The editors of Woman’s Day (of which Mary Hunt is a contributing editor) have compiled an impressive list of tips in this easy to use, handy volume. Mary Hunt, known to all frugal readers as the author of Debt-Proof Living, Tiptionary, The Complete Cheapskate, and many others, contributes a foreword and material throughout; her likeable style is very much in evidence here.
The tips are organized in three comprehensive sections:
Assessing Your Financial Picture
This section helps you evaluate your current money profile, your money personality (by comparing your financial style with the Desperate Housewives’ characters) and examines excuses we all use to avoid dealing with our money issues. There’s a good chapter on “Money and Marriage” and all the issues thereof, and advice on transitioning into a saving mentality.
Save More, Spend Less
Once your mind is made up to change, this section contains the nuts and bolts on how to effect that change by getting out of debt and beginning to save; it contains a “Five-Step Plan to Take Charge of Your Money” and advice on how to avoid common money blunders, including the “Biggest Financial Mistakes Women Make.” The rest of this section is just jam-packed with tip after tip on saving money in every category you can imagine. Lots of useful and specific suggestions here!
Building Wealth
After all the saving begins, this section advises you on how to increase your new-found wealth and how to bring in additional income. Investing tips, financial education for children, part-time jobs and yard sales are all covered here.
The book ends with a list of online resources and an extensive bibliography of print sources. Living Fiscally Fit is very obviously geared toward the female reader but any reader can benefit from most of its advice. The book’s simple, straightforward style is very appealing and makes it a valuable addition to your financial library, though the lack of an index does have some impact on its usefulness. Better break out the highlighter for this one, as Mary Hunt suggests in the foreword!
Book Information:
Living Fiscally Fit:
1000 Ways to Get Out of Debt & Build Financial Wealth
with a foreword by Mary Hunt
2008
Filipacchi Publishing
ISBN: 1-933231-28-9
