Book Review: Build Wealth & Spend It All

Build Wealth & Spend It All: Enjoy The Life You Earned

About the Book:

You can build wealth. You need to protect your retirement savings from future nationalization, taxation and redistribution. You deserve to spend everything you have earned and saved before you die. 

 

This is not a novel to numb the pain in your life for just a couple of hours. It is a tool box with the tools you can use to fix your life...forever. 

 

Dr. Riggs has been building wealth for over fifty years through several very different and very successful careers, each of which made him a multimillionaire. In this book he explains the three basic and easy to understand financial concepts anyone can use to both build and protect their wealth. But it was only during this past year, while he was visiting his 96 yr. old mother in a nursing home, he gained insight into what awaits most of our retirement savings.

 

The money his mother had earned as a public school teacher and had frugally saved for over 50 years was rapidly being drained away as she dozed off in her chair. They were taking it simply because she still had it; while other residents who had already enjoyed spending their money, were now getting a free ride.

 

He had helped his mother to save and invest when he should have encouraged her to spend. He had failed his own mother by not encouraging her to spend all she had earned and saved, while she was still able to enjoy it. But he was determined not to fail himself.

 

He needed a plan...a logical plan to enjoy strategically spending or gifting it all away over a predetermined period of time; before the private IRA, 401(k) and Roth retirement accounts are nationalized and redistributed. He needed a plan to spend it all and die broke - insolvent, but not illiquid or destitute. 

  

Surprisingly, his plan for building his wealth was simpler and came more naturally to him than his plan for spending it all. 

 

In this book he explains the three basic and easy-to-understand financial concepts anyone can use to help build their own wealth:

 

(1) Understand the difference between true assets and actual liabilities. 

(2) Always know where you are in the economic cycle. 

(3) Understand the implications of the coming demographic changes. 

 

Your grave stone will have two dates separated by a hyphen. You have no control over the dates but you do have control over the hyphen ... that's your life. Let this book show you how to make the most of that hyphen.

My Comments:

Most financial planning books tell you to save your money while you are young, invest it in mutual funds, and withdraw part of it when you are old, and leave the rest to your kids.  This book agrees with part about saving your money, but it is the author's opinion that our tax system/government is going to end up confiscating large portions of people's IRAs and 401Ks to get the money to support all the baby boomers who have not saved enough for retirement.  Stanley Riggs, the author, is a fan of investing in real estate and businesses.  He is also in favor of people front-loading their retirement spending during the first years of retirement, and then dying broke, or close to it.  

The book was easy to read and if you agree with his assessment that the government is going to take people's retirement accounts, then you'll probably agree with his choice of investments.  Since I don't agree with that prediction, I take a jaundiced eye toward the book.

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a complimentary review copy available via NetGalley.  Grade:  B-.  

The Great American Dividend Machine: Book Review

The Great American Dividend Machine: How an Outsider Became the Undisputed Champ of Wall Street

About the Book:

Bill Spetrino was just an ordinary accountant more than 20 years ago when he discovered the best investment secret ever.

Bill calls his secret “the dividend machine” -- and he has been sharing his secrets with hundreds of thousands of investors who have subscribed to his popular Dividend Machine newsletter, rated by Hulbert Digest as the #1 low risk investment letter.

But many readers asked Bill to write a book about his secret and how ordinary investors can become millionaires just like him.

Bill did just that.

Now his new The Great American Dividend Machine reveals his own story, and how he went from becoming a middle-class accountant to having a net worth exceeding more than $5 million!

Traders who jump from stock to stock in the hunt for a major Wall Street score often lose money or, at best, break even.

That's not an acceptable fate for the retirement nest egg or for Bill.

Instead, true investors trust Bill Spetrino's proven advice: "Keep investments boring and the rest of life fun and exciting."

By valuing safety and income above all else, Spetrino guides the reader through the process of unearthing true bargains in the marketplace.

Adhering to the author's model, The Great American Dividend Machine portfolio is composed of stocks that he picks using his unique system.

The companies that pass Spetrino's rigorous, multi-step vetting process must have a number of key characteristics, such as:

Resonant brand names

Strong, competitive advantages in their industries

Pristine balance sheets

Capital to help survive and thrive in difficult markets

Bill believes anyone can become a millionaire by ignoring the Wall Street pros and using his time-tested strategies.

My Comments:

If you have spent any amount of time surfing investing blogs, you've come across the idea of dividend stock investing--assembling a portfolio of stocks based largely on the dividend paid by the company.  This book is largely an advertisement for that style of investing in general and Bill Spetrino's newsletter in particular.  It reminds me of those "paid programming" shows on TV where someone tells you some basic concepts and then shows you how buying their product makes everything easier.   Yes, you could make the dessert without the $29.95 tool they are selling but it wouldn't be as easy or quite the same.  

The book is written in the first person--Bill is talking directly to readers, telling them about his history as an entrepreneur and how he learned to predict the future (bet at the racetrack or casino) by looking at the numbers and getting information other people didn't have.  The goal is obviously to get you to trust him as a person who knows what he is doing with your money.  While he gives some basic financial advice that can be found on just about any financial planning blog (spend less than you make, keep an emergency fund, the power of compounding...) mostly he talks about how good he is at recognizing stocks that will do well.  Obviously, it is his goal to buy low, when the "market" doesn't realize what a good deal a particular stock is, and to hold that stock until something makes him think that the company is no longer doing well.

If you are buying this book  with the idea of learning how to pick good dividend-paying stocks, save your money.  This book contstantly states why Spetrino prefers stocks that pay dividends to those which don't, and talks about buying the stocks at the best price, however, rather than teach readers how to pick winning stocks, Spetrino uses this book to sell his newsletter--which costs almost $100 per year.  Given that even in the Kindle version, this book is not cheap, I think most readers will be disappointed.  

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a complimentary review copy availabe via NetGalley. Grade:  C.  

Other Posts This Week:

Loyal3 Lunch

Kickfurther Merchant of the Week