The ABC's of Personal Finance

A Practical Guide to Financial Wealth

By: Janice Szur

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Did you ever want to understand financial terminology, learn how to save more, get out of debt, tired of being poor, want to create wealth and build your net worth or perhaps just know where your money is going? Since my younger days, I have been interested in finances, or as my friends all said I am just a numbers girl. I am a numbers person; however, I also care about the human side behind those numbers. Money and finances are very emotional topics. In fact, they are third on the list of causes of divorce in America. Whether you are a numbers person or not this book is for you.

I authored this book to give an overview or a practical financial guide of the basics and terminology of personal finance, saving money, financial freedom, creating wealth, and ditching debt. The younger you begin understanding your financial literacy along with investing, including trading stocks and bonds and protecting your finances, the quicker you will enjoy financial freedom and the richer your life will be. I took each letter of the alphabet and assigned a financial term to it. Each of the twenty-six topics will have a professional tip attached to it.
A sampling of the topics you will learn:

• What do you include in a budget?
• What is your net worth?
• What is the difference between stocks, bonds, ETFs, and mutual funds?
• Do you need a will?
• Should you own real estate or a home?
• How to monitor your credit.
• And twenty-one other topics

Many people are told they should plan their retirement for living on 70-80% of their pre-retirement income. I have been retired for three years and I had no intention of sitting around reading books. I travel, write, golf, hike, enjoy good red wine, and take pleasure in eating out, along with many other activities. We sold our home and live and travel in our RV in the winter and live on our boat in the summer. This is an expensive lifestyle and I have hobbies that cost money.

I am not a financial planner, tax professional, or attorney and I do not give financial investment advice or offer legal advice. I learned at an early age the importance of savings and living below my means so I could enjoy all phases of my life. I was always frugal but still enjoyed taking vacations and participating in healthy activities.

I have never worked for an employer that had a pension plan (a retirement plan where the company pays you a fixed amount when you retire), so I am living on everything that I have saved in all my retirement and non-retirement accounts. I still create a budget and evaluate my net worth monthly and when I have unexpected expenses I adjust in other areas. Owning a boat and an RV truly has unexpected expenses. When you own an RV, it is like driving your home down the road at 70 mph, so many things can and do go wrong. I even authored another book on Full Time RV Living: The first six months.

In addition to knowing how to set up a budget, analyze your expenses and calculate your net worth, you need to enjoy the journey, have fun, and stay motivated and healthy. You need to visualize your ideal situation and be grateful for everything you do have. I am a believer in the Law of Attraction. Your mindset and motivation are just as important as doing the tasks. Let us start attracting that money so we can live the life we want.

Read the book in its entirety and then come back and revisit the pages where you want to start concentrating, building a plan, and setting goals. The topics are in alphabetical order not in order of importance. By reading the entire book first you will have a fabulous overview and then can go back and concentrate on the areas of interest.