The Boss of You

Michelle Goodman recommended On My Own Two Feet: A Modern Girl’s Guide to Personal Finance a few months ago over at her site and I made a note to review it for the resource section of our book. I found the time to read a copy a few weeks back and have been meaning to find the time to recommend it to y’all here. This is a truly excellent book.

Let me count the ways:

• The authors are smart, and they assume you are too. They know you’re reading the book because you want to learn more about personal finances, but they don’t assume that your lack of knowledge in that one area makes you a total bubblehead. I like that.
• It is full of awesome advice followed by direct actions you can take to implement that advice. If they suggest you do something — like reduce the number of credit cards you have — they tell you why you should do it, then provide you with a simple road map for consolidating and getting it done. Easy.
• They don’t assume that you’ve got tonnes of cash. In fact, I’d say if anything they assume you are probably struggling a bit to get by in these modern times, but want to help you make it all work out as painlessly as possible.
• They’re not out to scare you into saving money or to get you to such a place that you’ll obsess about budgets and dollar figures, they’re more interesting in making sure money becomes another tool you can use to empower your life.

This book would be valuable for many gals I know (I certainly learned a few things), though I should note that it is pretty US centric in terms of discussions of things like retirement savings etc. If you’re thinking about starting a business or are in the early stages of getting a business off the ground, getting your personal finances in order is particularly important. That doesn’t mean you need to have all your debt paid off and 2 years savings in the bank, simply that you need to have a realistic picture of what your current finances look like, and some goals for where you’d like to be in the near and further future. This book will definitely help you with all of that.