Book Review: The Problem With Money? It's Not About The Money!
Filed under: Family Finances, Book Reviews
One of the interesting things about writing about lifestyle finance is that people will send you books about how to deal with money problems.
Many such books offer basic advice
- make a budget, stick to it, don't make it easy to access your money and finally, stop using your credit cards. Jane Honeck's The Problem with Money? It's Not About the Money! goes deeper and suggests that your adult relationship with money stems from your first or even subconscious childhood impressions of money. Only by acknowledging these influences can you, according to Honeck, become 'financially conscious.'
With a sub-title like "Mastering the Unexamined Beliefs that Drive our Financial Lives" the book is going to make you look back at your life and try to discover what helped form your relationship with money. Honeck suggests that it could be the influence of your parents by them not talking about money or talking about not having enough money; society by glamourizing people who have a lot of money or even religious beliefs that say money is the root of all evil.
Honeck identifies money beliefs in seven key areas and explores how they influence behaviour. She then takes all of those influences and, through a series of tools and exercises, takes the reader through a self-discovery process that ideally changes the relationship between the reader and money.
Tone
Honeck is a Certified Professional Accountant and a Certified Empowerment Trainer so the book is a blend of the pragmatic and the warmly helpful. Imagine your accountant coming to do your taxes or financial planning and also offering therapy.
Information and Understandability
Honeck focuses on one thing - helping the reader get his or her financial house in order by understanding their relationship with money. There is no talk of investments or even of budgeting. It's an emotional and spiritual journey to financial enlightenment. The book is an easy read with little or no complicated language.
The Problem With Money is laid out in a logical way, starting from an overall discussion of how money is viewed in North American society, working through the reader's personal (and troubled) relationship with money, then to implementing change and becoming financially conscious.
Extras
Honeck's book has worksheets which are to be used in conjunction with reading the book.
Is It Worth the Money?
At 109 pages (not including the worksheets) and $14.14 from Amazon.ca, it's a breezy read, easy to do in less than a day, longer if you do the exercises.
The book doesn't promise untold wealth. As mentioned before, it doesn't even promise to help you create a budget. What it does do is offer a different way of looking at money, making the reader acknowledge the conscious and sub-conscious influences on their spending. If you like that self-awareness, then this book is for you.
Related Topics
Book Review: Homegirl
Many such books offer basic advice
- make a budget, stick to it, don't make it easy to access your money and finally, stop using your credit cards. Jane Honeck's The Problem with Money? It's Not About the Money! goes deeper and suggests that your adult relationship with money stems from your first or even subconscious childhood impressions of money. Only by acknowledging these influences can you, according to Honeck, become 'financially conscious.'With a sub-title like "Mastering the Unexamined Beliefs that Drive our Financial Lives" the book is going to make you look back at your life and try to discover what helped form your relationship with money. Honeck suggests that it could be the influence of your parents by them not talking about money or talking about not having enough money; society by glamourizing people who have a lot of money or even religious beliefs that say money is the root of all evil.
Honeck identifies money beliefs in seven key areas and explores how they influence behaviour. She then takes all of those influences and, through a series of tools and exercises, takes the reader through a self-discovery process that ideally changes the relationship between the reader and money.
Tone
Honeck is a Certified Professional Accountant and a Certified Empowerment Trainer so the book is a blend of the pragmatic and the warmly helpful. Imagine your accountant coming to do your taxes or financial planning and also offering therapy.
Information and Understandability
Honeck focuses on one thing - helping the reader get his or her financial house in order by understanding their relationship with money. There is no talk of investments or even of budgeting. It's an emotional and spiritual journey to financial enlightenment. The book is an easy read with little or no complicated language.
The Problem With Money is laid out in a logical way, starting from an overall discussion of how money is viewed in North American society, working through the reader's personal (and troubled) relationship with money, then to implementing change and becoming financially conscious.
Extras
Honeck's book has worksheets which are to be used in conjunction with reading the book.
Is It Worth the Money?
At 109 pages (not including the worksheets) and $14.14 from Amazon.ca, it's a breezy read, easy to do in less than a day, longer if you do the exercises.
The book doesn't promise untold wealth. As mentioned before, it doesn't even promise to help you create a budget. What it does do is offer a different way of looking at money, making the reader acknowledge the conscious and sub-conscious influences on their spending. If you like that self-awareness, then this book is for you.
Related Topics
Book Review: Homegirl
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