The Wealth Cure

By: Hill Harper

When you first see the image of who Hill Harper is (He’s an actor on CSI:N.Y.), you assume that this is just another book by a celebrity to boost his status and pad his wallet.  What you get when you read this book, however, is another thing entirely.  Not only is this not a book that Harper had someone write for him and then published using his name, it’s a thought provoking book that happens to be about wealth.  If you’ve read many books on money and wealth, you know that a majority of them are dry, boring books to read.  Harper manages to take what is a very important message about the role that wealth plays in our lives and melds it into a very engrossing story about life, success, and the real worth of wealth in our lives.

He starts the story with a short few paragraphs setting up the story for the rest of the book.  Recently diagnosed with cancer, he decided to take a train from Los Angeles to Chicago.  The rest of the story is about the revelations he came to while riding the train.  It’s a wonderful book that really cuts to the core of what wealth really is, and how, so often, we pervert it into something entirely different.

This is a book about life, and how the way we treat our wealth, build our wealth, and live our lives really can make a difference, not only in our life, but in the life of others.  I would highly recommend reading it, especially if you find yourself struggling with the role that money plays in your life.

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this book for free as a review copy.

What motivates your finances? What is the purpose that drives you to reduce your debt and make more money?

For me, the one thing that keeps coming back when I ask myself those same questions is the idea of freedom. The start of my own personal finance revolution started with some realizations. I realized that the financial path I was on wasn’t getting me anywhere else but broke. I wasn’t going to hit the lottery or discover some miracle money maker that would make me a millionaire. But, that isn’t my purpose. It’s merely the keystone that sparked my current journey.

When I began my journey, I decided that I needed to learn how to handle my finances. The one name that kept reappearing in my reading was Dave Ramsey and his “Total Money Makeover” book. So, I bought it and read it. And, something he said in that book brought my true motivational factor to the front. Yes, I wanted to have less debt and make more money. But, what I really wanted, was freedom.

He spoke about being debt free and having the freedom to tell your boss to “take this job and shove it.” What a thought. So many of us have to go to work every day to make enough money to pay our bills. But, what if we minimized those bills and had the freedom to do whatever we wanted to do to make money?

That is what motivates me to remove myself from the debt treadmill, and join the select few who have the freedom to pick up and do something that they enjoy! What a freedom!

What about you? What really motivates you to become debt free?

Recently, I got the chance to review David Bachs new book, “Debt Free for Life” (Look for the review coming up on Yakezie.com!). David was kind enough to answer a few questions that I send to him. Some great stuff in there as well! Here’s the interview:

BB: Most of your previous books seem to be aimed towards people who, while likely in debt, just need a bit of a push in the right direction. Debt Free for Life, however, seems to be aimed more at people who are deep in debt and spiraling out of control. Is that what you intended? If so, what made you decide to move in that direction?

David:

For over two years I have been a weekly contributor on NBC’s Today Money 911 segment, where viewers ask me live financial questions. These questions used to be primarily focused on investment and wealth building; however, over the months I noticed that debt related questions started to dominate the segment week after week. I was also getting tons of debt questions from people on my website (www.finishrich.com ) and on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/davidbach ). So, I decided to write Debt Free For Life as a guide intended for anyone who has debt and wants to get out—fast!

It offers an honest plan that will work—if you work it. I know some people are picking up my book because they are really drowning in debt and are looking for a life preserver. I believe this book can be the life raft that gets those people back to dry land. But let me be clear: you don’t need to be in over your head to benefit from my book. The truth is when you’re in debt; it doesn’t matter if you owe $1,000 or $100,000. I believe all debt is bad debt if you don’t have an action plan to pay if off. Debt Free For Life is about a totally new approach to building financial freedom that stresses “paying down your debt” so you can take control of your financial life. I teach my readers a revolutionary new system that makes paying off your debt easier than it ever has been—no matter how much you owe!

BB: You spend a good deal of the book talking about subjects like debt settlement, time-barred debt, and bankruptcy.  Those are topics that seem to be frowned upon by many of the mainstream personal finance folks. Were you afraid, while writing and publishing the book, that those same personal finance people would chastise you for bringing the subjects up?

