Note: Supplemental materials are not guaranteed with Rental or Used book purchases.
- ISBN: 9780393319248 | 0393319245
- Cover: Paperback
- Copyright: 8/17/1999
Budgeting and personal finance, planning for retirement, buying a house, estimating travel and leisure expenses, estimating costs of home repair: modern life presents us with an array of calculations we need to make but may not know how. Now, with his trademark wry humor and simple language, Darrell Huff explains how to figure: the likely outcome of different investments; how much home insurance is enough; whether it makes more sense to buy or lease a new car; the most efficient way to save for future needs, from vacations to college tuition; air-conditioning and heating requirements for a new house; how many rolls of wallpaper you will need for a particular room; and much more. Here are tips for getting the most out of a modest pocket calculator or home computer to make tedious calcuations easy, a handy chapter on "Math in a Hurry," and even tips on improving your chances in tennis, horse racing, and blackjack.
Just a word | p. v |
Lifetime Money Strategy | p. 2 |
What's Future Money Worth Now? | p. 3 |
Whither the Dollar? | p. 4 |
Quick Look at Monthly Money | p. 6 |
How a Retirement Plan Grows | p. 7 |
Figuring Inflation into Retirement | p. 7 |
How Much Life Insurance? | p. 8 |
Forecasting Your Income | p. 9 |
Are You Throwing Away a House? | p. 10 |
Living on a Savings Account | p. 13 |
Appraise a Bank Bargain | p. 14 |
Strategy for Checking | p. 14 |
Factoring Inflation into Income | p. 16 |
How Much Can You Take Out? | p. 18 |
Casing Inflation | p. 19 |
That Old Bugaboo, Average Rate of Increase | p. 20 |
The Mortgage that Pays YOU | p. 21 |
Lazy Person's Withdrawal Chart | p. 23 |
Money Now or Money Later? | p. 24 |
Prepay That Mortgage? | p. 26 |
Some Personal Things | p. 28 |
Figuring Your Life Expectancy | p. 29 |
Decisions: His Way or Hers? | p. 30 |
Does College Pay? | p. 32 |
Getting Pregnant | p. 34 |
Does a Second Job Pay? | p. 35 |
Junior Doses | p. 39 |
Chart Your Biorhythms? | p. 39 |
Interest and Saving | p. 44 |
Yield and the Rule of 72 | p. 45 |
Fooling Around with Old 72 | p. 46 |
What's That Rate of Return? | p. 47 |
The Day You Save | p. 48 |
Figuring Simple Interest | p. 49 |
Figuring Compound Interest | p. 50 |
Interest Compounded Continuously | p. 51 |
Effective Rate of Interest | p. 53 |
Beware the Iron Law | p. 53 |
How Much Goes for Interest? | p. 56 |
When Interest Rates Change | p. 57 |
The Interesting e | p. 58 |
Comparing Retirement Plans | p. 59 |
Interest by Calculator | p. 61 |
How Regular Savings Grow | p. 62 |
Saving: How Much per Month? | p. 63 |
Figuring a Set-Aside | p. 65 |
How Much Interest Are You Getting? | p. 66 |
Investing | p. 68 |
Finding Earned-Growth Rate | p. 69 |
Tailoring an Investment | p. 69 |
Local Taxes and Investing | p. 71 |
Keogh? Ira? | p. 71 |
Compounding Your Money | p. 73 |
Retirement Fund Accumulation | p. 74 |
What Does an Annuity Cost? | p. 75 |
How Much Annuity Can You Buy? | p. 76 |
What's an Annuity Worth? | p. 77 |
Decoding the Phony "Average Return" | p. 78 |
How Does Dollar Averaging Work? | p. 80 |
Super Dollar-Cost Averaging | p. 81 |
Value-Averaging Your Investment | p. 82 |
What's a Tax-Exempt Bond Worth? | p. 82 |
Income from Capital | p. 84 |
How'd That Investment Do? | p. 85 |
The Moving Average | p. 85 |
How Much Does a Treasury Bill Yield? | p. 86 |
Is Tax-Free for You? | p. 87 |
What Percent Does a Stock Yield? | p. 88 |
Figuring Percentage Gain | p. 90 |
Total Return and the Deceptive Average | p. 91 |
Understanding Bond Language | p. 92 |
Other People's Money | p. 94 |
