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Summary: Cover to Cover
Review: This book has helped me on my way to financial independence. It helped me devise a plan to 'see' where my money goes. It isn't a book about budgeting, but a book on living. It sets obtainable goals that you can use right away, and the results are stagering. I recommend this book to anyone who needs to get a hold of their finances and their life. This book contains clear examples of charts that can be used as well as practical advise.Authors Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin give you a glimpse into their life by using their past experiences to illustrate how they developed the program and how it has worked for them. They also use the lives of other individuals from different walks of life. I feel this gives the book more diversity and makes the goals realistic. Books on budgeting are fine, but this one is a must have.
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Summary: The most important book you can read, next to the Bible
Review: The subject says it all! This book is life-changing in ways you can't explain to someone who hasn't read the book. The steps are logical in their presentation, and stunning in the obviousness (ie: how come nobody else is saying this stuff?). Most importantly, this book is NOT about budgeting. This book is about evaluating your relationship with money, and becomeing _aware_ of how you're spending it. It's not about pinching pennies that someone else is telling you to pinch, it's about finding out where you're spending money _unconsciously_ and deciding whether it's worth it TO YOU. My wife and I went from two full time incomes, weekly trips to the bookstore, eating out 5 or more dinners a week, and buying junk food at the store in one of our two financed cars and with big credit card debt to debt free, two paid-for cars, a house, saving about 33% of our income (although my wife is about to quit and come home full time) and with a 3 year old baby boy. This system WORKS, and is critical for an individual's financial life.
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Summary: motivating!
Review: This book is wonderful! It changed my prespective of money, made me rethink how I viewed and handled money, and put my husband and I on the right track to reach or future goals. Terrific!
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Summary: Trying to Simplify
Review: I loved this book! The ideas and steps in the book are not technically difficult, but they require developing a discipline around money. My husband and I have been picking away at the steps for several months now. But so far we have gotten out of nearly all credit debt and are on our way to being debt free. We have learned to ask better questions about what it is spending money does for us and what we get out of the money we spend. Although the authors caution about relying only on one step, if you do nothing else with this book follow their advice about meticuously tracking expenses and determining your "real" hourly rate.
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Summary: Your Money or YOur life
Review: Excellent book on setting your mind straight if you have been trained that "more is always better". This is an awesome book, very straight forward. My only complaint, well two,it is very "liberally" slanted. If you can get over that you'll be ok, and Im not liberal at all so you should enjoy it. 2) They recommend not budgeting??? Why? How will you know where you are if you don't. If everyone's conscious worked, we wouldn't need weight loss, financial planning, etc. Other than that solid book. One of the best I have ever read. Very good for materialistic people like myself...er...at least used to be.
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Summary: Change your life with this book!
Review: This is truly one of the best books that I have ever read. Not only is it enjoyable and easy to read, but the authors give good examples of how people can change their relationship with money and take control of their life. This isn't like other "money" books because this one really advocates a paradigm shift and encourages you to place emphasis in your life on things that are really most important to you. My wife and I follow many of the ideas presented in this book and it has helped us work less and spend more time with family than we would if we were still driven by consumerism.
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Summary: The strategies in this book work - We're proof!
Review: We've heard acquaintances and strangers alike bemoan the financial impossibilities of living in the modern age - but we don't buy it. We are both considered, by local Union representatives, to be among the "poorly compensated," meaning that neither of us makes more than $16.00 per hour (in fact we make considerably less: $8.10 and $9.50/hr.). Despite this so called handicap, we have been able to purchase our dream home in our dream town (to live in when we are financially independent in about three and a half years from now) and a local condo, to live in while we are still reliant on full time employment. We have been able to save anywhere from $700 to $1700 per month, without being misers, scrooges, or malnourished in any way (in fact, we've made a personal commitment to buy 85-100% of our food from organically grown sources). We own a small, reliable car - with dents. We carpool. We take small vacations about twice a year. We make thoughtful purchases as necessary. We make, on average, double payments on our student loan, and are currently applying an extra $150.00 per month to our dream home's mortgage. Last year we saved almost $15,000 and paid down more than $3000 on our student loan. Our current monthly savings rate is $1500/month, exclusive of extra loan and mortgage payments. For more information, check out ... ... to read our story. Buy this book, it can change your life.
Rating:
Summary: A must read
Review: It may sound like a cliche, but this is truly one of those books that could change your life. Very quick and easy read, but full of practical and thought-provoking information and insight on how we look at money, and how it can alter the way we actually live our lives. The book also outlines very practical and conservative methods for long-term investments.
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Summary: Your morals or you life
Review: He spends his time moralizing about the evils of western society rather than giving a practical workable system for managing family finances. When he gets around to a system it's overly encumbered with record keeping and unworkable. A good book only for the most fastidious accountant.
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Summary: Stick to the Topic, Please!
Review: This book seemed so promising. I'm constantly working to hone my frugality skills and look for better ways of handling my family's finances, and the other reviews of this book seemed to indicate that it would assist me in that endeavor. Instead, I feel like I'm trapped inside my eighth grade Biology class--forced to listen to the inane ramblings of a patronizing tree-hugging hippie. If I wanted to read the tired old "Mother Earth" and global sustainablility arguments every other paragraph, I'd pick up a copy of Paul Erlich. If the "do it for the earth" brand of anti-capitalism does it for you, you may like this book. If not, you'll have a hard time choking down all the proselytizing.
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