International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans says "The book explores the importance of time and retirement philosophy in making a retirement plan."
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Five Questions for the Finance Guy: Investing

"Today, we begin a series on investing. What do we need to know to get started?"
Let's begin with the basics. We know there will be risk. We know you will get anxious. We know you will do things that make no sense, such as selling on the way down and buying on the way up. We know that you will never be completely satisfied with your portfolio.

We also know that in order to be a successful investor, you will need to change that sort of thinking, you will need to do your homework and understand all sorts of things about yourself you probably didn't want to know.

Benjamin Graham, the investor who gave us students like Warren Buffet had some of the wisest pieces of advice: do not invest with money you will need. That means, that before you even begin investing, he suggests that you get your financial house in order, fund your retirement accounts and then - this is his term - create a mad money account?

"What is a mad money account?"
Simply, it is an account that you put money in but never take any out or even put any more in. Mr. Graham realized that we all need some sort of risk and to keep that beast at bay, he suggested that we more or less build a container around those feelings. If we win and make money; we can reinvest it as we please. If we lose, we should take this as a lesson. He felt as though not everyone was born with the skills to invest.

"Does that mean we can't become investors?"
Absolutely not. It is what happens when we realize that we don't really have the savvy to compete that gives us this understanding. If you are investing with money you do not need, you will do everything in your power to keep it because we will change how we think about that money.

"Are you saying that once we put in the "money we don't need" into one of these accounts, we will begin to feel differently about it?"
There is a maniac inside all of us. Controlling that maniac means understanding who she is. For instance, most people will sell on the way down. And because they are focused on preserving their investment balance, they will not be looking at the incredible opportunity a sell-off presents.

"So how do we control this maniac"?
There is really only one way: research. This requires much more effort than you will put into your 401(k). When they teach that game in your kid's school about investing, what they have found is that kids usually stick with the products they know. The iPod (Apple is up to over $200 a share from a low of $82 in January), Playstation (Sony has doubled in price since February), World Wrestling Entertainment (from a low of $9 to a current price of almost $16). Just to name a few.

To control that maniac, we start with companies we use and are comfortable with and begin the research from there.