About the Authors
Lita Epstein ran the accounting lab when she worked as a teaching assistant while completing her MBA at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. After earning her MBA, she managed finances for a small nonprofit organization and the facilities management division of a large medical clinic.
Now she enjoys helping people develop business and personal financial and investing skills. She designs and teaches online courses on bookkeeping, accounting, and how to start your own business. She is the author of more than 30 books, including Bookkeeping For Dummies, Trading For Dummies, The Business Owner’s Guide to Reading and Understanding Financial Statements, and Surviving a Layoff: A Week-by-Week Guide to Getting Your Life Back Together.
Lita was the content director for a financial services website, MostChoice.com, and also managed the website Investing for Women. As a Congressional press secretary, Lita gained firsthand knowledge about how to work within and around the federal bureaucracy, which gives her great insight into how government programs work. Lita has also been a daily newspaper reporter, a magazine editor, and an associate director of development at The Carter Center.
For fun, Lita enjoys scuba diving and is a certified underwater photographer. She hikes, canoes, and enjoys surfing the web to find its hidden treasures.
Dedication
To my father, Jerome Kirschbrown, an auditor and savings and loan examiner, who helped hone my financial skills and taught me to be leery of what I see in financial reports.
Authors’ Acknowledgments
I would like to thank all the people at Wiley who helped make this book possible, especially my acquisitions editor, Stacy Kennedy, who first discussed this topic with me; my project editor, Tracy Brown Hamilton, who did a wonderful job of steering this book through the entire process; and my copy editor, Krista Hansing, for her excellent work cleaning up the copy. And a special thank you to my husband, H. G. Wolpin, who has learned to stay away as I rush to meet deadlines.
Publisher’s Acknowledgments
Acquisitions Editor: Stacy Kennedy
Project Editor: Tracy Brown Hamilton
Copy Editor: Krista Hansing
Technical Editor: Sukriti Nayar
Art Coordinator: Asia Jureczko
Project Coordinator: Patrick Redmond
Cover Photos: ©iStockphoto.com/CourtneyKeating