whole story. Everything you really need to know abut personal finance can be summarized in just one page. Spend less than you earn. Earn more. Live frugal. Do something sensible with the difference. Control your own destiny. All of the other writing out there on personal finance is just details.

Trent has a unique style in the way he deciphers the money details and cuts through the “static” with his simplicity. Most people see the goal of personal finance as being rich:

Here’s the secret: it’s not about being rich. Having a big net worth is just an indicator of what this whole process is really about.

It’s all about freedom. Freedom from debt. Freedom from supervisors telling us what to do. Freedom to spend the time to do things right. Freedom to try out new things and follow our interests. Freedom to sleep until eleven one day, then stay up until two in the morning working on what we’re passionate about. Read the rest of this entry »

Giveaway alert: I have one copy to give away to the best comment below!

For the last couple of years, Jeanine and I have included, “Open an online brokerage account,” on our list of goals. Year after year, it’s one that we haven’t been able to check off the list – partly because I wasn’t that interested. But after reading this book in January, I suggested to Jeanine that we should finally get serious and do it – so in March we opened a joint Schwab account.

This actually was a big financial step because Jeanine and I typically keep our money separate. We own real estate together, but we don’t have any joint checking or savings accounts. (Read why here.)

We funded the Schwab account with equal amounts of money and voila, we were online traders. It’s only been a few months and we haven’t done any selling; just the buying part. Surprisingly, Jeanine has taken to the technology and market with a keen attentiveness and is leading the way for us. I still hear a little voice (and it sounds a lot like my long time financial advisor) telling me that individual investors shouldn’t be buying individual stocks. This is why my portfolio is made up of index funds and the numbers are boring to me – another reason why my advisor manages this part of my portfolio. (Note: I like real estate and take a more active role in managing these investments.)

Buying individual stocks feels a bit like placing a bet on the roulette wheel. There’s a thrill factor to it which is probably why Jeanine has taken to it. But I’ve quickly learned that it doesn’t have to be like gambling. I read the book that keeps it simple when it comes to buying individual stocks. Read the rest of this entry »

Giveaway Alert: I have one signed copy to give away to the best comment below!

Money Without Matrimony: The Unmarried Couple’s Guide to Financial Security

It’s rare when a book can be both a good read AND a good reference but Money Without Matrimony manages to do both. It is divided into chapters corresponding to common financial planning topics such as insurance and taxes and is populated throughout with stories of real people (names changed of course) which bring to life the often mundane planning issues.

This book is dedicated to “all unmarried couples who seek financial security and equality” and that amounts to 5.5 million households or more than 5% of the total U.S. adult population. As most readers of Queercents know, these couples, same or opposite sex, are not protected by the 1140+ federal laws that apply to married couples. I think it’s safe to say that financial planning is more important for unmarried couples than any other demographic. And yet, as the authors point out

Despite the horror stories, few unmarried couples of any age bother with financial planning. In fact, most of us-married or not-rarely get around to formal planning until we’re overwhelmed by a money crisis or left holding an empty bag after a nasty ending to a relationship.

In order to help at least one unmarried couple, Read the rest of this entry »

My friend Pam Slim at Escape from Cubicle Nation has some excellent news today.  Her Escape from Cubicle Nation book, officially hitting the shelves on April 30, is now available for pre-orders. I have been a long time fan of her most excellent blog that has a plethora of inspiration and resources for those budding entrepreneurs who would like to make the leap from cubicle dweller to business owner.

What makes today special is the extra-special offer she has going for people who pre-order the book.  Want to stretch your dollar and boost your inspiration?  Well, you can double your investment if you act fast.  Pam shares:

So starting this very minute, the first 500 people who pre-order the book and send me your confirmed order number will get another, spanking new, personally signed copy of the book as soon as it rolls off the assembly line.

That’s like a two for one special.  So you and someone else (hey I sense a  built in support system there) can enjoy the book together as you plot your future visions and plans.

The book has been getting rave reviews and Guy Kawasaki wrote the forward. It is the real deal folks. And I can personally say that Pam is one of the most supportive people I’ve ever met when it comes to LGBT folks as well.

To take advantage of the offer and get all the details here.

You can preview Chapter 1 of the book online as well.

From time to time, Kensington Books provides us with free titles from its Gay and Lesbian section to give away to our readers and contributors. Each book is a gay-themed work of fiction and has absolutely nothing to do with personal finance. But today I have two copies of Drama Queers to giveaway for free… and there’s nothing wrong with free (just ask any TARP recipient!).

