Your Road to Lifelong Financial Independence It’s about time you felt empowered to better manage your money because–in tough economic times more than ever–your financial freedom depends on making smart choices. But it’s hard to know where to begin, especially when you’re just starting out. And of course, it only gets more complicated as you go through life: How do you establish good credit? Do you buy or rent? What kinds of health coverage do you really need? How do you actually stay afloat in an uncertain market? The Wall Street Journal Guide to Starting Your Financial Life gets you off on the right financial foot, from tackling everyday choices like cell-phone plans and pet ownership to big decisions such as smart investment strategies and buying a car or a house. You’ll learn: • How to open your first checking and savings accounts, get your first credit card, and establish good credit • The ins and outs of starting a job, including information about taxes, choosing health insurance options, and saving for retirement • How to budget for big purchases and expenses, such as paying off student loans, buying a car, and affording your housing • Strategies for buying the little things you want and need without going broke • The basics of investing, how to manage an inheritance, and the documents you need to protect your assets This valuable resource puts you in the driver’s seat, so you will be in control of your money and on your way to achieving lifelong financial independence across any economic terrain.

Three years after the economic meltdown began, many of us are still reeling from its devastating effects. Maybe you're among the millions of homeowners who fell behind on their mortgages or you lost your home to foreclosure. Maybe you lost your job and have struggled to find a new one, meanwhile struggling with a drastically reduced income. Or perhaps you're one of the roughly 1.5 million Americans filing each year for bankruptcy. Or maybe you emerged from the meltdown relatively unscathed, but you've been recently divorced or widowed. Now, along with all the other accompanying emotional hardships, you must deal with a household budget that is dramatically changed. Maybe you experienced an unexpected health crisis that drained your savings or retirement account. Or perhaps you've simply grown tired of having so much debt. As tough as these situations are, they aren’t hopeless.. You have options. When the old \ rules for managing your finances no longer apply, you can take control of your situation, wipe the slate clean, and start over. Here, in the accessible, empathetic, and easy-to-understand style the Wall Street Journal Guidebook series is known for, veteran WSJ personal finance reporter Karen Blumenthal walks you through everything you need to know to leave the past behind you and get your financial life back on track. This includes how to: -Build a trusted team of professionals to help you navigate your new financial landscape -Get your credit record - the support beam of your financial scaffolding - back in order -Recalibrate your budget and weigh your big ticket expenses -Determine whether you can afford to stay in your home -Adjust your debts to your new situation -Assess your health coverage and other necessary insurance -Invest for your future retirement and other needs -Craft a sustainable plan for long-term financial health Whether you're recently divorced or widowed, or have declared bankruptcy or lost your home to foreclosure, or simply want to start with a clean slate, you can make a fresh financial start. Covering housing, insurance, health care, investing, debt, taxes, wills, and more, this book shows readers at all life stages and income levels how to adapt and adjust their finances to their new circumstances and get on the path to a better financial life.

Covers banking services, credit, home finance, financial planning, investments, and taxes.

A practical approach to affording your kids from cradle to college. Bringing home your bouncing baby boy or girl should be an exciting time of celebration–not cause for worry about how you’re going to pay for feeding, clothing, and caring for your new bundle of expenses. The average family will spend between $11,000 and $16,000 during a new baby’s first year, and more than $200,000 before a kid’s eighteenth birthday. Unfortunately, a second child only doubles your costs, with little economy of scale for each additional baby. Before you start using these statistics as birth control, take a deep breath and know that you can have a family and make a comfortable future for your children while saving for your own important goals. The Wall Street Journal Financial Guidebook for New Parents shows you the way, with information on how to: • Safeguard your child’s well-being with wills, trusts, and life insurance • Best weigh your child-care options and decide whether to go back to work • Save on taxes with child-friendly tax credits and deductions plus tax-advantaged benefits at work • Manage your family’s health-care costs • Save for long-term costs by setting up a college fund • Spend smart and save money at every stage of your child’s development • Continue to contribute to your own retirement savings From maternity (and paternity) leave to flexible spending accounts to 529 college plans, The Wall Street Journal Financial Guidebook for New Parents provides all the information you need to meet your child’s expenses while also protecting your family’s financial security.

The conservative, thoughtful, thrifty investor’s guide to building a real-estate empire. Profitable real-estate investing opportunities exist everywhere as long as you know what to look for and understand how to make prudent deals that transform property into profits. David Crook, of The Wall Street Journal, shows how to make safe and sane investments that ensure a good night’s sleep as your real-estate portfolio grows, your properties appreciate and your income increases. The Wall Street Journal Complete Real-Estate Investing Guidebook offers the most authoritative information on: • Why real-estate investing is a great wealth-building alternative to stocks and bonds and why it’s crucial that you avoid get-rich schemes • How to get the financing and make the contacts to get started • How to start small and local, be hands-on and go step-by-step with a vacation home to rent out, a pure rental property or a small apartment building • How to find and value great properties, do the numbers and ensure you have that beautiful thing called cash flow • How the government blesses real-estate investors with tax breaks and loopholes, and how you can be one of the anointed • How to deal with the nuts-and-bolts of being a landlord and have a strife-free relationship with your tenants

Traces the history of money and discusses stocks, bonds, mutual funds, futures, and options.

