Sunday Book Review: How To Ruin Your Financial Life

Ben Stein.

Actor. Game show guru. Author.

In this follow-up to his tongue-in-cheek How To Ruin Your Life, Ben Stein spot-on hits the sure path to financial doom and in so doing, not only mocks the ways we justify some of our stupidest ideas, but makes the path away from financial ruin pretty clear.

Glancing at the table of contents, we see gems like:

Repeat After Me: "I Am Not Responsible For My Financial Well-Being"
Don't Think About Retirement--It's A L-O-O-N-N-G Way Off
Make A Point Of Watching Those Late-Night Financial Success Infomercials
Put All Your Eggs In One Basket--'Cause Only Sissies Diversify

It's light reading. It's a small book and only about 130 pages long (I read it standing around at an unnamed Big Chain Bookstore).

But it's witty, easy to understand, and it gets its point across. It would make a great gift for a grad or a Newlywed--a book that would introduce the simple concepts everybody should know, but that was witty and entertaining instead of boring and preachy.