Carl Richards

This is a simple, effective way to transform your finances and your life from leading financial advisor and New York Times columnist Carl Richards. Creating a financial plan can seem overwhelming, but the best plans aren't long or complicated. A grea t plan has nothing to do with the details of how to save and invest your money and everything to do with why you're doing it in the first place. Knowing what's important to you, you will be able to make better decisions in any market conditions. The One-Page Financial Plan will help you identify your values and goals. Carl Richard's simple steps will show you how to prioritize what you really want in life and figure out how to get there. "In a world where financial advice is (often purposely) co mplicated and filled with jargon, Carl Richards distils what matters most into something that is easy and fun to read." (Wall Street Journal). "Feeling tormented by your finances? Read this book. Now. The One-Page Financial Plan helps you identify wh at you truly want from life, get crystal clear about the financial position you are starting from today, and develop a simple, actionable plan to narrow the gap between the two." (Manisha). Thakor, CEO at MoneyZen Wealth Management Carl Richards is a certified financial planner and a columnist for the New York Times, where his weekly Sketch Guy column has run every Monday for over five years. He is also a columnist for Morningstar magazine and a contributor to Yahoo Finance. His first book, The Behavior Gap, was very well received, and his weekly newsletter has readers around the world. Richards is a popular keynote speaker and is the director of investor education for the Bam Alliance.

Why do we lose money? It's easy to blame the economy or the financial markets-but the real trouble lies in the decisions we make. As a financial planner, Carl Richards grew frustrated watching people he cared about make the same mistakes over and over. They were letting emotion get in the way of smart financial decisions. He named this phenomenon - the distance between what we should do and what we actually do - "the behavior gap". Using simple drawings to explain the gap, he found that once people understood it, they started doing much better. Richards's way with words and images has attracted a loyal following to his blog posts for "The New York Times", appearances on National Public Radio, and his columns and lectures. His book will teach you how to rethink all kinds of situations where your perfectly natural instincts (for safety or success) can cost you money and peace of mind. He'll help you to: avoid the tendency to buy high and sell low; avoid the pitfalls of generic financial advice; invest all of your assets-time and energy as well as savings-more wisely; quit spending money and time on things that don't matter; identify your real financial goals; start meaningful conversations about money; simplify your financial life; and, stop losing money! It's never too late to make a fresh financial start. As Richards writes: "We've all made mistakes, but now it's time to give yourself permission to review those mistakes, identify your personal behavior gaps, and make a plan to avoid them in the future. The goal isn't to make the 'perfect' decision about money every time, but to do the best we can and move forward. Most of the time, that's enough".