The Everlasting Payoff | p. 95 |
Credit: How Much Is Too Much? | p. 97 |
How's Your Credit Rating? | p. 98 |
Real Cost of a Discounted Loan | p. 99 |
Calculating the Cost of Credit | p. 100 |
Figuring an Early Payoff | p. 101 |
Payoff Rule of 78s | p. 102 |
When You Make Partial Payment | p. 102 |
How Big Is That Carrying Charge? | p. 103 |
What, Borrow on My Life Insurance? | p. 105 |
Getting a Home Loan | p. 106 |
Hiring the Money | p. 107 |
How Much Can You Get? | p. 108 |
That Important Percent | p. 109 |
Variable or Fixed? | p. 110 |
Those Tricky Points | p. 112 |
Penalties, Options, Balloons | p. 113 |
Closing Costs | p. 114 |
Assume or Buy Subject To? | p. 114 |
How About a Second? | p. 115 |
The Land Contract | p. 116 |
Trying a Mortgage for Size | p. 117 |
How Much per Year? | p. 117 |
Figuring a FLIP | p. 119 |
Cost of a Mortgage Bargain | p. 120 |
Hidden Side of a Home Loan | p. 121 |
How Much Will Your Payments Be? | p. 122 |
Setting Up a Payment Schedule | p. 124 |
Spending | p. 126 |
The (Relatively) Painless Budget | p. 127 |
Buy Now? Buy Later? | p. 129 |
How Much Inflation? | p. 130 |
Puzzle of the Price Markup | p. 132 |
What's That Price Increase? | p. 132 |
A Look Today at Tomorrow's Costs | p. 133 |
Realism at the Supermarket | p. 135 |
Buy Meat Wholesale? | p. 137 |
High Cost of Living Like a Dog | p. 138 |
How Much Rebate? | p. 138 |
Inflation and the Metric Trick | p. 139 |
Measuring Things | p. 140 |
Human Yardstick | p. 141 |
How's the Wind Up There? | p. 141 |
Power of a Wave | p. 142 |
Weighing with Coins | p. 143 |
Comparing TV Picture Sizes | p. 143 |
Measuring the Unmeasurable | p. 144 |
How Tall Is It? | p. 144 |
Height by Trig | p. 146 |
How Big Is a Tree? | p. 146 |
Speed of Sound in Water | p. 146 |
How Much Does It Slope? | p. 147 |
Light Through a Prism | p. 148 |
Estimating Water Flow | p. 149 |
How Far Away Is It? | p. 150 |
How Fast the Fall? | p. 151 |
How Deep the Well? | p. 152 |
The Metric Nickel | p. 153 |
How High Is Up? | p. 153 |
Measuring Height by Angle | p. 154 |
How Big a Pinhole? | p. 154 |
How Fast Will It Cool? | p. 155 |
How Cold Will It Get? | p. 156 |
Recipes for Odd Numbers | p. 157 |
House Planning | p. 158 |
Where To Live | p. 159 |
How Big a House? | p. 159 |
How Much Wind Can This Building Take? | p. 160 |
Figuring Window Location | p. 161 |
Costly Window Placement | p. 164 |
How Much Glass? | p. 165 |
How Much Solar Overhang? | p. 167 |
Choosing a Solar Angle | p. 167 |
Fighting Noise Pollution | p. 168 |
Figuring Plumbing Plans | p. 173 |
Building Things | p. 176 |
Aggregate for Concrete | p. 177 |
Figuring Ready-Mix | p. 177 |
When You Mix Concrete | p. 178 |
Framing: 16- or 24-Inch? | p. 179 |
Expansion of Acrylic Sheets | p. 180 |
Figuring Kitchen Cabinets | p. 180 |
How Stout Is Rough Lumber? | p. 182 |
How Big a Beam from a Log? | p. 183 |
To Build a Winding Stairway | p. 184 |
How to Figure Steps | p. 185 |
Measuring at Home | p. 188 |
How Big Is a Room? | p. 189 |
Three-Four-Five Is Not the Only Square | p. 190 |
When an Area Is Irregular | p. 192 |
How Many Floor Tiles? | p. 193 |
How Many Squares to a Roof? | p. 193 |
Wallpaper: How Many Rolls? | p. 194 |
Measuring for Paneling | p. 195 |
How Much Paint? | p. 196 |
To Draw a Contour Map | p. 197 |
How Much Water Are You Using? | p. 199 |
How Hard Is Your Water? | p. 200 |
To Measure a Chair | p. 201 |
Rafters and Beams | p. 202 |
To Cut a Rafter | p. 203 |
The Tangent and the Rafter | p. 204 |
Beams: How Strong, How Stiff? | p. 206 |
Strength of a Beam | p. 207 |
When Beams Get B-I-G | p. 210 |
Case of the Unequally Loaded Beam | p. 211 |
Figuring Deflection | p. 212 |
