There are times when an author, in the preface to a new volume, will ask you to read the book first and then come back to what he has to say by way of prologue.

We feel the same way about this introduction and the first issue of Money.

We urge you to read the magazine first. Start with whatever catches your eye and go on from there. Then, we feel, you’ll know a great deal of what we’re about and why we undertook this new publishing venture.

After reading how Donald Regan of Merrill Lynch built his fortune, how to cut your auto insurance costs, what the risks in real estate limited partnerships are, and where the outer limits of your borrowing power may lie, you’ll know that we’re serious about the premise of Money: to discuss each month in detail how to make, save, invest and spend money.

After browsing through the other stories and the departments on consumerism, fringe benefits, estate planning and Wall Street, you’ll see that we intend to report on every aspect of personal finance. Next month, for instance, we’ll offer some professional guidance on how to advance within your company, and we’ll tell you how to look for the best of the mutual funds.

We hope that Money will be even more than the sum of these parts. For Money concerns people — many of them the kind of people whose lives and activities elude conventional definitions of news. Take Frank Dellastatious, the master plumber on page 35, for example. His is a richly human story, marked by shrewd mastery of circumstances and almost heroic personal achievement — even though we approach him through a detailed audit of his personal affairs by a panel of financial experts. And Money celebrates that combination of style, culture and grace that is called good living, as you will discover when you follow the Alexander Eliots on their carefully budgeted $500 trip from Paris to Nice, on page 80.

We hope that a reading of this and future issues will help you to gain a greater measure of control over your personal finances — and thus a greater sense of security about your personal affairs and increased enjoyment of your money and possessions.

For the task of being responsible about your money rests with you — not your banker, or insurance man or druggist or travel agent. By the same token, the enjoyment of the money you spend is entirely yours.

Responsibility and enjoyment go hand in hand. Money will devote itself to enlarging your share of both.