This is an important day for me.
My new book Count on Yourself: Take Charge of Your Money (Simon & Schuster Canada) is now in stores and available online.
This marks book number 11 (the rest co-authored with David Cruise) so you wouldn’t think I’d find it such a big deal any more.
But I do and it’s because the topic has never been so important.
With the economic events of the past few years, our increasing debt load and the terrible state of so many retirement portfolios and savings plans — we must start taking charge of our money.
You don’t need to be good in math or even comfortable with numbers in order to do so.
All that’s required is a plan.
It’s particularly vital for us to seize control in the realm of investing.
Most people hand over decisions about what they buy for RRSPs, RESPs, RRIFs and TFSAs to someone else because they are intimidated.
The financial services industry has done a superb job of convincing us that investing is way too complicated for the average Joe and Jill. Not so!
My goal in Count on Yourself is to give you the confidence and tools to set up and monitor a simple, safe, low-fee investment portfolio — and the best news is that it will out-perform most professionally constructed portfolios.
The first part of the book explores our attitudes toward money and how they stop us from taking charge of our money.
The second section offers tips to help you become financially organized while the third shows you how to evaluate your situation and needs.
Finally, I introduce you to a group of low-fee, low stress and easily understandable sample portfolios using Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and index mutual funds.
When you’re finished you will be in control of your money whether you use an advisor or prefer to do it yourself.
After the initial setup it will only take 30 minutes a month to stay on top of your investments.
There’s also a contest to win a one-on-one telephone consult with yours truly about anything to do with personal finance or investments.
You can enter through the Count on Yourself link on my website, alisongriffiths.ca.
Happy New Year all and I hope 2012 becomes a take-charge-of-your-money year.
Alison Griffiths is the author of the upcoming book Count On Yourself: Take Charge of Your Money. Reach her at alisongriffiths.ca or griffiths.alison@gmail.com.