Anyone for Cantilevers? | p. 214 |
Horizontal Shear | p. 216 |
Around the House | p. 218 |
How Many Degree Days? | p. 219 |
Sizing a Wood Stove | p. 219 |
Cord of Wood, Ton of Coal | p. 220 |
Wood or Coal? | p. 220 |
Comparing Furnace Efficiencies | p. 221 |
What Does Heat Cost? | p. 221 |
How Much Heat Loss? | p. 223 |
Costing a Heat Pump | p. 225 |
Heat Storage, Heat Loss | p. 225 |
Trying a Cooler for Size | p. 226 |
Meeting Insulation Requirements | p. 227 |
Figuring Areas for Insulation | p. 228 |
How Much Insulation? | p. 228 |
Shading a House | p. 230 |
To Ventilate a House | p. 230 |
What's a Square Foot of Ventilation? | p. 232 |
How Much Can the Sun Save You? | p. 232 |
Capacity of a Solar Water Heater | p. 234 |
What Will a Circuit Take? | p. 235 |
What's a Switch Worth? | p. 235 |
Working Out an Island Sink | p. 236 |
Loading a Waterbed | p. 237 |
Aiming a Satellite Dish | p. 238 |
Operating Your Shelter | p. 240 |
To Build a House | p. 241 |
Managing a Mortgage | p. 244 |
Shrink a Mortgage? | p. 247 |
Your Depreciating House | p. 247 |
How to Sell a House | p. 249 |
Property-Tax Strategy | p. 250 |
How Much Home Insurance? | p. 252 |
Cost-Effective Energy Saver? | p. 254 |
Fueling the Water Heater | p. 255 |
How Much Heat in Firewood? | p. 256 |
What Does Fuel Cost? | p. 257 |
Mobile Home--Does It Figure? | p. 258 |
Free Color TV? | p. 262 |
Cork in the Eye | p. 263 |
Workshop Numbers | p. 264 |
How Big a Box? | p. 265 |
How Wide Is This Board? | p. 265 |
To Divide a Board | p. 266 |
How Big the Bolt or Screw? | p. 267 |
Confounded Compound Cuts | p. 267 |
How Big a Pipe Wrench? | p. 268 |
From RPM to SFM in One Jump | p. 268 |
Shelf Math | p. 269 |
Figuring Torque | p. 270 |
What Size Wrench? | p. 271 |
How Fat a Wire? | p. 271 |
Radius of an Arc | p. 272 |
How Tall Is My Grandfather? | p. 272 |
Your Car | p. 274 |
What Does a Car Cost? | p. 275 |
How Long to Charge a Battery | p. 279 |
What Do Skid Marks Tell? | p. 279 |
Going Sixty | p. 280 |
Analyzing Gas-Station Lines | p. 281 |
Engine Displacement | p. 282 |
Travel | p. 284 |
Jet Lag | p. 285 |
Tactics for Travel Funds | p. 286 |
What Does Devaluation Cost? | p. 289 |
Global Distances | p. 290 |
The Tricky Average Speed | p. 291 |
Your Clothing Size | p. 291 |
More Dangerous Way To Go? | p. 293 |
How Warm Is a Sleeping Bag? | p. 293 |
Liters, Kilometers, Gallons | p. 295 |
What's That in Real Money? | p. 296 |
Finding a Mach Number | p. 298 |
Thinking About Time Travel | p. 299 |
Einstein: Mass at Speed | p. 300 |
Outdoors | p. 302 |
Weigh a Mountain, Measure a Pond | p. 303 |
Water Over the Dam | p. 304 |
Water Power Calculated Quickly | p. 306 |
Horsepower in a Stream | p. 307 |
Water and Kilowatts | p. 307 |
How Far Can You See at Sea? | p. 308 |
The Accurate Cricket | p. 309 |
Camera's Hyperfocal Distance | p. 309 |
Need a Ped Xing? | p. 311 |
Acceleration from Gravity | p. 312 |
How To Bank a Road | p. 313 |
Underpass for a Bicycle | p. 314 |
When the Tide? | p. 315 |
How High the Tide? | p. 316 |
Ship's Propulsion Power | p. 318 |
How Far the Projectile? | p. 318 |
Quick Height Measurement | p. 319 |
How High the Shot? | p. 320 |
How Long to Fall? | p. 321 |
Where on Earth Is It? | p. 321 |
Speed and Power | p. 323 |
Figuring Air Pressure | p. 324 |
Siting a Windmill | p. 324 |
How Much Wind Is Enough? | p. 324 |
That Wind-Chill Factor | p. 325 |
How Many Stars? | p. 326 |
To Rate a Quake | p. 327 |
Figuring Binoculars | p. 327 |
Fun and Games | p. 330 |
How Far Can a Gamble Miss? | p. 331 |
Will You Win a Trifecta? | p. 332 |
Balancing a Tournament | p. 334 |
The Cool, Calculating Tennist | p. 335 |
Basic Blackjack | p. 335 |
Doing Better at 21 | p. 337 |
