The Money Answer Book

The Money Answer Book by Dave Ramsey          Paperback Book:  176 pages                  

This should be given to every human on the planet.   Concise book so chockful of great information on how to get your finances under control, how to get out of debt and how to plan for your family’s future, your kids college fund,  your own emergency fund, etc.    Brilliant and concise.   Worthy of keeping as a reference book on every one’s shelf.    If you have ever wanted to read one of Dave Ramsey’s books – start with this one.   It is the quick version of what all his books are going to tell you.   Understandable for 5^th graders on up – Learn it early kids and save your adult selves mountains of grief!  Excellent book.   I cannot praise it highly enough.   You will breathe easier once you learn the information Dave gives you here.

 - Shirley J.

Confessions of a Credit Junkie

Confessions of a Credit Junkie:  Everything You Need To Know to Avoid The Mistakes I Made  by Beverly Harzog                 Paperback Book:  224 pages           

Most excellent book on the facts behind credit scores and an everything you need to know book about maintaining your financial sanity.    She is so candid about her own mistakes living outside her means vicariously through her credit until the bills caught up with her and were so momentous she realized she had to reign her spending in and take control of her finances.   The author also has a website that she offers help and counselling on.   She breaks down all the big bad credit returns and walks readers through deciphering their credit reports.    She tells you how and where to get free credit reports with actual FICO scores not the FACO scores as she calls them that might give you an idea of your actual credit scores as tallied by the big 3:  Experian, TransUnion and Equifax and if the score you are getting is not from one of the big 3 it is a FAKO score which is not entirely accurate though in the ballpark enough that it will give you an idea of where you are and where you need to be.    The big thing I took away from Harzog’s book is that I learned about the credit ratio which is incredibly important in the tabulation of your credit score but is often not mentioned.    She says the big 3 credit bureaus recommend people never accumulate more debt than 30% of their credit limits with creditors, but, Harzog says folks should never accumulate more than 10% of their credit limits because this counts BIG when future bankers, credit card companies, and even employers pull your pinger (check your credit viability to see what you are up to).   She is a great teacher of all things credit and her books are worthy to be read cover to cover and more than once.    She reads all the fine print so you don’t have to, then she regurgitates all that in terms we can all understand without wading through legal jargon.  I loved this book I highly recommend it and all of her other books.   She cuts out all the blah blah blah stuff and gets to the heart of what you really need to know.   10 stars for this one!

The Debt Escape Plan

The Debt Escape Plan by Beverly Blair Harzog        Paperback Book:  288 pages   

Most Excellent Book!  Harzog is a recovering credit card junkie herself.  After a binge of a decade of overspending and getting into credit card debt to the tune of nearly $20,000 dollars she tried all the consumer credit counselling, etc. plans and nothing worked.   Finally she came up with her plan that works for her and is so easy to understand and do.   This book walks you through from a quiz to understand what kind of and how you accumulate debt, what your triggers are, etc. because Harzog believes there is no one-size fits all credit plan to understanding the importance of your debt ratio, which I found particularly good as I had never seen that mentioned nor explained in any of the previous books I have read.    She uses humor and laymen's terms to explain things and this was a fast, easy, understandable read.    EXCELLENT!   I highly recommend this book especially for any one looking to get their finances in control. 

The Financial Diet

The Financial Diet by Chelsea Fagan     208 pages

The Financial Diet will teach you:
* how to get good with money in a year.
* the ingredients everyone needs to have a budget-friendly kitchen.
* how to talk about awkward money stuff with your friends.
* the best way to make (and stick to!) a budget.
* how to take care of your house like a grown-up.* what the hell it means to invest (and how you can do it).

Really helpful guide to getting fiscally responsible. Definitely a must read for those transitioning to adulthood or are trying to get control over their spending.

The Year of Less

The Year of Less  by Cait Flanders   187 pages

In this nonfiction book, the author found herself stuck in the consumerism cycle: earn more, buy more, want more, and repeat.  She challenged herself to live and document a year of spending less, and consuming less, from decluttering her physical living space through organizing the mess of her life. This book could have been distilled into a fraction of the pages…more appropriate to a blog format, which stands to reason as this project was a blog. Spoiler alter – Flanders dedicates the majority of the book recounting various excesses in her (past life) – alcohol, drugs, food, debt – and throws in memories of failed relationships, career conundrums, and oodles of self-doubt – so that it feels overall like I’ve just been through a year of someone else’s therapy.

