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William J. Bernstein
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If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly Paperback – July 16, 2014

by William J Bernstein (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 2,526 ratings
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First and foremost, this booklet is available for free on my website "efficientfrontier-dot-com," you'll have to click through a few links. (Amazon doesn't allow discrete web links.) Many readers, however, have asked for a hard copy version suitable for gift giving; here it is. With that out of the way: For years I've thought about a project to help today's young people invest for retirement because, frankly, there's still hope for them, unlike for most of their Boomer parents. All they'll have to do is to put away 15% of their salaries into a low-cost target fund or a simple three-fund index allocation for 30 to 40 years. Which is pretty much the same as saying that if someone exercises and eats a lot less, he'll lose 30 pounds. Simple, but not easy. Not easy because unless the millennials learn a small amount about finance, they'll fall victim to the Five Horsemen of Personal Finance Apocalypse: failure to save, ignorance of financial theory, unawareness of financial history, dysfunctional psychology, and the rapacity of the investment industry. If You Can is just the ticket to guide the young—and not so young—investor through this thicket. And, to repeat, if you just want to read the booklet, it's available for free. This paperback is intended only for gift giving.
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  1. Print length
    48 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    July 16, 2014
  4. Dimensions
    6 x 0.11 x 9 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    098878033X
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0988780330
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Efficient Frontier Publications (July 16, 2014)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 48 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 098878033X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0988780330
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.72 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.11 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 2,526 ratings

About the author

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William J. Bernstein

William J. Bernstein

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William Bernstein has authored several best-selling books on finance and history, is often quoted in the national financial media, and has written for Morningstar, Money Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. His title on the history of world trade, A Splendid Exchange, was short-listed for the 2008 Financial Times/Goldman Sachs best business book award, and was designated a best book of the year by the Economist. He was the 2017 recipient of the CFA Institute's James Vertin Award for financial research.

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Top reviews from the United States

Zapato
5.0 out of 5 stars Great for the first-time investor
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2024
Verified Purchase
If you're a newbie to the investing world, this little book is a good way to get started. Sound, simple advice to get your feet wet. Read this, get started, then look for some more in depth books or reading material to round out your education and learn to invest wisely for your future.
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Stephen S
5.0 out of 5 stars If you think you could NEVER manage your money successfully, this primer is the perfect antidote.
Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2015
Verified Purchase
Dr. Bernstein starts with a simple three-fund portfolio. The Total Stock Market Index, Total International Stock Market Index, and the Total Bond Market Index are spot-on for those who already have the basics of a diversified investment solution. Others may scratch their head or shrug their shoulders, and return to fiction. Unknown obstacles may occur when they ask their employer’s plan administrators for these three indexes, only to be told, “no, we don’t have those three indexes, but we have yadda, yadda, yadda.” The millennial may respond, “huh”?

Other potential investors may think, “Shall I delay,” given the gyrations of the stock market’s current volatility? “Whom can I ask for professional help?” or “What in the world is a fiduciary, some exotic bird sanctuary?”

But don't fret millennials! Dr. Bernstein comes to the rescue and lists and addresses these concerns for newbies in five categories of “Hurdles” and follow-up reading material for each:

Hurdle one: Excessive spending. Recommended reading: The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley and William Danko. (I also recommend a blog, Mr. Money Mustache. He writes imaginative and practical articles about the most boring and unappealing characteristics of personal finance, frugal living).

Hurdle two: Not understanding the basics of theory and practice of finance. Recommended reading: Jack Bogle’s classic, Common Sense on Mutual Funds. This book is probably the best introduction to basic finance ever written.

Hurdle three: History. A colorful and interesting stock market history does exist! Three recommended books: Devil Take the Hindmost by Edward Chancellor, The Great Depression: A Diary by Benjamin Roth, and in a recent interview he also suggested Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay.

Hurdle four: Know thyself. Recommended book, Your Money and Your Brain, by Jason Zweig (details below). .

Hurdle five: Recognizing the financial industry professionals for whom they really are--self-serving. Evolving to a Do-It-Yourselfer (DIY) is the best advice offered. The reading assignment is the same as Hurdle Number Two: Common Sense on Mutual Funds by Jack Bogle. If you devour the details of this book, you will know more about investing than most professionals. If you know how to invest, you will see what the financial industry is up to and you will avoid their sales pitches with confidence.

Dr. Bernstein’s book is an aggrandized “Cliff Notes” to focus and encourage Millennials to begin a serious study for the next year or two of additional readings.

Hurdle Four
I want to elaborate on Hurdle number four. “Know thyself” cannot be learned from reading alone. Even Sir Isaac Newton lamented, “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people." Newton struggled bitterly trying to find out what went wrong with his investments during the 1746 South Sea investment crash.

The surest way to build mental toughness and discipline is to experience losses with your real money. Readers who understand their emotions will benefit by knowing their unique balance between taking on too much portfolio risk or being too cautious. If novice investors have prepared themselves to suffer through short-term losses and experience recovery, you will be okay. Recall the title of this book, “… Get Rich Slowly”. There is only one part of the financial industry you can trust, and that’s the worldwide economies will grow overtime. Be patient. Time is on your side.

Jason Zweig’s excellent book (Your Money and Your Brain) will focus your understanding of how other investors react to stock market gains and losses. Investors need their own experience in the school-of-hard-knocks. After reading Dr. Bernstein’s recommended books, most novice investors must experience by living through stock market volatility to understand their reactions when Mr. Bear Market comes growling. Why? If an investor is not prepared mentally, a carefully constructed low-cost portfolio is abandoned faster than a cockroach scurrying from your kitchen light.