Actually Winning at Blackjack | p. 340 |
Horseshoe Math | p. 341 |
Business Decisions | p. 342 |
Real-Estate Cash Flow | p. 343 |
How Cash Flow Works | p. 343 |
What's the Profit Rate? | p. 345 |
Buying Earned-Growth Rate | p. 345 |
Figuring Fiscal Ratios | p. 346 |
How Durable the Building? | p. 348 |
Counting Absenteeism | p. 349 |
Conversions | p. 350 |
Minutes and Seconds to Decimals | p. 351 |
Heat by the Watt | p. 351 |
Strength of Steel | p. 351 |
Quick Metric: Temperature | p. 352 |
Quick Metric: Length | p. 352 |
Quick Metric: Weight and Volume | p. 353 |
Measuring Angles | p. 353 |
Those Metric Prefixes | p. 354 |
Jumping from Log to Log | p. 354 |
Do As the Romans Did | p. 355 |
Decimal to Fraction and Back | p. 356 |
Going in Circles | p. 357 |
Parlez-Vous Hexadecimal? | p. 357 |
Math in a Hurry | p. 360 |
Breaking Down Numbers | p. 361 |
Great Chief Sohcahtoa | p. 362 |
The Squaring Trick | p. 362 |
Halving a Mixed Fraction | p. 363 |
Pint's a Pound | p. 364 |
Illusion of the Shifting Base | p. 364 |
The Catch-22 Deduction | p. 365 |
Totaling Fibonaccis | p. 365 |
Multiply Like a Peasant? | p. 366 |
Easy Iteration | p. 367 |
Smidgens to Oodles | p. 368 |
What, Me Solve Quadratics? | p. 370 |
Add-On Taxes and Take-Off Discounts | p. 371 |
Depreciation by Sum of Years' Digits | p. 371 |
Addition Helper | p. 371 |
Add Without Carrying | p. 372 |
Subtract Without Subtracting | p. 372 |
Mix It the Midpoint Way | p. 373 |
Better Way to Mix It? | p. 374 |
Triangle a Problem | p. 374 |
How Big Is a Triangle? | p. 376 |
Approximate a Time Payment | p. 376 |
What Percent of...? | p. 378 |
Percents, Decimals, Fractions | p. 378 |
Quick Fractions | p. 379 |
That Tricky Percentage Increase | p. 379 |
Chance and Statistics | p. 380 |
Heads or Tails? | p. 381 |
The Triangle of Chance | p. 382 |
Probability by Subtraction | p. 385 |
Flip a Coin | p. 386 |
Zips and Plates | p. 387 |
Learning from a Sample | p. 388 |
The Rabbit-Sandwich Average | p. 390 |
Standard Deviation Two Ways | p. 391 |
How to Get Facts from Figures | p. 392 |
Looking a Correlation in the Eye | p. 395 |
Reality And Illusion | p. 398 |
How to Draw a Fact | p. 399 |
Hornswoggled by a Bar Chart? | p. 400 |
The Illusory Line Graph | p. 401 |
Figures Don't Lie? | p. 404 |
How to Find a Prominent Number | p. 406 |
The Prisoner's Dilemma | p. 407 |
Conquering a Map Chart | p. 409 |
Taking a Problem Apart | p. 410 |
How Lethal Is My Warhead? | p. 411 |
Those Awful Work Problems | p. 412 |
Stretching A Calculator | p. 414 |
Calculator Counting | p. 415 |
Dividing into a Number | p. 415 |
Percentages by Calculator | p. 416 |
Square Roots and Diagonals | p. 417 |
Cube Root and Beyond | p. 417 |
Divide by Multiplying | p. 418 |
Finding the Remarkable e | p. 419 |
The Hyperbolic Rope | p. 420 |
Squares and More | p. 420 |
Calculating Reciprocals | p. 421 |
Two Reciprocal Tricks | p. 421 |
Finding Sums of Products | p. 423 |
Coping with Big, Bad Numbers | p. 424 |
Bigger, Badder Numbers | p. 425 |
Memory at the Market | p. 426 |
To Make a Payment Book | p. 427 |
Easy Calculator Subtraction | p. 428 |
Testing a Scientific Calculator | p. 428 |
Calculator Superstretcher | p. 430 |
Computer Does Numbers | p. 432 |
Your 50-Pound Pocket Calculator? | p. 433 |
BASIC Tips for Math-by-Computer | p. 436 |
Table of Powers | p. 437 |
Watch Your Money Grow | p. 438 |
Anatomy of a Program | p. 439 |
From Interest to Yield | p. 440 |
How Big a Beam? | p. 441 |
Rent or Buy? | p. 445 |
Loan Payments Figured Fast | p. 446 |
Print a Payment Table | p. 447 |
The Mortgage-Payoff Miracle | p. 448 |
Index | p. 451 |
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