Simple Money Strategies

January 21, 2010

Interview with Manisha Thakor, co-author of the book Get Financially Naked: How to Talk Money with Your Honey

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Mike Carruthers:
There is no shortage of people with advice on what you should do with your money. But here’s some advice regarding that advice…

Manisha Thakor:
Good personal finance can and should be simple and if you don’t understand what somebody’s saying to you chances are they don’t understand it – ask until you feel completely comfortable.

Certified Financial Analyst Manisha Thakor, co-author of the book Get Financially Naked…

I’m 39 and I have the blessing of looking young for my age and I spent most of my career in the South. And so I walk into a room and often times there will be a lot of older men around and they’ll think I don’t know anything about money. And I’ll listen to them talking about deals or personal finance and the market and Mike it’s like they’re speaking pig latin to each other, even they don’t understand.

As for a magic formula on what you should do with your money, Manisha says, there is none.

A better set of numbers I’ve come up with this are this; at any point you want to be saving 10-15% of your income, if you are not doing that that is red flag number one that you’re spending too much in areas.

And what should your ultimate savings goal be?

A simple, simple formula you can use is if it’s costing you 100 thousand dollars to maintain your life right now, whatever that number is for you right now multiple it by 25 and that’s how much you’d need to have saved before you could go into retirement and maintain your current standard of living. So, 100 thousand dollars times 25 -  2.5 million is what you’d need.
 

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here