Quick Steps to Financial Stability

Quick Steps to Financial Stability

     Find money you didn't think you had

     Deal with your debt

     Make the most of tax breaks

     Boost your investment returns

     Get your kids through college

     Ditch the job and retire

     Choose the right loan

     Save time and money by using our easy-to-follow templates

No time to figure it all out on your own? Let Quick Steps to Financial Stability be your guide.

"When it comes to financial self-help advice, Al Lavine and Gail Liberman are as good as it gets. Whether it's setting up a budget, reducing debt, or taking out the right loans, Lavine and Liberman boiled it all down in this latest book to a series of practical steps to make complicated financial planning simple."

—David Callaway, editor-in-chief, MarketWatch

Looking to get your finances on track? It's as easy as following the steps outlined in this book. You needn't be an accountant or a financial planner. Get the straight and simple scoop on how to take the bull by the horns yourself—just follow the step-by-step approach outlined in Quick Steps to Financial Stability. Have access to a computer? If so, it's even easier. And there are several online calculators you can use to help you get the job done.

Alan Lavine and Gail Liberman are husband-and-wife syndicated columnists. Their columns run in the Boston Herald, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Palm Beach Daily News, several Scripps Howard newspapers, and several online websites. They also write a biweekly consumer banking column for Dow Jones MarketWatch. They have been guests on CBS's The Early Show, Fox and Friends, CNN, CNBC, The 700 Club, and PBS. Their book, Rags to Riches, was featured on Oprah's television show and hit two best-seller lists. They live in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

Gail Liberman and Alan Lavine are husband-and-wife columnists and best-selling authors based in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Their columns run on Dow Jones MarketWatch and in the Boston Herald, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, several Scripps Howard newspapers, MyFinancialAdvisor.com, Fundsinteractive.com, Allaboutfunds.com, and Quicken.com.

Liberman and Lavine’s book Rags to Riches: Motivating Stories of How Ordinary People Achieved Extraordinary Wealth! (Dearborn, 2000) was featured on Oprah and hit two best-seller lists.

You might have seen or heard the couple on television and radio. They have been guests on CBS’s The Early Show, CNN, CNBC, The 700 Club, NBC, Fox, and PBS. They also have been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Money Magazine, USA Today, the New York Times, Business Week, Investor’s Business Daily, The Washington Post, Redbook, First, Town and Country, Bride’s, and Elle.

Their other books are The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Making Money with Mutual Funds (Alpha Books, 2000), Rags to Retirement (Alpha Books, 2003), More Rags to Riches (Dearborn, 2002), Love, Marriage and Money (Dearborn, 1998), Improving Your Credit and Reducing Your Debt (Wiley, 1994), Short and Simple Guide to Life Insurance (Authors Choice, 2000), and Short and Simple Guide to Smart Investing (Authors Choice, 2003).

The two have contributed to Consumers Digest, Your Money, and Worth magazines, as well as the Journal of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, Financial Advisor, and Financial Planning magazine.

Liberman’s own column,“Managing Your Fortune,” runs in the Palm Beach Daily News. She helped launch Bank Rate Monitor (now Bankrate.com) in North Palm Beach and was editor of the publication for 15 years. An award-winning journalist, she began her career with the Associated Press, United Press International, and United Features Syndicate. She also was a reporter for the Courier-Post, a Gannett newspaper in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Liberman obtained her Bachelor’s degree in journalism from Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She holds a Florida real estate license and a Florida mortgage broker license.

Alan Lavine, author of the nation’s longest-running mutual fund column, was on the ground floor of the mutual fund industry as the former director of research for IBC/Donoghue, now iMoneyNet.com, of Westborough,Massachusetts. His columns have been running in the Boston Herald for more than 24 years. A former Registered Investment Advisor, he also pens a regular column for the Journal of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Individual Investor, American Banker, Trusts and Estates, American Lawyer, and Financial World. During the 1980s, his family finances research was cited by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. A guest lecturer at Cornell University, Lavine has spoken before such groups as the American Psychological Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Massachusetts Psychological Association, and Morningstar, Inc.’s Mutual Fund Conference.

Lavine has a Master’s degree from the University of Akron. He did post-graduate studies in finance and economics at Clark University, in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Lavine has authored Getting Started in Mutual Funds (Wiley, 1993); 50 Ways to Mutual Fund Profits (McGraw-Hill, 1996); and Your Life Insurance Options (Wiley, 1992). He also coauthored, with Gerald Perritt, Diversify Your Way to Wealth (McGraw-Hill, 1993), an alternate selection of the Fortune Book Club; and Diversify: Investors Guide to Asset-Allocation Strategies (Longman Financial Services Publishing, 1989).

Both Liberman and Lavine are listed in Marquis’s Who’s Who in America and are members of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.