Rating: 
Summary: Best Financial book I've ever read!!
Review: Do you have trouble staying awake when you read a financial book? Well - I read this one all night long and couldn't put it down until I had underlined more than half of it!! And now my husband is having the same problem! Mr. Ruff has written a financial book that is not only an easy read but very entertaining as well! It is NOT a "get rich quick and here's how you do it" kind of a book, which is what I expected. His clear cut and brutal honesty about the mistakes he has made in his own financial life are a breath of fresh air!! We all know that wealthy people have had hiccups and have made possibly "career ending" mistakes along the way - although how many are willing to talk about those mistakes openly and let us learn from them? I was amazed at how candidly he spoke of the lessons learned and dollars lost through his failures and what he changed to be more successful the next time. I am grateful for his teaching me how to avoid those same pitfalls.
As a 30 something, it has been hard to decide how and when to invest, buy, sell, and trade so that my family will have a secure and comfortable future. Mr. Ruff has given direct answers to all of my questions and concerns and offered two distinct paths to attain that security. We have worked very hard for our money and don't have a lot of it to lose in risky ventures. I have always leaned towards a safe and risk-less approach when it comes to investing because I have seen so many bad business ventures and failed stock market attempts by those around me. However, I now feel after reading his book that I have the knowledge I need to earn more, save more & spend less(by delaying gradification and not trying to keep up with the Joneses)and invest intellegently and confidently by knowing the calculated risk involved in each type of venture.
Whole hearted honesty is what rang true for me in this book. This book is also great for the entrepreneur ready to market and gather investors! I will be buying several copies of this book for Christmas gifts - but I think they'll be getting them a few months early!! This book is an easy read with life changing information! Thank you Mr. Ruff!!
Rating:
Summary: A truly great book
Review: As a retired professor of economics and finance I was most favorably impresed by Safely Prosperous or Really Rich. The strategies outlined in it are excellent. Ruff's ability to express himself in a way that almost anyone can understand is one unique characteristic of this book. Another is his willingness to explore mistakes that he has made in order to help others avoid making them. Only someone with considerable self-confoidence would do that. Roger M. Clites, Johnson City, Tennessee
Rating: 
Summary: Good on cover, but useless inside
Review: I was intrigued by the tile of this book and still like the concept of the two different paths to wealth; however, the book offers nothing useful that it already in a million other personal finance books. The author does go through a three page bulletted list of his personal accomplishments (including taking down the Soviet Union). He honestly put in his book that he was responsible for taking down the Soviet Union, and here I thought it was internal economic problems combined with pressure from Reagan. His ultra-conservative views are also quite offensive to most people. His advice: get married regardless of your situation, and for females, be sure to be home when your kids grow up. About the only thing I learned from this book is that Mormons keep a 6 month supply of food on hand at all times. This book is horrible, don't buy it.
Rating:
Summary: don't waste your money!!!
Review: I'm less polite than the other reviewers. This is, pure and simple, an infomercial for his newletter, has little to no information, and you would violate sound use of your resources just buying it. Stay away!!!
Say, Amazon -- why can't we give, "STUNK ON ICE" ratings?
Rating:
Summary: I have never received this book
Review: Last year I took a 15 month subscription to Mr Ruff's financial newsletter, The Ruff Times, that included a copy of his latest book.
However, although I paid 99$ in June 2004, I have only received 2 issues of that newsletter and I have never received his book.
I have asked (by email) for a refund of the subscription amount on three occasions, which option is provided for in the subscription conditions for dissatisfied subscribers, was promised a refund two times, but I have never received a refund.
I am powerless to do anything about that, as a lawyer will cost me more that 99 $.
So watch out for Howard Ruff.
Rating:
Summary: Loved it. Great read.
Review: Mr. Ruff's new book, Safely Prosperous or Really Rich was fun to read. As a professional pension trustee, I intend to recommend this book to the participants in the plans I serve, and also recommend it to the listeners of my weekly radio show. If you are trying to figure out what kind of money person you are, this book will tell you. Again, great book.