Besides, you have the entire recession to read the latest nonfiction money books… many of which we review here at Queercents. But for now, take a breather and escape with Drama Queers by telling me why even bandos and thespians need a break from all the financial talk!

Here’s more about the book: Drama Queers by Frank Anthony Polito

Ever since Mrs. Malloy assigned us the What I Want To Be When I Grow Up paper earlier that year in her 1st hour English, my mind had been made up… I, Bradley James Dayton, will be a famous actor someday!

Meet Bradley Dayton—a wickedly funny high school senior whose woefully uncool life always seems to be full of drama, even in the sorry little suburb of Hazel Park, Michigan. It’s 1987, the era of big hair, designer jeans, and Dirty Dancing. George Michael has “Faith” and Michael Jackson still has a nose. Brad, on the other hand, has a thing for acting, and while his friends are trying to get laid, Brad’s trying to land the lead in Okla-homo! and practicing the Jane Seymour monologue from Somewhere in Time. Read the rest of this entry »

Giveaway alert: I have one copy to give away to the best comment below!

At Queercents, I typically only review personal finance and business books, but when an email arrived from Rebecca Walker, the best-selling author (and my favorite bisexual) it was easy to make an exception with this cue: “It is always the right time to support families. All of them.”

Which leads to Walker’s latest work, One Big Happy Family: 18 Writers Talk About Polyamory, Open Adoption, Mixed Marriage, Househusbandry, Single Motherhood, and Other Realities of Truly Modern Love and why it was described in a review at Kirkus as, “eye-opening and sometimes shocking, as it brilliantly explodes traditional notions about the nuclear family.”

Many of the essays make my lesbian family unit [two mommies, 1 adopted son] appear dull and traditional; another guarantee that this book will send the best of the Prop 8 supporters into a tizzy. This alone should be the sufficient nudge to get you to click over to Amazon and add it to your shopping cart.

The book begins by Walker luring me in with Jenny Block’s titillating personal account of an open marriage that proves “in theory” sometimes actually works in practice… something that troupled gay men figured out moons ago. Crazy, co-dependent, drama-seeking lesbians need not apply. Nevertheless it’s a hot story and inspiration for any that have considered dabbling… and that’s just the first chapter.

What does this have to do with money? Quite a bit in fact: Read the rest of this entry »

Giveaway Alert: I have two copies of the book to give away at the end of this post.

How many of us get caught up in comparing our lives with that of our siblings? For me personally, I felt like I didn’t measure up to my sisters and brother when it came to money in my late twenties. I had spent five years moving from city to city because of my career. For awhile, I never lived anywhere long enough to make friends, let alone commit to buying a home. Then I quit my job to start a business and was just treading water. I wasn’t in debt, but at the age of thirty, I was broke.

By this time, each of my siblings owned his or her home and had purchased at least one rental property. It’s a little random that they all bought real estate at such a young age. Looking at their financial soundness, I suddenly feared ending up as the poor sister… after all, isn’t there always one kid in every family that’s a deadbeat or slacker.

I was neither. But I was a risk taker and yet, had a lot to learn about running a business. The funny thing is, I was the one always talking about wanting to be rich. So I wised up in my early thirties and got my career back on track. The income followed. But so did the expenses. I was finally able to buy a home though.

And that’s when I read Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. It was one of the first personal finance book that taught me how to build wealth. Like millions of others, I learned from Kiyosaki that: Read the rest of this entry »

To be candid, when I was offered a review copy of Natalie Pace’s new book: Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is, I considered turning it down. It sounded like advice for people only interested in investing in stocks and bonds and this topic really isn’t that interesting to me.

I’m not against the stock market… rather  I depend on a financial advisor to handle this part of my investment portfolio. But I took Pace’s people up on the offer because even if I didn’t enjoy it, another Queercents reader might get something out of it… plus it was another free book to give away – which I do at the end of this post. All that aside, I finally did read it and realized (by about page 76) there was something in this book for me.

You see, I like real estate. I liked real estate before the bubble. I liked it during the bubble and I still like it today. And while I love investing in real estate, I’m not stupid and have learned over the years, that asset diversification is important for long term wealth. For this reason, I have money invested in the stock market, although I don’t actively participate in the management of these investments.

Pace’s book pushed me to look at this part of my portfolio differently. Here are my two takeaways and why you might want to read her book too - especially if you’re passive when it comes to this type of investing: Read the rest of this entry »