David:

No, I wasn’t afraid to bring up those subjects. People should be educated about the good, the bad and the ugly of personal finances –each person’s situation is different – so it’s imperative to provide the readers with all the options, information, and tools possible so that they can make the right decision based on their own personal financial position. I think a lot of times people can get themselves into these sticky financial situations by being undereducated and misinformed about what options are available to them.

Time-barred debt, debt settlement and bankruptcy are all options that can be considered depending on your financial situation but you will need to take a very close look at your finances and you may be required to seek a professional in order to choose one of these options.  With time-barred debt, you need to consult an attorney before taking any action, but yes, I do believe that you’re entitled to use your legal rights in that regard to get out of debt and get back on your feet financially. Time barred debt is basically the equivalent of the statute of limitations in regards to your finances and debts.

As for debt settlement you can usually use the rule of thumb – if it sounds too good to be true—it probably is too good to be true.  I would never let anyone I love go that route– but there are a few narrow circumstances where it might make sense, which I detail in Debt Free For Life – if you are thinking about a debt settlement company make sure you check all your options and check them out with the Better Business Bureau.

Finally, there is Bankruptcy. Bankruptcies reached 1.5 million in 2010, the highest in five years.  With so many people who are drowning in debt and turning to bankruptcy I thought it was necessary to include a chapter explaining how it works, when to use it and how long it will take to recover. When it comes to bankruptcy, I always stress that you get professional financial and legal advice first, and to think of it as a temporary solution to a temporary problem – it doesn’t excuse you from making real changes in your life so you’re never in that situation again. But you need to know that filing bankruptcy is also not the end of your financial life. Let me stress—if you think that bankruptcy may be in your near future make sure that you don’t wait too long – act now and read Debt Free For Life!

BB: What further advice, that isn’t included in the book, would you give to a reader about to read the book?

David:

I would say if you are serious about getting out of debt and staying out of debt you should build a support team of your friends and family. Have them know what you are doing, see if they will join you in your pledge to a debt free life and use them as a support system. One of my favorite success stories is of a woman by the name of Genevieve – who has a “DOLP Team” at work that keep each other on track during their journey toward financial freedom – they pick each other up when they fall down, they work together and share their progress.

To provide further support for people on their journey toward financial freedom I encourage anyone in debt to join my Debt Free Challenge at debtfreechallenge.com. Challenge participants will be automatically entered to win $10,000 toward paying off their debts. Joining the challenge will help you commit to a debt-free life and stay motivated with free information and a community of support from others pledging to pay off their debts. Finally, you can join my Facebook community at www.facebook.com/davidbach – here you can share your accomplishments, ask questions, and speak to like minded individuals.

BB: What do you feel is the current state of personal finance?  (By that I mean, do you feel that people as a whole are moving in the right direction when it comes to their finances, or are we still stuck in a bit of a quagmire?)

David:

The truth is millions of Americans are buried in debt and want out! There is a movement in this country right now to pay down debt and save money. Savings rates are up to 6%, the highest in two decades, and debt levels are falling. One credit bureau estimates that more than 45 million people (or roughly one out of every five Americans with a credit score) want to improve their financial well being through debt reduction. Furthermore, according to creditcards.com almost $200 billion of credit card debt was paid off last year – so I think that people are starting to see the light about getting their personal finances under control – starting with paying off their debt.

People are ready to take action—smart action—that will help you become financially free and secure. And this is why I have written Debt Free For Life to give people new ideas and tools to help them be smarter about their money and their debt. The best system I’ve found for that is Debt Wise, which is an online tool that automatically pulls debt information from your Equifax credit report and uses it to create a priority debt payment plan while simultaneously tracking your progress towards debt freedom.  This online program basically does what I have taught for years as the “DOLP method” and does it automatically for you.  To get you started Equifax is offering a FREE trial of Debt Wise that so you can see how it will save you time and money while helping you pay down your debt.

