This book is for everyone who has saved money and wants to know how to invest it and everyone who wants to save money but hasn't started yet. You will get more out of your investments, both in future wealth and personal satisfaction, if you understand enough about your options to make informed choices for yourself.

Working Your Money will show you how much you need to save to fund your own retirement, how much of this should be in superannuation and how much in non-superannuation investments, how to pay off your home loan in record time, and lots of safe ways to invest your savings so your returns beat inflation and you retire wealthy.

The book also gives an overview of the types of investments available with enough detail to give you a basic understanding of fixed-interest investments, property investments, and the sharemarket. I will explain how and why negative gearing can work and show you how to calculate what your money will be worth in the future at various interest rates.

You can read the chapters in this book in any order, or leave out anything that is not relevant to you. The home loan chapter (Chapter 2) will show you easy strategies to pay off your home loan early, and how to work out pay-off times and repayment amounts using a simple spreadsheet program on a home computer.

The superannuation chapter (Chapter 3) will show you how to estimate the amount of super you will have when you retire, and how to work out the right amount to contribute yourself. The advantages of super are discussed along with the disadvantages that the super salespeople don't tell you about.

The investment chapters will give you an overview of investment strategies and details of each of the three investment types, fixed interest, property and shares. I also cover some other investment topics such as tax on investments, what to do when you retire, and simple strategies to avoid losing your life savings in dodgy or fraudulent investment schemes.

If you decide to use a financial planner to arrange your investments, you will benefit by understanding the investments you are making. You will be better able to judge for yourself the quality of the advice you are receiving if you know how to recognise schemes that make more money for the financial planner than they do for you.

This book contains some calculations for Mortgage payments and superannuation that are done on a spreadsheet program on a home computer. These are fully explained for people who have never used a spreadsheet program before. I have also given the equivalent method for those using paper, a pencil and a calculator.