Jane Bryant Quinn - Making the Most of Your Money Now

ALSO BY JANE BRYANT QUINN

Smart and Simple Financial Strategies for Busy People

Everyones Money Book

THE CLASSIC
BESTSELLER

Completely Revised
for the New Economy

JANE BRYANT QUINN

This publication contains the opinions and ideas of its author. It is sold with the understanding that neither the author nor the publisher is engaged in rendering legal, tax, investment, insurance, financial, accounting, or other professional advice or services. If the reader requires such advice or services, a competent professional should be consulted. Relevant laws vary from state to state. The strategies outlined in this book may not be suitable for every individual, and are not guaranteed or warranted to produce any particular results.

No warranty is made with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the information contained herein, and both the author and the publisher specifically disclaim any responsibility for any liability, loss or risk, personal or otherwise, which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this book.

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Designed by Paul Dippolito

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Quinn, Jane Bryant.
Making the most of your money now : the classic bestseller / Jane Bryant Quinn.
p. cm.
Includes index.
1. Finance, Personal. 2. Investments. I. Title.
II. Title: Completely rev. for the new economy.
HG179.Q57 2009
332.024'01dc22 2009032610

ISBN 978-0-7432-6996-4

ISBN 978-1-4165-5352-6 (ebook)

Previous editions of this work were published as Making the Most of Your Money
in 1991 and 1997 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

For Carll

Where You Stand on the Money Cycle

What Youve Got and Where Youre Going

The Right Way to Keep Records

Banking in the Internet Age

Who Should Own the PropertyMe? You? Us? Them?

Wills and TrustsFor Everything You Cant Take with You

Twelve Checklists for Lifes Milestones

How to Take Charge of Your MoneyAt Last

Patented, Painless Ways to Save and Where to Save It

Learning to Live Without Consumer Debt

All the Best Ways to Borrow Money to Invest

What Kind of Life Insurance? How Much Is Enough?

Paying More, Getting Less, Rooting for Change

The Risk That Everyone Forgets

The Search for the Best and Cheapest Auto Insurance

Protecting Your Home and Everything in It

Even If It Doesnt Make You Rich

The House That Doesnt Cost You Anything (Much)

The Matterhorn of Personal Finance

How to Beat the College Inflation Rate

Which Kinds of Investments Serve You Best?

Every Investors Bedrock Buy

Where It Helps and Where It Hurts

Still Your Ticket to the Future

Income InvestingThe Right Way and the Wrong Way

Some Absolutely Awful Investments

The Case for Putting More Money Abroad

Finding the Properties That Pay

The Tax-Deferred Route to Easy Street

Still Living Rich at 99

How to Tap the Equity Youve Built

The Secret, Revealed

No one is born with a mind for personal finance. I certainly wasnt. I came from a family that handled money prudently, but I understood that only in retrospect. We didnt talk about it. Everything I learned about money, I learned by watching, reading, doing, andyesmaking some awful mistakes.

Id love to tell you that I embraced my mistakes because they taught me so much, but Id be lying. I hated making those mistakes! Still do. The only upside is that, after going wrong myself, I understand how easy it is to get off trackespecially when money is short or when so-called financial experts are whispering into your ear. I also learned, through trial and error, what the better choices are.

I started out fine as a money manager, teenage division. On my sixteenth birthday, I took the bus to city hall in my hometown, Niagara Falls, New York, to apply for working papers. That afternoon I interviewed with the head of the public library, who not only hired me for afterschool work but gave me my favorite job title ever: I was a page in a building full of books. I spent some of my earnings (not a lot; we werent big spenders at Niagara Falls High School) and put the rest in a savings account to help pay for college.

At college, I got a check from my parents to supplement what Id saved. I watched my pennies, balanced my checkbook, and never overdrew. In those days we couldnt get credit cards, so I wasnt put to the plastic test. Summers, I clerked in a grocery story and waitressed at Howard Johnsons. (I never learned the trick of balancing a fully loaded serving tray on one hand, held above my head. I was always terrified that Id drop four hamburger specials with Cokes and fries down the customers necks.)

Finally I got the summer job of my dreams: reporting stories for the Niagara Falls Gazette. I wasnt on the front page. It was more like, Jane, go to the Friday greenmarket and update the table of vegetable prices. But I was a reporter. I had a desk, phone, and ID card to prove it.

My financial oops moments started when I got out of school and went to work at a consumer newsletter in New York City. For one thing, I didnt save. I spent every dime and never looked ahead. One year when I unexpectedly had extra income taxes to pay, I had to take out a loan. I lived the paycheck-to-paycheck life.

Lucky for me, a colleague at work dropped by one day to tell me I was an idiot (his word!) not to have joined the company automatic-savings plan. I cant afford it, I whined. Yes you can, he said. Have 5 percent taken out of your pay automatically, and youll never notice. I did, and he was right. I was still living paycheck to paycheck, but suddenly, I was saving money along the way. The money wasnt much (I wasnt earning much), but Im grateful to this day for his having taken the time to tell me I was being dumb. Ive been devoted to automatic savings plans every since.

I didnt have a lot of other financial options during my twenties. I married young, had a beautiful baby right away, and money was tight. It got tighter at twenty-five, when I found myself broke, divorced, and struggling to pay rent in a city that isnt for sissies. Young journalists didnt earn much, especially if you were of the female persuasion. In those bad old days, there was something called the female discount. If a man and a woman held the same type of job in the company, the woman was paid 30 percent lessand it was legal. At my job interview, the discount was figured out right in front of me, on an adding machine. Total humiliationbut I was stuck. Thank goodness for the feminist movement, which eventually put an end to overt wage discriminationalthough not in time to help me with the rent.