I think that people have a lot of good intentions when it comes to their personal finances, but they still struggle with debt and don’t know how to start tackling it. Equifax, just released a report listing the top metro areas in the country hardest hit by credit card debt, and in many places, the percent of household income going to credit cards is more than 15 percent – and that doesn’t include car payments, mortgage payments, etc.  People are getting tired of the routine of going work, making money, spending money, going to work, making money, spending money. It’s time to free yourself from this vicious cycle by taking control of your finances.  I would encourage people to take a good, honest look at what their share of debt is and then make a plan of action for paying that debt down.

BB: Finally, what advice would you give to personal finance bloggers like myself?
David:

Be an advocate for your readers – they look to you for financial advice, so treat them as you would your best friend when dispensing advice. Act with integrity and don’t hesitate to tell the truth about personal finance topics, even ones that seem controversial. And always be responsible in how you present different subjects, being sure to fact-check and look at both sides of the issue first, but have an opinion. The more you care about your readers the more they will care about what you write and share.

I also just want to say thank you for taking the time to my book read and ask me these questions.  I really appreciate the support and the opportunity to help inform your readers!

My thanks to David for taking the time out of his very busy schedule to answer my questions. Again, I’ve got a review of the “Debt Free For Life” book coming up on Yakezie.com.  (I’ll link it when it goes live!) If you’d like to give the Equifax Debt Wise system a try (I’ll have a review coming up) I was able to secure a free trial for my readers.  If you go to http://www.debtwise.com/beatingbroke, you can sign up and give it a spin for free.  At the end of the free trial, you will be charged, so make sure that you cancel before the free trial expires!

Early Retirement Extreme

By: Jacob Lund Fisker

When many of us think of retirement, we think of some far off time in our future when we’ve saved enough money and reached an age where the government will allow us to withdraw our money without significant penalties.  When Jacob Lund Fisker thinks about retirement, he’s thinking about the here and now.  You see, Jacob retired when he was 33.  How?  By following  the principles that he outlines in the book.

What this book has done for me is to turn much of what I thought about personal finance on it’s head.  At this point, I can’t say whether I will attempt to try and join the ERE army or not, but I can guarantee you that I will be looking at things from a different point of view from here on out.

The book itself is dense.  Dense in that it’s packed full of information.  There’s no way that one read through will be enough.  You’ve either got to read it several times, or supplement that first reading with plenty of reading of Jacob’s blog.  It reads (the book, not the blog) much like a textbook does.  It’s even segmented into sections the way a textbook would be.  Luckily, it’s not all facts and figures and there’s a bit of discernible humanity in there as well.  Jacob lays out how he managed to retire at 33 by some extreme saving.  Then he goes into how he lives off of less than $10,000 a year that he draws from his investments and a few odd jobs (that he enjoys) during the year.

By no means is the Early Retirement Extreme going to be for everyone.  It’s a hard read.  But, it is well worth the read.  It’s the “thinking man”s personal finance book.  It’s not chock full of anecdotal evidence, but raw hard facts and numbers.  It will change the way you think about personal finance, and life in general.

You can buy it directly from the Printer or from Amazon(click the picture)

Psych Yourself Rich

By: Farnoosh Torabi

As a personal finance blogger, I read a lot of books on personal finance.  These books range from the simplified budgeting and saving books to more complex books (like Early Retirement Extreme, which I’m reading now).  In all honesty, Psych yourself rich lands somewhere in the middle.  Parts of the book are over-simplified.  Other parts seem to make things more complex than they should be.

One of the biggest things that I had against the book was that it wasn’t written for me.  What does that mean?  Well, the book was written for the younger folks out there.  The 20-somethings that are struggling with their careers, relationships, and money.  I’m a 30-something (just barely, though) that is pretty secure where I work, married, and have a pretty good grasp on my money despite my money being a bit unruly at times.  Many of the topics just didn’t apply directly.  I certainly could take the general lesson involved and it could apply, but at the surface, it isn’t the same.  Also, it’s more of a primer.  It doesn’t go in depth on a lot of the topics, choosing to cover more topics, but shallowly.