Unravel the Mysteries of the Financial Markets—the Language, the Players, and the Strategies for Success Understanding money and investing has never been more important than it is today, as many of us are called upon to manage our own retirement planning, college savings funds, and health-care costs. Up-to-date and expertly written, The Wall Street Journal Complete Money and Investing Guidebook provides investors with a simple—but not simplistic—grounding in the world of finance. It breaks down the basics of how money and investing work, explaining: • What must-have information you need to invest in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds • How to see through the inscrutable theories and arcane jargon of financial insiders and advisers • What market players, investing strategies, and money and investing history you should know • Why individual investors should pay attention to the economy Written in a clear, engaging style by Dave Kansas, one of America’s top business journalists and editor of The Wall Street Journal Money & Investing section, this straightforward book is full of helpful charts, graphs, and illustrations and is an essential source for novice and experienced investors alike. Get your financial life in order with help from The Wall Street Journal. Look for: • The Wall Street Journal Complete Personal Finance Guidebook • The Wall Street Journal Personal Finance Workbook • The Wall Street Journal Complete Real Estate Investing Guidebook

Are you looking for a mere job—the kind where you do virtually the same thing day after day, year after year, and spend the hours counting down the minutes until the clock hits five p.m.? Or are you looking for a career—the kind that engages your interests and passions, constantly presents new and exciting opportunities and challenges, and allows you to grow personally and professionally? If you chose the latter, this is the book for you. In The Wall Street Journal Guide to Building Your Career, former Wall Street Journal careers editor Jennifer Merritt shows you how to build the foundation for the fulfilling professional career that leads to that corner office. She'll walk you through how to: • Select and nab that important career-launching college internship • Ace your first interview—and blow them away in the second round • Navigate the unwritten rules of any office culture • Negotiate tastefully and successfully for the salary your skills are worth • Get that critical promotion when you're at the peak of your learning curve • Choose the mentor (or mentors) who can best help you achieve your goals • Leap ahead of other high achievers racing you to the top Drawing on advice from industry experts, career coaches, and ordinary people who've made the climb themselves, Merritt offers insider tips for landing and moving up in the kind of job that's not just about earning a paycheck but about realizing your ambitions and achieving the kind of success you've always dreamed of.

It could happen when you make a routine withdrawal from an ATM, respond to an e-mail asking for information about an online account, or leave a new box of checks unattended in your mailbox. Identity theft is one of the easiest crimes to commit in America—and one of the hardest to prosecute. As thieves become increasingly clever, Americans have more reasons than ever to fear this elusive, ubiquitous crime. Now there’s a book to help you beat it. In two easy-to-understand sections, Terri Cullen, The Wall Street Journal’s expert on identity theft, first walks you through the most common types of identity theft and how to arm yourself against them, and then leads victims step-by-step through the process of reclaiming a stolen identity. The average victim loses more than $6,000 and spends approximately 600 hours negotiating the complex bureaucracies and paperwork—this book will help save time and effort by laying out the process. And by following the advice in the first half, you may never need the second! You’ll learn: • how to avoid the most common scams, from “phishing” to “dumpster diving” • why children under eighteen are the fastest-growing target, and how you can protect your family • why your credit report is the single most important document for protecting your identity • how to use the sample letters, forms, and other useful tools inside for recovering from identity theft In today’s marketplace, your two most valuable assets are your credit and your identity. No one should be without this vital guide to protecting them.

As you think about retirement, you’ve got facts to face, planning to do, decisions to make and numbers to crunch. With the experts at The Wall Street Journal to guide you, you’ll learn how to tailor a financial plan for the lifestyle you want. • Answers your biggest question—How big does my nest egg need to be?—by linking it to your particular hopes for how you want to spend your days in retirement • Shows how to translate your dreams and interests into daily activities, whether traveling, opening a business, volunteering or going back to school • Provides a timeline for decisions to make and steps to take ten years, five years and one year before you retire • Offers tips on investing wisely and working with the right financial adviser • Tells you how to maximize your benefits from Social Security and Medicare • Guides you through the intricacies of 401(k)s, IRAs, annuities and other financial tools and resources Today, the average person can expect to spend two decades in retirement—why leave it to chance? For all of its changes and challenges, a well-planned retirement could very well be the best part of your life.