Eddie Hobbs new book

Anyone else pick up the bould Eddie's new book???

A rather slim tome for €10 which would somewhat undermine his value for money philosophy!!! You will be able to read it all in around an hour.

It seems to cover a lot of common sense approaches to managing money but is a little repetitive in the first have. It is also padded out a bit by going over three of the cases from the TV series which, if you watched them, you will recognise straight away.

There is a free software package to assist budgeting but I haven't gotten around to trying it yet.

tallpaul said:

There is a free software package to assist budgeting but I haven't gotten around to trying it yet.

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"Free" budgeting tools with a €10 book. Hmmm... Anyway, if anybody wants some truly free budgeting resources see and here. For a truly free spreadsheet program to use the budgeting spreadsheets try OpenOffice.

I got the Investors Handbook from First Active recently. It's written by Barry McCall (a journo who writes for the Sunday Tribune-which I don't read, and the Irish Times-I don't recall ever seeing his name mentioned in the IT, but am open to correction). I have to say that I think it's pretty good, and would highly recommend it to a lot of the users of this site. It doesn't recommend/mention any First Active specific products, and goes into areas such as Art and Wine, so doesn't limit itself to products sold by First Active, so it appears to be an unbiased guide in that respect.

Considering that it's free (RRP €12.99 apparently) there's no harm in dropping in to the local FA or giving them a call.

P.S. I have no connection with FA.

You can [broken link removed] and order your copy of the above book. [broken link removed] is also a useful resource and didn't push any EBS products last time I reviewed it. I'm sure Eddie wouldn't mind me suggesting that people read his book in the shops or library to save money!

Tried to buy Eddie Hobbs in Easons, O'Connell Street, Dublin on Sunday, but according to their computer system it did not exist!!!

Joe1234 said:

Tried to buy Eddie Hobbs in Easons, O'Connell Street, Dublin on Sunday, but according to their computer system it did not exist!!!

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I picked it up in Hodges Figgis on Dawson St. on Monday. They had plenty of them then.

point to some more info about EH's book.

Eddies message, while important is generally quite repetitive, credit card surf for best rates, amalgamate small loans with a CU loan, and reduce lifestyle spending, every article you read from Eddie seems to emphatise those points and little else, common sense really, but remember the proceeds from his book are going to charity and €10 is not excessive for books on financial topics.

Fair points. As I have said here before a lot of the generally applicable, prudent personal finance recommendations are pretty much common sense, repetitive and arguably boring - but no less pertinent for that. Once the basics are taken care of and one's finances are under control (e.g. reasonable budgets/spending patterns, manageble levels of debt etc.) the longer term financial plans for the near, medium and long term future can be put in place. This is the same message that many people promulgate. I think it's a good thing that Eddie and others constantly repeat the basic common sense tips. At least it's an antidote to some of the get rich quick schemes promoted elsewhere.

I didn't realise that Eddie was donating his royalties to charity. Fair play. Now I feel a bit guilty!

Borrow it for free from your local library, if they don't have it in stock put in a suggestion for purchase......

ClubMan said:

Once the basics are taken care of and one's finances are under control, the longer term financial plans for the near, medium and long term future can be put in place.

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This is where there's a real gap in the market. Brendan's is the only Irish book I know of that tells you how to invest long term and even acknowledges that it's not completely up to date.

Brendan's book advises direct investment in equities but elsewhere he's saying that unit-linked funds might be best.

As far as I know Brendan has acknowledged that the book needs further and ongoing revision and updating.

ONE IMPORTANT FACT PEOPLE

All income from the book is going to a childrens charity

A commendable action in this day - I say well done Eddie and I'll buy it for that reason alone

C

Or maybe read the free resources mentioned elsewhere and donate your €10 directly to a charity of your choice thereby ensuring that the full amount goes to charity and not just the author's royalties.

Brendan's book advises direct investment in equities but elsewhere he's saying that unit-linked funds might be best.

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Moneybags, thanks for the compliment.

It's extraordinary how quickly the book has become out of date on details, if not the principles. I am tempted to pull it, until I get a chance to update it, but people still seem to find it useful.

There are three ways of investing in equities now.
Directly via a portfolio of shares.
Via a unit-linked fund
Via the ISEQ Exchange Traded Fund

I probably need to do a comparison of them to see what my view on them is today. Today, I think that the ETF is the best. Tomorrow...

Brendan said:

Today, I think that the ETF is the best.

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If you mean the ISEQ ETF (whatever it's called) I thought that the jury was still out on that and that initial indications were that the charges and tax implications meant that it compared unfavourably with unit linked funds or index trackers for most investors?