The one thing that I really enjoyed about this book.  Yes, enjoyed is the right word.  Even for as strange as it may seem to use that word with a non-fiction finance book.  I’m a sucker for the psychology of things.  The why we do what we do.  Torabi did an excellent job of exploring the psychology behind many of the financial moves that we make.  Speaking from experience, she wrote extensively on the psychology of the layoff.  I, personally, have never experienced a layoff.  I’ve been lucky.  I know there are plenty who have in the last few years especially.  More important than the psychological effect of the layoff, she takes on the attitude you need to take once you’ve been laid-off in order to quickly recover and gain your feet again.

The psychology aside, this is an excellent book for a beginner in personal finance.  Someone who finds themselves deeply in debt, or facing repayment issues based on a layoff.  It’s also aimed at those (like me) who like to know why they are doing something, or why they are feeling the way they are about their finances.  The book is well written, with some very nice asides that give it a personal touch.

Why are we so clueless about the stock market

By: Mariusz Skonieczny

Mariusz could have just as aptly named this book something like “The Beginners guide to the stock market” because that is what the book is; essentially.  He takes a very low level approach to the stock market in an attempt (I believe) to bring the chaos that is the everyday market to a much slower and easier to understand pace.

Even having read the book, and seen some of the examples he used, my mind is still having a hard time with it.  I’ve been so conditioned to see the stock market as this super-duper complex machine that only the smartest and best educated can even begin to understand.  And some of the elements of the stock market are that.  But, at it’s very core, the stock market is nothing more than an exchange for shares of companies.  The beginning of the book makes that abundantly clear.  It goes on from there, to explain some very simple concepts about earnings, e/p ratios, dividends, and stock price.

The book has a couple of failings, in my opinion.  One, it’s terribly short.  At 164 pages, it’s reminiscent of a “how-to” manual or very in depth brochure.  I also think that he took the concepts down to a too simple level.  I would like to believe that a company like Microsoft is similar to a lemonade stand, but I just can’t accept it.  Also, with as much explanation as he gives about the structure of business and the simpler indicators of a business’ health, it would have been nice to see him give a more in depth look at a few of the methods he uses for researching a company.  He very briefly mentions a few, like annual reports, but it would be nice to maybe have examples of where in an annual report to find the information we need and also what form it might take.

The book gives a beginner the tools to understanding the basics of the stock market and to begin investing on the markets simplest level.  And I think that was the goal of the book.  Mission accomplished.  I would have liked to see it have a bit more information on the back end of the stock research and selection process.

Disclaimer: I was given a copy of this book by the author for review purposes.  If you’d like a copy for yourself, you can pick it up at Amazon.  Or, there may be a giveaway here in the coming months, so you could wait for that as well.

Almost a year ago, I released the Beating Broke Guide to your Credit Score.  Since then, a lot has happened and it seems to me that your credit score could become more important than ever as we recover from this economic disaster.  Previously, I had it set up such that you had to sign up for the newsletter to receive a copy.  I’m changing that now.  The graphic in the right sidebar now links directly to the guide in it’s pdf form.

It’s one hundred percent FREE, so please grab a copy and take a look.  I think you might learn something.

You can download it at http://www.beatingbroke.com/BBGCS/BBGCS.pdf

The guide is now available for the Kindle as well!  Please note that the kindle version is not free as the pdf version is.  The pdf version will remain free for downloading.

Isn’t that a funny title.  Even I had to double take to make sure that it wasn’t typed wrong.  But, yes, unautomate it is.  And the man with the plan is Adam Baker.  You likely know him from ManVsDebt.  Maybe not, but if not, you should.  And he’s got a plan to help you unautomate your finances.  From reading his blog, it certainly seems to have worked for him and after reading the review copy of the ebook, it might just work for a few of you out there too.

The concept is pretty simple.  Automating your finances can go to far.  It can cause you to “set it and forget it”. And that can lead to expenses getting out of control.  Which is where Baker’s Unautomate Your Finances comes in.  The eBook is 83 pages of wonderful advice for minimizing your financial footprint and living a life of controlled finances.  He’s got a pretty impressive list of bonuses that you can get when you buy the eBook too!  There’s two awesome interviews.  A video one with Leo Babauta, who writes a ton on minimalist living.  And there’s an audio interview with J.D. Roth of GetRichSlowly.com (And author of Your Money: The Missing Manual).  He’s also throwing in the templates that he’s created for the program’s minimalist budgeting system.  One in .pdf for printing and one in excel for use on a computer.  And finally, he’s giving you all the updates you can handle.

