The Amateur Financier

The contest is now over; the entries are being collected, and the choosing will commence soon.

As you’re probably aware if you’ve been reading The Amateur Financier for a while, I’m a big fan of books, in particular personal finance books.  Since last June when I started to do my book reviews, I’ve managed to do a total of twenty-two, with plenty more on the way in the near future (I have a small pile of personal finance books I’m still working my way through, so don’t worry that I’ll run out of books to review anytime soon.)  To share the love of personal finance reading, and to celebrate my official induction into the Yakezie, I’ve decided to hold my first ever contest!  So let’s get right to it, starting with everyone’s favorite part of a contest, the prizes:

The Prizes: As you likely guessed from reading the title of this post (or deduced from the first paragraph), the prize for this contest is going to be a sizable number of personal finance books; a total of ten, in fact.  Yes, while trying to clean out my bookcase attempting to find the perfect prize to celebrate my success as a blogger, I created a list of ten personal finance books that should set you on the right path, financially.  If you win my little contest, you will receive:

• Start Over, Finish Rich by David Bach: A guide to recovering your finances after the disastrous last few years.
• The Best Invest Advice I Ever Received by Liz Claman: A collection of investment advice from some of the biggest power players in the nation.
• Eat The Rich by P.J. O’Rourke: A humorous look at different economic systems used around the world, from capitalism to socialism and back again.
• Yes, You Can Get a Financial Life! by Ben Stein and Phil DeMuth: A decade by decade guide to managing your funds, from your twenties to retirement.
• Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter: Kicked off the entire ‘Rich Dad’ series, as well as being an eye opener itself.
• Jim Cramer’s Mad Money by, obviously, Jim Cramer with Cliff Mason: If you’ve wondered about the method behind the madness of Cramer’s Mad Money show (or doubted there was a method at all), consider this your answer.
• Master Your Money Type by Jordan E. Goodman: Money rules for every different approach you can take to your money.
• Be a Real Estate Millionaire by Dean Graziosi: A surprisingly deep book on real estate investing from a guy most famous for late night infomercials.
• The Lies About Money by Ric Edelman: A thorough guide to what’s wrong with the investment industry, and how you can protect yourself and continue to profit.
• Making Money by Terry Pratchett: Alright, I’m stretching the definition of ‘personal finance book’ here; Pratchett is a humorist, and Making Money, in spite of what you might think from the title, is a comedic novel, not a personal finance guide.  But, after reading through the other nine books, you’re almost certainly going to need a good laugh or two.

There you have it; enough books to get a great start on your personal finance library, and get an array of opinions on everything from general money management and personal finance to investing in stocks, mutual funds or even real estate.

The Contest: It’s going to be a pretty simple and straightforward contest; by doing one of the following three things, you can get an entry into the drawing for these ten books:

1) Comment: Leave a comment on this post that let’s me know which of these books you’re most looking forward to reading (or, if you’ve read one or more of them already, you can say which one you enjoyed most).  Are you a Mad Money fan and looking forward to going behind the scenes, or a late night TV junkie who wants to learn what Graziosi is always talking about?  Are you a fan of Bach or Kiyosaki and want to proclaim your love?  Leave a comment including mention of (at least) one of the mentioned books, and you’ll be in the running to get them all.

2) Tweet It: Help me share the contest and you can get another entry.  Create your own unique tweet, use the ‘Tweet’ link near the top of this page, or simply copy and paste the following: ‘Contest Time @amateurfinance Win Ten Personal Finance books: http://tinyurl.com/y3qxmcf’ (It clocks in at 87 characters, so you can customize it with your own comments)  No matter which method you use, please include the @amateurfinance; that will make it easier for me to track all the entries and ensure you get proper credit.

3) Blog It: Have a blog of your own?  Share this contest and get another entry for a chance to win!  Simply include a link here in a round up or other post, let me know in the comments or via email (theamateurfinancier [at] gmail [dot] com) that you’ve done so (just in case I don’t get a trackback), and bingo!  Another entry with be yours.

You can do all three of these things, so that’s up to three entries per person; only one entry per person for each action, though, so don’t post eight comments, send fifteen tweets, and write four blog entries in an attempt to boost your chances.

The Drawing: I’m going to accept entries until April 30th (that’s two weeks from now; plenty of time to blog, tweet, and comment).  I’ll put all the entrants into a spreadsheet and use a random number generator to select a winner in the most impartial method possible, probably in the first few days of May.

The winner will be contacted via email (or possibly a personal message on Twitter or so) and announced on May 5th, in a special Cinco de Mayo celebratory post.  In the fairly unlikely event that the winner doesn’t want one or more of the listed books (perhaps they already have some of them, or just don’t care for some of the authors), I’ll also select two runners up, who’ll get any of the books not wanted by the first winner.  The books will be sent out using the US Postal service once I’m certain who is getting what, and will hopefully be there within a week of the announcement.

There you have it; all the details of my first (but probably not last) contest.  Good luck to you all!

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