I was sent The 60 Minute Money Workout to review from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing this past month. The author, Ellie Kay, is a financial expert on Good Money (ABC news), CNBC, CNN, and Fox News.
Here is the summary from the back of the book:
"You can revolutionize your finances in only sixty minutes! Looking for long-term economic stability and not common quick-fix schemes? Now a nationally recognized financial expert and best-selling author, Ellie shares her one-hour-a-week program that has made it possible to take care of her family and do it all debt-free! With entertaining anecdotes, easy-to-follow charts, and practical advice, The 60-Minute Money Workout is both fun and feasible. You’ll be able to:
> Get out of debt and save for your kids’ college
> Have meaningful and debt-free vacations
> Pay cash for your cars
> Make a difference in the world by giving generously
> Find financial peace with your spouse
> Be content with your current circumstances
> Latch onto hope for your financial future
In just one hour a week, you’ll be financially stronger and smarter. Revolutionize your quality of life with the Workout and you’ll never look back!"
This book has taken me a while to review, but I enjoyed reading it. I agree with a lot of the information in the book. I like how she explains that spending one hour a week discussing your finances and making plans can make a difference in your financial life. There are 12 sections in the book that detail how to go about discussing subjects and planning for the future.
Bret and I followed the discussion guidelines for creating a spending plan (budget). It was very helpful to sit down and discuss a budget together. I think it's important for both of us to know what's going on with our finances. Our discussion led us to go and get Quicken and figure out how to make it work for us (we'd bought the Quicken 2008 a few years ago and didn't realize it's only good for 3 years - after that they stop allowing you to download information from the credit cards and banks).
I like the information in this book and the idea of meeting together weekly to discuss the finances. I didn't love the whole work out analogy for the hour meeting (warm up- prep for your money workout, strength training- set financial goals, cardio burn- put goals into action, heart rate- measure financial performance, and cool down- reward yourself).
The author has a great website with a tool center including many different calculators and planning tools. I think this book is a great one to check out from the library and peruse. I'm not sure I would recommend owning it, most of the information in it were things I already knew.
I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.
