Book Review: You Can Never Be Too Rich by Alan Haft

Filed in archive Book Reviews on November 14, 2007

I was pleasantly surprised by You Can Never Be Too Rich by Alan Haft.

Here's why: when I first heard of the book, I was told that Alan Haft had partnered with actor James Woods in a production company in the early '90s. I was given the impression that the book would be Haft's Hollywood lessons somehow related to personal finance. Frankly, I thought it would be a generic personal finance book spruced up with some cheesy, weak links to Hollywood - the same old advice in a new package.

Thankfully I was wrong. Haft has been a respected financial advisor for some time now; his Hollywood days are over. And while he does sprinkle in a few cheesy Lights, Camera, Action paragraphs here and there, he wisely keeps this to a minimum. What he does do is explain investing and retirement planning concepts in clear language, from the more basic concepts to a few advanced ideas I heard about for the first time.

To quickly summarize, this book is about how to maximize the return on your savings while balancing that desire with tactics to keep your money relatively safe. Haft discusses the value of diversification, the reasons why re-balancing your portfolio is so important, the often-overlooked importance of minimizing management fees when using mutual funds and other investment vehicles, when you should be going for growth in the market versus when you should be choosing income and safety, and some interesting ways to use insurance and the misunderstood annuity for guaranteed, safe income.

You can obviously get this information from a lot of books. One of the reasons you might want to get it from You Can Never Be Too Rich is that Haft is very good at using analogies and anecdotes to illustrate why you should follow his advice. For example, when discussing diversification, he compares your investments to a roulette wheel - putting all your money on one number is a good way to lose it all, but spread your money out on many numbers and you increase your chances of success. In discussing rebalancing your portfolios, Haft understands that it's tough to move money out of your best performing stocks or other assets, only to put them into underperforming areas. But, he says, think of your stocks or mutual funds or ETFs as your children, and love them all equally, knowing that even those behaving poorly right now will improve in the future, while your shining stars will inevitably let you down here and there along the way.

Haft has many interesting thoughts on investments that you might not know about, such as the use of closed-end dividend funds, "growth CDs," bond ladders, and "private pensions." He gives plenty to think about without overwhelming you.

The title You Can Never Be Too Rich sounds like a recipe for making tons of money, but in reality Haft's strength is giving you a lot of ideas based on your needs and preferences. He uses the analogy of Bloomingdale's, with each investment type being like a department in the store. He'll take you around, make some suggestions, but you have to ultimately feel good about what you're buying. You might still make a lot of money, but it won't be through dangerous, scattershot investments that cause your money to go bye-bye

Overall, a very good book, easy to read and understand. Recommended regardless of whether you're a beginner or already have some investing knowledge.