ClubMan said:

If you mean the ISEQ ETF (whatever it's called) I thought that the jury was still out on that .....

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From scanning the
key posts, the biggest drawback of ETFs is that you can't hold them in paper format. But then I think the days of paper are numbered, even for people investing directly in equities, because the ISEQ wants everyone to hold their investments electronically. Can't we accept stockbrokers' assurances that our money is safe if we keep our investments in Crest Personal Members' Accounts rather than nominee accounts?

Stockbrokers' commission means there's an entry cost for ETFs that you don't have with good unit-linked fund. But for the long-term investor, this should be outweighed by ETF's lower annual charges (in doing the maths, you'd also have to factor in the annual costs of maintaining a Crest account for the ETF).

My biggest concern with ETF is that, because of the stockbrokers' commission, they're not really suitable for regular investing. Logic suggests that markets are generally efficient but my gut says there's something wrong with investing all your savings in one go and hoping for the best. That's why I'm more inclined to drip feed my money into the markets over time. Only unit-linked funds such as Quinn Life allow you do this cost effectively.

Does anybody think I'm being overly cautious by drip feeding rather than investing a lump sum in one go? My SSIA is invested in the Euro Stoxx 50 index and it's doing well even though the index has at best moved sideways since I began investing. This reinforces my belief in the value of drip feeding.

Moneybags said:

Can't we accept stockbrokers' assurances that our money is safe if we keep our investments in Crest Personal Members' Accounts rather than nominee accounts?

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Just ask the ! I think that many of them are still waiting for some sort of compensation. What was the name of the other stockbroker in Dublin that went bust before them? Did anybody lose out on that one too?

Stockbrokers' commission means there's an entry cost for ETFs that you don't have with good unit-linked fund. But for the long-term investor, this should be outweighed by ETF's lower annual charges (in doing the maths, you'd also have to factor in the annual costs of maintaining a Crest account for the ETF).

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Has anybody actually done the maths to compare the two?

Does anybody think I'm being overly cautious by drip feeding rather than investing a lump sum in one go? My SSIA is invested in the Euro Stoxx 50 index and it's doing well even though the index has at best moved sideways since I began investing. This reinforces my belief in the value of drip feeding.

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I guess it depends. The old . I would have thought that it would be less significant for long term investments than for shorter term investments?

Hi ClubMan,

I don't think Morrogh clients who got stung had Crest accounts - they had nominee accounts where their shares were held in Morrogh's name rather than their own names.

AFAIK, Crest personal memeber accounts are relatively new in Ireland and wouldn't have been around when Morrogh was still trading. The same applies to MMI Stockbrokers, which collapsed before Morrogh.

From experience, pound-cost averaging isn't just a strategy for the short-term investor. The Euro Stoxx was at 3900 in September 2001 when I started my SSIA. Today it's at 3200. If I'd invested a lump sum in 2001 I'd still be under water. Because the SSIA drip feeds my money, I'm in the black.

I appreciate that four years isn't "long term" but it's getting there. I've no idea when, if ever, the Euro Stoxx will hit 3900 again but I wouldn't hold my breath. That's why I believe pound cost averaging is the way to go, even for the guy who's in for the long haul.

Moneybags said:

I don't think Morrogh clients who got stung had Crest accounts - they had nominee accounts where their shares were held in Morrogh's name rather than their own names.

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Sorry - I missed your specific point about CREST personal accounts versus nominee accounts. I agree that these are arguably safer than nominee accounts but there are charges for maintaining one in most or all cases.

AFAIK, Crest personal memeber accounts are relatively new in Ireland and wouldn't have been around when Morrogh was still trading. The same applies to MMI Stockbrokers, which collapsed before Morrogh.

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MMI! That's the one. Couldn't recall the name.

From experience, pound-cost averaging isn't just a strategy for the short-term investor. The Euro Stoxx was at 3900 in September 2001 when I started my SSIA. Today it's at 3200. If I'd invested a lump sum in 2001 I'd still be under water. Because the SSIA drip feeds my money, I'm in the black.

I appreciate that four years isn't "long term" but it's getting there. I've no idea when, if ever, the Euro Stoxx will hit 3900 again but I wouldn't hold my breath. That's why I believe pound cost averaging is the way to go, even for the guy who's in for the long haul.

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Seems to me that "pound cost averaging" involves an element of timing the market which is a mug's game. If one decides that the stock market is the right home for some money then it would seem better to just stick it in there and then than worrying about timing the market, drip feeding, pound cost averaging etc. But maybe there's no "right" answer in this case...?