And he’s only charging you $17 for the whole shebang.  I know he’s planning on upping the price to $27 eventually (I don’t know when) so I wouldn’t wait too awful long if your interested.  This program could be a great thing for those of you who are feeling out of control of your finances and want a more simple way of getting them back under control.

You can read a bit more on the program and the eBook by visiting: Unautomate Your Finances

Disclaimer: I’m an affiliate of both Amazon and Unautomate Your Finances.  If you click through and end up buying either the books I’ve linked or the eBook from Baker, I will get a portion of that sale.  That didn’t sway my review, I really do believe all those things I said up there.  Affiliate links like those are how I pay to keep this site operating, so I appreciate when you do click through.  Thanks.

I Will Teach You to be Rich
By: Ramit Sethi

I’ve been a reader of Ramit’s blog (iwillteachyoutoberich.com) for several years now, so when I heard that he was writing a book (and publishing one) I knew it would have to find a way onto my list of books to read. Which it did, and I did read it.

If you aren’t familiar with Ramit’s writing style, it’s some what irreverent. Light and joking, it’s as if he were talking to you over a beer. Which, of course, works pretty well for a book that is meant to be read by a twenty-something single person. There’s a reason it’s on the New York Times Bestseller list!

Ramit takes you through a 9 chapter, 6 week journey of personal finance.  He covers everything from credit cards, savings and checkings, investing, budgeting, and saving for goals.  For the person who finds themselves fresh out of high school or college and overwhelmed by the amount of credit offers and spending temptations, this book is a must read.  Ramit did a very good job of pointing out and explaining some of the very common pitfalls of personal finance, and he does it in a way that makes sense.

There were only a few things that I found I disagreed with.  The biggest of these was what he calls Conscious spending.  As he describes it, it is the act of consciously setting limits and goals for spending so that you don’t overspend.  Where I disagree is when he says that it isn’t a budget.  It certainly sounds like one to me.  While it may not be a budget that accounts for every penny and every category, it still is a budget.  Maybe I’m giving budgeting too broad of a description, but to me any ordered system that sets limits and goals for spending and saving is a budget.  What conscious spending is, is a very high level budget.

Anyone who has read this site for very long will know that I am not a fan of credit cards.  I’m not really a fan of debt at all, but credit cards (to me) are one of the worst offenders.  So, it was with some trepidation that I began the chapter on credit cards.  It was somewhat refreshing to have someone actually explain how they use cards, and why.  Because of my stance on credit cards, however, I couldn’t help but disagree with several points.

Overall, this is a spectacular book for it’s intended audience.  Seasoned personal finance students will surely find a few nuggets, but the rest is likely review.  If you know anyone that is just stepping out on their own personal finance journey, I suggest you get them this book.  Ramit does an excellent job of laying out a wonderful foundation for successful personal finance management.  And, yes, it may even teach you to be rich.

You can pick “I will teach you to be rich” up at Amazon, or just about any corner bookstore. As of this writing, the book is less than $11 at Amazon, which is likely better than you’ll see it anywhere else.

If you want to read Suze Orman’s 2009 Action Plan, here’s your chance to do so for free!  Suze is appearing on Oprah today as part of Oprah’s Best Life Week.  And to commemorate the appearance, Suze and Oprah are making Suze’s book “2009 Action Plan” available for free in pdf format.  It’s only going to be available through next Thursday the 15th of January 2009, so if you want it, go get it now.

The book is currently selling on Amazon for $9.99 but used copies are going for about $5, so you won’t be saving yourself a ton of money, but any little bit is better than nothing. And who knows, you might get a tip that will save you thousands.  Free advice isn’t very good usually, but you can bet that any advice that Suze Orman is giving out is pretty good.

Download the book from the Oprah Website through January 15th, 2009.

Or, buy it from Amazon if you’ve missed the deadline!

Thanks to J.D. for pointing this out!