Posted By:   Regina C.  

Ageproof

Ageproof: Living Longer Without Running Out of Money or Breaking a Hip by Jean Chatzky and Michael F. Roizen     Audio Book:  12 hours, 30 minutes     Hardback Book:  352 pages 


This is the first book that I have read that ties a person’s health and their finances together for an overall healing of both for a better life.    There are so many laser pinpoint truths the reader will find here.    If your finances are out of whack, if you have lost control of the things you owe, if shopping over exceeds your income – your financial health is bad.   If you aren’t taking good care of your body, if you aren’t exercising and monitoring what you are putting into your body  and you stuff it with a lot of feel good but bad for your health foods (transfats, empty calories, too much sugar, starch and the wrong kind of fats) you are going to gain weight, feel sluggish, and lose control over your health.    Financial expert,  Jean Chatzky brings excellent financial advice throughout the book and Dr. Micheal Roizen,   the Chief Wellness Officer at the Cleveland Clinic offers terrific tips to improve your life through taking care of your health in order to stay focused and clear minded, feel energized naturally and by the way, he is pro coffee, and he even teaches on how decluttering can affect your life, your health and even help you get a handle on your finances.    Great book.   Very inspiring while remaining very down to earth and readable and better yet, doable.   I really like the way these three topics were brought together to improve life in a total makeover comprehensive kind of way.  I have always seen the connection between these 3 areas in life and I was very happy to find a book that addressed all those issues as being equal parts that when made right bring about the best life we can hope for.    Standing ovation for this one.    Bravo, Jean Chatzky and Micheal F. Roizen.    The American embodiment of the principles of Feng Shui and yin and yang – balancing our lives brings balance with all that is us and all that we can become for our better and the betterment we can bring to not just our world but to the world.    Excellent work.

The 21 Day Financial Fast

The 21 Day Financial Fast: Your Path to Financial Peace and Freedom by Michelle Singletary        Paperback: 255 pages            

Excellent book!   This book answered many questions I have had regarding finances that I had not found anywhere else and in terms that weren’t so over my head I had to look up accounting and law terms to decipher.  Michelle Singletary is a terrific writer and does not give you a bunch of vague stuff this lady cuts right to the chase in a direct manner that you only get from someone who really knows you.   Michelle Singletary knows us people!   We can’t pull anything over on her she has been there herself and knows from want to prosperity.   She knows from true need and she knows from desire to have which is not need but greed.   She shows in simple steps how to set up a budget, how to arrive at your financial worth, how to keep going when the tightening of your belt may not be what your family, friends and lovers want to hear from you.   She also tells you how to keep heart for 21 days –just 3 weeks-to get your spending under your notice and under control.   She knows how easy it is to spend when all you have to do is whip out a credit card and she cites studies that show how when the average individual is using a credit card instead of cash more will be spent because psychologically we don’t link the credit card to cash – we think – oh we have a month or more to pay this off so why not get a few more things.   During the 21 days of the financial fast - not a doing without food fast but a doing without spending fast for 3 weeks except for only what is needed not what is wanted - Michelle wants you to only spend cash because when we see our cash going out we find it dearer and want to spenf less because when we actually see our hard earned dollars that we have toiled for leaving our hand to go into someone else’s cash register, it makes us pause and settle for only 2 things when Visa and Mastercard would have given us the go ahead to purchase 5 or 6 things.   Cash says, “You want WHAT???   Credit says, “Oh Baby let me get that for you!”   And we believe it.   Credit seduces us subliminally.   Like my 6 year old nephew told me once, “don’t worry about it, just write a check!”   I schooled him, “Yeah, but, I have to have the money in the bank to cover that check!”   Michelle Singletary will become your new best friend in this book or at least you will want her to be.    She is the mentor we all need with wise councel in all things financial and like a best friend who gives you that dose of reality when you’re thinking,  “I want to go on that trip,”  but actually you owe 14 creditors and only have $5 in cash to your name thinking you’ll just put everything on your credit cards.   Michelle counters like the voice of your conscience, “That trip is a WANT not a NEED no matter how badly you want to go.   If you really want to go on this trip – pay your creditors first then save up to go when you are financially able when you will be able to truly enjoy yourself without the worry of how you are going to pay your bills when you get back.”    This lady knows her stuff.   I recommend this book to everyone on the planet.