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It’s amazing to think that it has almost been 10 years since I picked up my first “finance” book.   I tend to keep all my finance books and last night I glanced at the first one I had purchased; it was a book named The Truth About Money by Ric Edelman published in 1996.  Ric Edelman subsequently came out with a new book (after tax law changes) called The New Rules of Money a couple of years later.  I picked up that book too.  Note: There are now 2nd and 3rd edition of The Truth About Money.  This review is about the original published in 1996.

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I’m reviewing both of these books today from a historical perspective.  From 1995 through 1998, the stock market was booming.  It’s funny to read Ric talk about 20% returns being common for equities and U.S. Treasuring paying a “paltry” 6.5%!   Funny how today we WISH U.S. Treasuries were paying 6.5% and only dream of 20% average equity returns!

It’s also interesting to note how global events really can make a difference.  From $60-$80/barrel oil to 9/11 to Enron scandals, the markets have taken hits and yet they manage to hang on.

Both books contain Ric’s “Rules of Money” which often provide useful ideas, sometimes contrary to popular dogma (Ric doesn’t like index funds) and at other times fairly basic and common sense advice (spend less than you earn).

Ric Edelman also dislikes the Roth IRA (or at least he did when these books were written) for various tax implication reasons that may or may not apply to the average investor.

As a finance/investor novice in 1996, I thought Ric’s advise was gold but now I believe it to be more like silver -still valuable but there’s better out there.

I don’t recommend you go out and buy these books but its fun to re-read books that were written during an equities boom period and the assumptions and advice they give during these times. I glanced at Amazon’s reviews to see how people were ratings the book and people either love it or hate it.

Of course, Ric now has some new books one of which is called What to do now written after the dot com meltdown and 9/11 attacks.  I haven’t picked that up but the Amazon reviews have the ratings as “hated it” or “loved it.”  No doubt, Ric Edelman is a controversial financial advisor but I’m beyond the advice he doles out in his books at this point.