Rating: 
Summary: The Girlfriends Guide to Investing
Review: Anyone read the "Girlfriends Guide to Pregnancy" by Vicki Iovine? It was the only book that gave you the real deal of the whole experience. At last I've found a financial guide that does the same thing! Karin Housley is the first author that is actually going to get me off my intimidated rear and start investing. Gone are the days where I throw away my bank statements totally clueless and no more calls to my broker asking why I'm losing money. Its the new millenium and with the help of the Chicks I'm ready to roll. This investment book is clear with its concepts taking you through a step by step approach to getting started and continuing the process. These girls have really had an education and I'm ready to follow in their footsteps. Not only is it a how-to for running a club, but also a how-to for actually doing the research...oh and they actually make it sound fun -- now that's a first! Go Chicks!
Rating: 
Summary: Helpful and Fun
Review: Contradictory and Silly Advice. Impossible to Follow. Poorly Written. Useless jabber. These people made money by selling a book but not be investing. If you want to make money, don't buy this book--write your own book instead and you'll make more on the royalties from selling books.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome book, a must read!
Review: I actually have my husband's hockey passion to thank for my finding this wonderful book. He was reading a recent article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about Phil Housley and it mentioned his wife Karin's book -- Chick's Laying Nest Eggs. He thought I would enjoy the book and he was right. I couldn't read it fast enough because I was so excited about gathering all of the information I needed to begin forming an investment club of my own. I appreciated how open and honest Karin is about what Chicks Laying Nest Eggs has done -- down to the specific companies they are invested in. I also enjoyed reading snippets of their message board. When you're done reading the book, be sure to check out the Chick's website. What a great resource tool! I've been having a blast reading through all of the information on there. I look forward to using their message board for the club I'm forming some day soon. Thanks Chicks!
Rating:
Summary: Chicks Laying Nest Eggs
Review: I just finished reading Karin Housley's "Chicks Laying Nest Eggs" and absolutely loved it! She's witty and bright--and has taken a unique approach to educating women (and men) on investing (and starting an Investment Club). I have read many, many guides to investing...spent plenty of time on websites like E-trade, and the truth is, they never keep my attention and the advice is consistently contradictory. Karin has designed twelve, easy to understand guidelines for investing in stocks. It's a no-nonsense approach that helps new investors build confidence, while trying to navigate the market. For the critics that criticize the "Chicks" performance recently, the philosophy is to buy for the long term...so that you don't need to spend every day agonzing over your investment decisions. By purchasing companies that you know and understand, with strong management and solid financials, you are setting yourself up for success in the future. And you can pay attention to the things that are most important in your life...your kids, your career, your hobbies, living life. The book has wonderful stories about all the women in the Chicks Investment Club--the personal approach was refreshing, adds interest and has certainly motivated me to get a group of girlfriends to start a club of our own. In addition to investing, they've helped each other through the joys and tears that comes from life. They've supported charitable organizations and it sounds like they've created life-long friendships! It's about time we see an interesting author that explains the complexity of investing to women, who quite frankly aren't all interested in becoming obsessed with investing--but rather interested in learning...sharing...and being empowered to create their own futures. Thanks Karin...your book is a treat!
Rating:
Summary: FUN READING WHILE LEARNING TO INVEST!!
Review: I NEVER thought I would be interested in the Market, then a friend contacted me about starting a club. Our start was this fun and exciting book, it was SO easy to follow and understand and I just couldn't put it down. When you are starting out with no knowledge of where to start, they help you to really understand while getting a chuckle too. I WANT to know where our money is going (while reading our statements each time) and make MORE money while I'm doing it. I recommed this book if you want to have fun and learn at the same time. :) GO CHICKS!
Rating: 
Summary: How many women are really this dumb?
