Book Review: "Achieve Financial Freedom-Big Time!" by Sandy Botkin
I read and review financial planning books from time to time partly so I know if I want to buy it for my library: would I ever loan it out to my clients? Would I recommend it to anyone? But partly I read it so I can figure out how other people teach the same material. How do I convey to my clients the answers to the questions they have? The true answer is always "it depends" and that just doesn't cut it most of the time. The "it depends" sentence holds an hour and a half of explanation in it: more than most people want. So what do you say, instead?
Sandy Botkin is a tax attorney who wrote a popular book on how to save on taxes. I haven't read it, and probably won't. I'm an excellent tax accountant and don't have any trouble explaining things to my clients there. Either they ask my advice for their specific situation and I tell them, or they don't ask my advice and I clean up their mess after the fact. General advice to others is worthless and I know all the same tricks he knows.
His new book, Achieve Financial Freedom - Big Time!: Wealth-Building Secrets from Everyday Millionaires is a condensed down thumbnail sketch of all the basic received wisdom we get when we study for the Certified Financial Planning exam. It follows the basic sections of the CFP exam, in fact, adding just two useful sections at the back. Basically, the answer to how you tell people something without using "it depends" is that you simplify it to virtual uselessness. Or perhaps not know what you don't know. For example, he says that anyone who owns gold bullion is "silly". What he *meant* to say is that he doesn't understand why you'd own gold bullion. He left off reasons why you'd want term insurance on a young adult (because they took out student loans that aren't forgiven at death and have co-signers) and left in a bunch of stuff about credit shelter trusts without mentioning the portability of estate tax unified exemptions. He didn't mention anything about using Roth IRAs in lieu of 529 plans (or how 529 plans screw up education credits, or how they're mostly just useful for grandparents) and basically told you half truths almost the whole way through. He said annuities were bad and never talked about the value of a SPIA when sharks start circling your retirement kitty as you become incompetent. He talked about doing a debt rolldown but didn't discuss ways to get the rates reset lower or how to make yourself actually DO it. Nothing about automatic payments, nothing about escrowed savings, no mechanical help.
After reading this book you'd know some vocabulary and half of everything. That's better than not knowing, I suppose. But I wish he used "it depends" far more often. Instead, he kept gushing about how proud he is of his son the CPA/CFP. As someone who is, herself, a CPA/CFP I'm pretty skeptical about whether he has earned those credentials. Passed the exams, sure. But actually served the time you need to serve in practice? I seriously doubt it.
Meanwhile, I found the sexism in this book to be breathtaking. None of the several professionals he interviews are women. I probably wouldn't have noticed that, but an odd thing kept popping up: all the women in this story were either used as paternalistic people to be pitied (for their shopping habits or inability to save) or to be thanked for their lovely home-made cookies. Everywhere he went the men's wives would pop in with cookies or sandwiches. Seriously? There was a moment there where they all winked at a lucky widower's lot being outnumbered by women 3 to 1 in his old age. Arrggh. Really, it was seriously getting to me. He lives in Maryland. In this century. I am confused how this got past editors, much less manages a business with so little involvement with women as people.
The nice part was his discussion of how to evaluate elder care facilities. Perhaps that's because it was the one topic I knew nothing about and didn't know how badly he was screwing it up. But I felt like I had more language after reading that section and it was a good starting place. Perhaps that's how non-experts will read this book. He covers a LOT of ground and sometimes it drags, but if you want to get a vocabulary lessons about different kinds of mortgages then this is a way to get it.
Let's just hope you enjoy hearing him chuckle about how proud he is over his son and how much they enjoyed the cookies the wealthy men's wife brought them. Perhaps some of you will find this folksy and charming. I just found it galling by the end.
Sandy Botkin is a tax attorney who wrote a popular book on how to save on taxes. I haven't read it, and probably won't. I'm an excellent tax accountant and don't have any trouble explaining things to my clients there. Either they ask my advice for their specific situation and I tell them, or they don't ask my advice and I clean up their mess after the fact. General advice to others is worthless and I know all the same tricks he knows.
His new book, Achieve Financial Freedom - Big Time!: Wealth-Building Secrets from Everyday Millionaires is a condensed down thumbnail sketch of all the basic received wisdom we get when we study for the Certified Financial Planning exam. It follows the basic sections of the CFP exam, in fact, adding just two useful sections at the back. Basically, the answer to how you tell people something without using "it depends" is that you simplify it to virtual uselessness. Or perhaps not know what you don't know. For example, he says that anyone who owns gold bullion is "silly". What he *meant* to say is that he doesn't understand why you'd own gold bullion. He left off reasons why you'd want term insurance on a young adult (because they took out student loans that aren't forgiven at death and have co-signers) and left in a bunch of stuff about credit shelter trusts without mentioning the portability of estate tax unified exemptions. He didn't mention anything about using Roth IRAs in lieu of 529 plans (or how 529 plans screw up education credits, or how they're mostly just useful for grandparents) and basically told you half truths almost the whole way through. He said annuities were bad and never talked about the value of a SPIA when sharks start circling your retirement kitty as you become incompetent. He talked about doing a debt rolldown but didn't discuss ways to get the rates reset lower or how to make yourself actually DO it. Nothing about automatic payments, nothing about escrowed savings, no mechanical help.
After reading this book you'd know some vocabulary and half of everything. That's better than not knowing, I suppose. But I wish he used "it depends" far more often. Instead, he kept gushing about how proud he is of his son the CPA/CFP. As someone who is, herself, a CPA/CFP I'm pretty skeptical about whether he has earned those credentials. Passed the exams, sure. But actually served the time you need to serve in practice? I seriously doubt it.
Meanwhile, I found the sexism in this book to be breathtaking. None of the several professionals he interviews are women. I probably wouldn't have noticed that, but an odd thing kept popping up: all the women in this story were either used as paternalistic people to be pitied (for their shopping habits or inability to save) or to be thanked for their lovely home-made cookies. Everywhere he went the men's wives would pop in with cookies or sandwiches. Seriously? There was a moment there where they all winked at a lucky widower's lot being outnumbered by women 3 to 1 in his old age. Arrggh. Really, it was seriously getting to me. He lives in Maryland. In this century. I am confused how this got past editors, much less manages a business with so little involvement with women as people.
The nice part was his discussion of how to evaluate elder care facilities. Perhaps that's because it was the one topic I knew nothing about and didn't know how badly he was screwing it up. But I felt like I had more language after reading that section and it was a good starting place. Perhaps that's how non-experts will read this book. He covers a LOT of ground and sometimes it drags, but if you want to get a vocabulary lessons about different kinds of mortgages then this is a way to get it.
Let's just hope you enjoy hearing him chuckle about how proud he is over his son and how much they enjoyed the cookies the wealthy men's wife brought them. Perhaps some of you will find this folksy and charming. I just found it galling by the end.