NEW YORK — Recognizing that consumers are stung every day, David Bach offers his latest book, “Fight for Your Money: How to Stop Getting Ripped Off and Save a Fortune.”
A best-selling author of several personal-finance titles, Bach has put together a consumer reference guide that’s divided and tabbed into sections for various aspects of our financial lives.
Covering subjects such as automobiles and taxes, each topic discussion provides tips on what to watch out for and specific steps on how to save money.
“Whether you realize it or not,” Bach writes, “we are all engaged in a never-ending battle with giant corporations and economic institutions whose only goal is to separate us from our hard-earned dollars.”
Bach, 42, was a former senior vice president of Morgan Stanley and, until 2001, was a partner in The Bach Group, which managed funds for individual investors.
In a recent interview, Bach spoke about his new book. Here are a couple of excerpts from the conversation.
Question: “Fight for Your Money.” Why this book at this time?
Answer: I think we are in an unprecedented period. I really wrote this to be an A-to-Z guide that looks at every aspect of your financial life.
We went through every single industry, banking, credit cards, divorce, debit cards, insurance, extended warranties.
We wanted to look at every aspect of your financial life and look at how you are being ripped off by big business; how much they are making; and what you can do about it right now so that you can put money back in your pocket.
Q: You write about the “Fight for Your Money” rules. They’re not ranked, but tell me about some of the more important ones.
A: They’re really basic rules that our grandparents taught us. Like “If it sounds to good to be true, then it probably is too good to be true.”
Another is reading the fine print. One of the single things that rips us off the most — and this happens on everything, our mortgage, our car loans, that home warranty — is we don’t read the fine print before we sign our name. This is where we get in trouble.
So we give readers all these rules that really are a back-to-basics philosophy — and here’s your battle plan for this current difficult economy.
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