Rating: 
Summary: Some good insights but the author tries to impose his views
Review: The book contains some useful, common sense advise about managing one's finincial affairs and saving. I like that the author suggests two options for achieving financial independence, one for risk averse people and another for risk seeking ones. However, the author tries to impose his views about personal life to the reader. For example, he urges readers who are not married to do so as soon as possible regardless of the readers' personal preferences. This becomes quite annoying. I also noted that the author takes a very negative view of social securing. Most working Americans have to rely heavily on social security and medicaid to get by during retirement. Being so negative does not help the reader.
Rating:
Summary: What a great book
Review: The book is very well written and has a tremendous amount of investment knowledge and wisdom. Not just from an investment standpoint, but from a philosophical and moral standpoint. It is like reading a "brain dump" from a guy that has experienced all kinds of markets and market environments and shares his "lessons learned." I initialy liked it for his thought provoking analogies of how to create long term wealth but also enjoyed his thoughts on how not to be consumed by greed and the role of the family. As the book title states, Safely Prosperous or Really Rich. The book is basically two halves. The first halve deals with a safely proserous lifestyle and ways to achieve it and the second half is for he go getters that want to make lots of money safely and his thoughts on how to accomplish that. All in all, I enjoyed the book, it made me re-evaluate my long term philosophies on wealth.
Rating:
Summary: Surely an Infomercial or Blatently Obvious - Don't Buy This
Review: There are books out there which stimulate the mind or offer readers fresh ways of looking at the world and their money. This book does none of this. Please...run, don't walk...to another Amazon selection if you have any clue at all about organizing your finances. Ruff misuses financial dffinitions and glorifies the obvious. "The magic of compounding!" Wow... I'll bet you never heard that one before. He interchanges the terms "one year investment return" with "yield," which is a dangerous thing. Just because a mutual fund returned 22.7% in 2003 it does not mean that that return expectation is available today here ann now. Don't ask him to explain mean-reversion of returns, because that gets in the way of his weak quasi-thesis. Complete garbage.
I promise - if you had a chance to thumb through this book before buying it, you would never shell out a penny for it.
Feeling like an idiot for adding it to my cart...
Rating:
Summary: The best way to keep up with things
Review: This book is a marketing plan cleverly executed, and I fell into it, dear reader!
I first heard about it in John Mauldin's newsletter, and would not have purchased it if not for Mr Mauldin recommendation.
In hindsight, it looks to me like 'Howard Ruff' is a valuable brand (chronicles say this guy sold three million copies of the other book 'How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years'), worth exploiting further. With this book I fear the brand has been a little bit overstretched.
Someone said that the strategies outlined in it are excellent... True, and here is why I give it a low rate: Beginners and experienced readers as well will find other, better, earlier books that tell the American tale on how to become safely prosperous o really rich (examples include: The Millionaire Next Door; Getting Rich in America and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Rich). Then, if this book contains nothing new, what's its purpose? What's its value?
How's written this book? There are many repetitions; Ruff tells many times here and there the same stories (How he helped the crash of the Iron Curtain; why you have to have a six-month supply of food; how his newsletter, The Ruff Times, was the biggest, most influential newsletter in the known universe; and more...), which is annoying indeed, gentle reader!
Sometimes I wondered whether I bought a book or a catalogue disguised as a book.
There are several references to businesses owned by Mr Ruff himself or his relatives or his friends (sometimes he discloses he has a financial interest, sometimes he discloses he hasn't. Well, my wife is a lawyer, just in case you need one. I have no financial interest in her business.). The book keeps leading the reader to this or that product. Boy, this is 'cross-selling'! This is 'leverage'!
I recalled the tale of the fish: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. When I got the book I hoped I was going to learn something new on how to fish. And teachings are there, I'm not diminishing in any way the virtue of many suggestions (get out of debt, start saving...) written in this book. There's plenty of fish for sale in this book (this metaphor helps make my point, so let's not be too critical here); alas, not many new teachings.
Here's a quote from the book:
"Do not run out and execute the market recommendations in this book as soon as you read it. We have a very dynamic economy, and time can change things. Some recommendations may be good ideas for which the right time has come and gone or the propitious time has not yet arrived (...) The best way to keep up with things is to subscribe to 'The Ruff Times', which is written every three weeks, as I track all these recommendations very closely"
(You can sign up for one year for $139, or for two years for $230, if you ask)
If I have to subscribe to "The Ruff Times" to know what to buy and when to buy it in order to make money, what's the practical use of this book after all? What's its purpose? What's its value?
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