Informative and comprehensible financial advice, even if rudimentary.
A basic guide to managing money targets financial neophytes.
This easy-to-understand debut is likely to be most appropriate for young singles or marrieds who have limited monetary experience. Certified Financial Planner Collins employs an appropriate, if overused, metaphor—an instruction manual for driving a car—to organize the book’s content. Each automobile function is likened to a financial item; for example, a steering wheel represents “planning,” airbags are “insurance,” and a spare tire equals an “emergency fund.” He also uses acronyms—“U.S.E.” stands for “Understand, Strategize and be Efficient” and “R.I.C.H.” means “Reachable, Individual, Controllable, Happy.” Admittedly gimmicks, these techniques still add a certain vitality to what otherwise might be a dull subject. The material itself treads familiar ground, covering such topics as setting financial goals; utilizing compound interest; budgeting; using bank, credit, and debit cards; and examining investing fundamentals, insurance basics, taxes, and retirement savings plans. One of the more essential chapters turns out to be “How Do I Protect Myself Online?” Here, the author offers a helpful overview of cybersecurity threats, provides examples of phishing, and suggests some ways to combat hackers and other bad actors. One aspect of the book falls short: Three individuals (Kim, a teacher; Darrel, a dentist; and Harper, a tech executive) are introduced early on. Each fictional person represents a different income and lifestyle, and while the character sketches about them are superb, the players appear again only in some of the exercise questions. This is a missed opportunity: It probably would have been more effective to incorporate their experiences with money into the text. Nevertheless, the content is generally sound: Each chapter features examples of making decisions about money as well as review questions, exercises, and a summary, very much like a scholastic textbook. An online “Financial Literacy Test Level 1” is supplied at the end of the volume along with “certification.” Collins writes: “Feel free to use the certification on your resume, help teach your friends about money, and of course prove to everyone that you learned a ton.” The manual also includes a useful glossary of financial terms.
Informative and comprehensible financial advice, even if rudimentary.Pub Date: March 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5445-0628-9
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Houndstooth Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.
Want to get ahead in business? Consult a dictionary.
By Wharton School professor Berger’s account, much of the art of persuasion lies in the art of choosing the right word. Want to jump ahead of others waiting in line to use a photocopy machine, even if they’re grizzled New Yorkers? Throw a because into the equation (“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”), and you’re likely to get your way. Want someone to do your copying for you? Then change your verbs to nouns: not “Can you help me?” but “Can you be a helper?” As Berger notes, there’s a subtle psychological shift at play when a person becomes not a mere instrument in helping but instead acquires an identity as a helper. It’s the little things, one supposes, and the author offers some interesting strategies that eager readers will want to try out. Instead of alienating a listener with the omniscient should, as in “You should do this,” try could instead: “Well, you could…” induces all concerned “to recognize that there might be other possibilities.” Berger’s counsel that one should use abstractions contradicts his admonition to use concrete language, and it doesn’t help matters to say that each is appropriate to a particular situation, while grammarians will wince at his suggestion that a nerve-calming exercise to “try talking to yourself in the third person (‘You can do it!’)” in fact invokes the second person. Still, there are plenty of useful insights, particularly for students of advertising and public speaking. It’s intriguing to note that appeals to God are less effective in securing a loan than a simple affirmative such as “I pay all bills…on time”), and it’s helpful to keep in mind that “the right words used at the right time can have immense power.”
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780063204935
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper Business
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
Career and business advice for the hashtag generation. For all its self-absorption, this book doesn’t offer much reflection...
A Dumpster diver–turned-CEO details her rise to success and her business philosophy.
In this memoir/business book, Amoruso, CEO of the Internet clothing store Nasty Gal, offers advice to young women entrepreneurs who seek an alternative path to fame and fortune. Beginning with a lengthy discussion of her suburban childhood and rebellious teen years, the author describes her experiences living hand to mouth, hitchhiking, shoplifting and dropping out of school. Her life turned around when, bored at work one night, she decided to sell a few pieces of vintage clothing on eBay. Fast-forward seven years, and Amoruso was running a $100 million company with 350 employees. While her success is admirable, most of her advice is based on her own limited experiences and includes such hackneyed lines as, “When you accept yourself, it’s surprising how much other people will accept you, too.” At more than 200 pages, the book is overlong, and much of what the author discusses could be summarized in a few tweets. In fact, much of it probably has been: One of the most interesting sections in the book is her description of how she uses social media. Amoruso has a spiritual side, as well, and she describes her belief in “chaos magic” and “sigils,” a kind of wishful-thinking exercise involving abstract words. The book also includes sidebars featuring guest “girlbosses” (bloggers, Internet entrepreneurs) who share equally clichéd suggestions for business success. Some of the guidance Amoruso offers for interviews (don’t dress like you’re going to a nightclub), getting fired (don’t call anyone names) and finding your fashion style (be careful which trends you follow) will be helpful to her readers, including the sage advice, “You’re not special.”
Career and business advice for the hashtag generation. For all its self-absorption, this book doesn’t offer much reflection or insight.Pub Date: May 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-16927-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Portfolio
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
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