This reviewer learned the hard way and took a working career to comprehend the investing process and balanced thinking, but never regretted massive investing mistakes. In hindsight, losing 70% was painful with the incessant question, what was I thinking? However, those mistakes turned out to be valuable learning experiences, saving tens of thousands in excessive investment costs in subsequent years with an appropriate risk and return, low-cost balanced portfolio.

Congratulations for finding this excellent book--you will thank yourself 30 years from now. Learning to be a DIY takes time, and for some, perhaps a painful experience or two. Don’t be discouraged if you stumble. Always remember, mistakes can be valuable learning experiences, far more valuable than spending several percentage points year-after-year when you turn your decisions over to a financial adviser or broker.

Final note: The author praised the genuine greatness and unpretentious John Bogle, the founder of the Vanguard Group. For decades, Bogle has been the only person in the financial services industry who gave Vanguard’s profits back to clients. Subsequently, Vanguard has grown to be the largest and most respected investment company in the world. Twenty million investors with over four trillion in assets (Feb. 2017) participate in Vanguard, agreeing with Bogle’s over-the-top concern about giving us regular folks a fair chance against Wall Street’s innate greed
71 people found this helpful
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Piaw Na
4.0 out of 5 stars Strongly recommended for its target audience
Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2014
Verified Purchase
Review: If You Can: How Millenials Can Get Rich Slowly
If You Can is William Bernstein's financial planning booklet for people starting out in their careers. It is normally $0.99 at the Kindle Store (free today), but you can download it for free from Bernstein's website. At 27 pages long, it is short and can be read in a couple of hours. However, if you actually do do the homework in the book (which only of reading other financial books), the claim is that you will know more than most financial professionals about investing.

The prescriptions in the book are fairly straightforward: save money (at least 15% of your income), pay off all debt, invest in a diversified portfolio (the suggested 33% even splits between domestic stocks, international stocks, and bonds is a fairly good one), learn a bit about finance and financial history, rebalance your portfolio about once a year, steer away from financial professionals who will try to steal your money and only buy indexed funds (preferably Vanguard ones).

Of course, straightforward doesn't mean easy. Being able to do all of these would qualify you to manage money not just for yourself, but for any one and any institution. Similarly, doing all of the homework assignments isn't easy, since it's actually substantial reading. Here's the reading list:
The Millionaire Next Door
Common Sense on Mutual Funds
Devil Take The Hindmost
The Great Depression A Diary
Your Money And Your Brain
How A Second Grader Beasts Wall Street
All About Asset Allocation
Bernstein carefully steers away from promoting his own books (which are very good), and leaves out several classics such as A Random Walk Down Wall Street , which are useful but also not as much fun reading as the above list.

In any case, the irony of all teaching is that the people who need it the most won't show up in class, hence the people who need this booklet the most probably won't read this book. But if you're the kind of person who gets asked for financial advice, in the interest of saving your time and your breath (since sadly, this type of advice is more frequently ignored than followed), this is a great little free booklet to point people at so you can talk about more interesting things.

Recommended.
9 people found this helpful
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Tom
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!!
Reviewed in the United States on November 22, 2014
Verified Purchase
When my HR manager rolled out the 401k policy to us in 1987, I had no experience or knowledge regarding investing. Nor did our HR manager. My parents lived through the Depression and I spent my early adulthood "investing" in savings accounts and cd's. I began reading a variety of personal finance books, some good, many bad and made my share of mistakes chasing performance (33% of assets in a tech fund when the NASDAQ crashed in 2000). I finally started to focus on the works of Bogle, Ferri and Bernstein. While I still read several personal finance books from a variety of authors in the average year, Bogle, Ferri and Bernstein are at the core of my investment strategy.

This book is a quick, interesting read. It provides a brief insight into the variety of pitfalls and challenges that a young investor will face during his/her life. It also helps the reader develop a plan. The assigned "homework" texts are varied and extremely well chosen. Bernstein mentions early in the book that it will take at least three months to perhaps a year for the reader to complete all of the assigned books. That sounds like a long time, but it is many, many years less than what I spent working my way through frequently bad financial advice and making mistakes.

I will be purchasing this book for my two millennial grandkids this week.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Miguel
5.0 out of 5 stars Esplendido
Reviewed in Mexico on September 12, 2022
Verified Purchase
Directo y sin rodeos, abordando el tema de la planeación financiera y pensar en el retiro de cada uno de nosotros, muy crudo y realista, lo recomiendo para todos que entiendan inglés y se preocupen por su futuro
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Sathish Kumar
5.0 out of 5 stars Simple but powerful lessons
Reviewed in India on June 23, 2023
Verified Purchase
A small book with lots of information and interesting to read.finished this on a single stretch.This will be very interesting to a beginner
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Miguel Diaz
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read. These matters should be taught at school.
Reviewed in Spain on November 6, 2020
Verified Purchase
Easy to read. No previous knowledge required. Simple ideas and a great reading list to go a bit deeper into the concepts.
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Fabio P.
5.0 out of 5 stars Un must per ogni investitore
Reviewed in Italy on July 23, 2020
Verified Purchase
In 50 pagine, facilmente leggibili anche se in inglese, vengono trattati i principali argomenti che ogni investitore dovrebbe conoscere. Vengono poi forniti consigli di lettura di altri libri (non dell'autore di questo libro) per chi volesse approfondire i vari argomenti. Qualunque investitore dovrebbe leggerlo almeno una volta (consiglio anche più di una).
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DE
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and simple
Reviewed in Canada on October 22, 2018
Verified Purchase
Essential reading for someone starting to save, or even considering starting. The basics are all here, along with recommended reading on a number of starter topics that will give the reader greater background. I don’t know Mr Bernstein, but I have been a huge fan of his writing for many years and have quoted him extensively in my own writing. Nobody explains investing better.
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