Your Best Financial Life: Save Smart Now for the Future You Want

Lester, the former head of retirement solutions for JPMorgan Asset Management, debuts with a no-frills guide to personal finance. She encapsulates her advice in the five-step STASH program, which recommends readers set aside three to six months’ salary for emergencies, invest liberally in tax-advantaged savings plans, balance saving for retirement with paying off debt, stay the course during stock market volatility, and budget for large purchases by selecting financial options tailored to how soon one will need the money. (High-interest savings accounts are ideal for purchases in the near future, while bonds offer the surest bet for expenses several years away.) Lester’s overview of the advantages and disadvantages of balanced, exchange traded, index, and target-date funds tracks standard guidance on the subject (index funds are attractive for their low fees, and target-date funds “are the ultimate ‘set it and forget it’ option”). Yet, this stands out for the clarity of Lester’s explanations (“Instead of owning part of a company, you can own some of its debt. These are called bonds”) and for her shrewd assessments of recent financial developments. For instance, she warns against investing in crypto and suggests that using robo-advisers to manage one’s portfolio can be a good way to save on the high fees charged by human advisers. It adds up to a sensible introduction to getting one’s finances in order. Agent: Michael Palgon, Palgon Co. (Mar.)