Essential Personal Finance: A Practical Guide for Students [Paperback]

This book is a well written textbook that brings together all the essential components of financial planning in one place. It can also serve as a reference book for many to use at a later date when going through different stages of life as each life stage presents different needs and challenges.

 Dr Pushpa Wood ONZM, Director Westpac Massey Financial Education and Research Centre, Massey University, New Zealand.

Part I: Have a vision and a plan 1. The necessity of private wealth 2. Defining and achieving your desired lifestyle and legacy 3. Money and happiness 4. Plan your future Part II: Build a secure foundation 5. The pillars of wealth: budgeting and saving 6. Insuring personal risks Part III: Multiply your wealth 7. Passive income 8. A place to live 9. Make wise investments 10. Saving for later life 11. Help from your family Part IV: The next steps 12. Take action. Glossary.

Young people face unprecedented financial challenges: rising student debt, stiff competition for jobs, barriers to home ownership, dwindling state benefits and prospects of a longer working life. Essential Personal Finance is a guide to all the key areas of personal finance: budgeting, managing debt, savings and investments, insurance, securing a home and laying the foundations for retirement.

It provides an introduction to some of the essential foundations of a modern undergraduate finance qualification, including:

• the nature of financial institutions, markets and economic policy that shape the opportunities and decisions individuals face
• the range of financial assets available to households, risk-return trade-off, basics of portfolio construction and impact of tax
• the importance of the efficient market hypothl³+