Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

Teach Your Child About Finances With This Book

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As a mom and personal finance blogger, I get the opportunity to review many books.  One that I just reviewed that I can’t recommend highly enough is Sunny Lee’s book, Is Your Child a Money Master or a Money Monster?

Money Master or Money Monster?

Sunny Lee is a financial advisor, and she has taken the time to teach her twin sons about money.  In fact, her strategy has worked so well that she’s sharing all her techniques in this book.

Lee has a variety of strategies for teaching kids about money in a fun, incentive-filled way.

Offer rewards.  Lee’s strategy of offering her children rewards helps shape their behavior in a positive direction.  For instance, when her sons were in 1st grade, Lee developed the Morning Stuff Allowance Project.  Each morning, her kids had to get up when their alarms went off, tidy their rooms, get dressed, pack their backpacks, and make and eat their own breakfast and get to school on time.  If they did this every day, they earned $3 a week.

While the kids were motivated by the money, they were also unknowingly developing skills that would help them through the rest of their lives.  Even better, Lee didn’t have to fight with her boys in the morning to get up and get their chores done.  Everyone in her household could enjoy a more peaceful morning.

Play games.  As the boys got older, part of Lee’s strategy to teach them about money was to give them a safe place to experiment.  She did this by finding a variety of free, money based games online.  Her boys experimented online with running a coffee shop.  They had to decide when to discount their coffee based on the season, how much inventory to buy, etc.

Try out your skills in the real world.  Finally, Lee let her sons experiment and try their money skills in the real world.  An important component of this was to let them fail in small ways.  One son spent a large sum of money on a hat, which he loved, but then he didn’t have money available for a while after that.  Her other son learned from his brother and bought a hat at a discounted market so he wouldn’t use all of his money on one item.

Lee’s book contains seven strategies to teach your kids about money (and as a byproduct, teach them personal responsibility).  One thing I loved about the book and her strategy is that she keeps adding layers to her plan.  For instance, after her kids mastered the Morning Stuff Allowance Project, that remained in place, but Lee added on the Special Incentive Project.  If her boys chose to, they could earn additional money throughout the week by completing a book report, doing an art project, etc.  Again, she helped her children grow academically and artistically through an incentive.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to not only give their children a strong financial footing, but also a strong work ethic.

Have you read this book?  What is your favorite book to teach kids about money?

Debt Heroes

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Debt Heroes Cover Art
Debt Heroes

By: Jeff Rose & Ben Edwards

Ben and Jeff approached me a couple of weeks ago and asked if I’d like to read a copy of their book, Debt Heroes.  They released the book as a companion to the Debt Movement that Jeff started back in February.  They even offered it for free on Amazon for a couple of days.  I was hoping to release this review during those days, but I just couldn’t get it finished in time.  Unfortunately, it’s back up to it’s regular price of $2.99 (free for Amazon Prime members).  That’s probably good for me, as I’ll be using my Amazon affiliate links to link to the book here, but I’m a bit disappointed that you won’t be able to take advantage of the free deal.

Ben and Jeff set out to write a book about debt heroes.  Everyday people that you and I, the readers, can look up to as heroes in the fight against debt.  Inside the book, you’ll find profiles of 21 debt heroes that have conquered debt, and some tips from each on how they did it.  What I found even more interesting in each profile is that each debt hero points out what their weakness was.  Not surprisingly, it isn’t the same for each one.  Also not surprisingly, that weakness played a huge part in each of their debt story.

The book is a pretty quick read (about 177 pages if it were printed), and it’s full of inspirational stories about getting out of debt.  It’s not another “get out of debt with these steps” book, but a book to give you inspiration in your own debt battle.  Of course, the hope is that you read it and it gives you the push that you need to become your own debt hero.

I think I would have liked to have seen a little bit more of each debt hero’s story.  Each of the stories is accompanied by a link to where you can read the full story, so it’s accessible; I just haven’t progressed in my kindle reading to be clicking on links and such.

If you’re looking for a little inspirational reading to help you keep on track (or get on track) with your debt elimination, I think you’ll find what you need inside the (electronic) pages of this book.  Also, remember that you don’t need a Kindle to read the book.  Amazon has Kindle apps for Android and iOS phones, as well as for PC and Apple computers, and most tablets.

Pick up Debt Heroes today.

You’ll read about it at the end of the book, but Jeff and Ben have also created a “Debt Heroes Club” that you can join to get more tips and inspiration at DebtHeroes.com.

Your Money or Your Life

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Your Money or Your Life

By: Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin

When this book first came onto my radar as a book I might like to read, it was with reviews from my fellow personal finance bloggers that described it as one that will change your life, and that will make your finances follow you rather than the other way around.  Both of those descriptions are pretty accurate.

For someone like myself, who’s been writing on personal finance for over 5 years (Beating Broke turns 4 next month!), I’ve seen just about every bit of advice and every bit of financial knowledge that there is out there.  Or, at least I think I have.  Then something like this book comes along and puts it all together in a different way, or expresses it in a slightly different way, and I learn something new.

So, here’s the short review.  If you find yourself struggling with your money, and with how your money and your life can meet, this is most certainly a book for you.  It’s not your typical personal finance book that’s going to tell you how to balance your checkbook, what to spend on (and what not to), or anything of the sort.  What it is going to do is give you the tools to tracking what you’re spending your money on and then coming to terms with whether those spending habits are habits that are putting you on a track towards a much more fulfilled life.  They go a bit further than that, and get into how you can take your reformed spending habits, track them, and then turn your life into something that you want it to be, that uses money as a tool to further your life-long goals rather than postpone them.

It’s not just a book for those that are struggling with money, either.  I found several small things that I’ll be working on implementing over the next few months that I hope will bring my finances into further alignment with goals and ambitions that have little to do with work, or money.

Have you read it?  What was your reaction?  Did you follow it’s steps, and how did they help (or not) you?