Review: I've been meaning to learn more about investment strategies. I pop in to the Motley Fool once in a while, and I watch a few stocks out of curiosity, but I've never actually invested, unless you count my 401(k). There's a lot of stuff I don't completely understand, and I consider myself relatively ignorant. I saw this book at a thrift store ... and was intrigued. It's written by a woman who started a successful investment club of 10 women, and they outperformed the market by something like 52% in their first year. Hmm, I thought. For 50 cents, it may be worth the read. Well, 50 cents is probably the total value of all of the info in this book. It's written by a stay-at-home mother, wife of pro hockey player Phil Housley. 4 kids. These 5 people seem to be her entire identity. Karin Housley, wife and mother of four... and now author of an awful book. She tries SO hard to be funny, and maybe she is, to the type of people who think Bil Keane (creator of the cartoon Family Circle) is a comedic genius. One of the biggest tips in the book is "buy what you love" (which is actually common financial advice from experts who actually know what they're talking about). I would be in *so* much trouble if I did that. Stuff I love never makes money. What she really should have said is "buy what a middle class mom would love". Not that she's middle class. With a husband making millions of dollars a year, even four kids are not enough to drain her resources. Paraphrased: "Open your refrigerator. What's in there? Coke, Oscar Mayer, Juicy Juice, Enfamil, Kraft, Heinz, blah blah blah." I open my refrigerator. Smart Dogs, broccoli, zucchini, a tomato, Silk, whole grain mustard, maple syrup from a farm in Vermont, my leftover hommous and baba ghanouj (yum!), peach nectar, a bottle of Chimay blue and a bottle of Banrock Station sparkling chardonnay. Good luck making money from any of those companies. Of course, I do love Oracle and Sun... While there was some genuinely useful information: How to get an EIN for your investment club, how the taxes work, proposed rules, an understandable description of the relationships between the various stock indices, etc., this incredibly fluffy book was poorly written and seemingly targeted at a segment of the American population that I wish didn't exist -- women with 3+ children who never got past the 5th grade. The author actually felt that her audience needed her to explain how to calculate a percentage. Sadly, she's probably right. The author devoted an ENTIRE CHAPTER to broaching the subject of investing to your SO. I mean, my god! She discusses techniques for slipping the subject in to the conversation so that he doesn't notice. I suppose that if you don't work outside the home and have no money of your own, you probably need to consult the source of the household income, but why not bring up the subject directly? at least interested in hearing that their SOs are learning to invest their money intelligently. ... In case you couldn't tell, reading this book actually made me very angry.
Rating:
Summary: Chicks laying groundwork
Review: It sounds to me like people either loved or hated this book. I'm in the middle. The content was excellent for beginning investors. Even though the math may have been a bit elementary, sometimes a refresher is needed! Skip over the examples if you have just graduated from Harvard.
I am going to be starting an investment club and have read a few books on it now. This one is very light-hearted, even if you don't think her humor is. It does, however, allow one to read more than one chapter without falling asleep, a problem I did have with another book.
What is comes down to is this -- this book is full of IDEAS, a place to start. Some of us ARE middle-class stay-at-home moms and some of us aren't. It really doesn't matter either way. She is showing us what worked for her and her club. It is up to us to decide which information we would like to use and which information we could care less about.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in forming an investment club, or just learning a few of the ways to go about researching, choosing and following stocks.
Rating:
Summary: Chicks laying groundwork
Review: It sounds to me like people either loved or hated this book. I'm in the middle. The content was excellent for beginning investors. Even though the math may have been a bit elementary, sometimes a refresher is needed! Skip over the examples if you have just graduated from Harvard.
I am going to be starting an investment club and have read a few books on it now. This one is very light-hearted, even if you don't think her humor is. It does, however, allow one to read more than one chapter without falling asleep, a problem I did have with another book.
What is comes down to is this -- this book is full of IDEAS, a place to start. Some of us ARE middle-class stay-at-home moms and some of us aren't. It really doesn't matter either way. She is showing us what worked for her and her club. It is up to us to decide which information we would like to use and which information we could care less about.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in forming an investment club, or just learning a few of the ways to go about researching, choosing and following stocks.
Rating:
Summary: Their INvestment Secret : Marry Money
Review: It's easy to make a small fortune in the market when you invested a few years ago and used money that your wealthy husbands gave you to play with. The more honorable among us, who make our money the old-fashioned way, by earning it, will find this book shoddily written, carelessly researched and extremely superficial. Investment clubs can give you the basics. There, I said it, so you don't need to waste your money on this ridiculous piece of nonsense. Stick with real advice from people who earned their money through good portfolios not those who married wealthy men. They may like to call themselves chicks but that's too polite for their tactics.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money!
Review: The first problem I had with this book was the incredibly condescending attitude by the writer. Just because *she* was completely clueless about their family investments doesn't mean the rest of the *housewives* in the country are. She continually talked down to her readers and spoke absolutely horribly about her children. Whether she was joking or not, I found her style extremely offensive. This breastfeeding, clothing diapering, homeschooling mother who happens to love her children didn't fit into ANY of the stupid examples she used. But I muddled through those first few chapters to get to the meat of the matter - The Chicks Dozen. This is the all-knowing formula that one must run each potential company through before buying the stock. The problem? It worked fine when the bulls were running full steam last summer and they went with primarily tech stocks. Now? Their portfolio is a total loser and they were hit hard. I mean HARD. I notice they don't even publish the numbers on their site any longer. As it is now, I don't think ANY company would fit into their standards and, in fact, they've changed strageties completely (I mean a COMPLETE reversal!) and are now going with mutual funds. There was page after page in the book BASHING mutual funds and now they've realized that putting all your eggs into single stocks in this bear market just doesn't wash. They may have beat the men on Wall Street for ONE YEAR, but they sure aren't clucking now. So save your money and check out their website to see their current strategies because they've changed their tune. You'll also notice that one of the members has already left. Didn't anyone at the publishing company *read* this book with it's hogwash advice before publishing it?
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