Conscious Finance: Uncover Your Hidden Money Beliefs and Transform the Role of Money in Your Life [Paperback]

Rick Kahler (Author), Kathleen Fox (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2007

Conscious Finance is a self-help guide to a complete money makeover. It offers a practical, usable plan for building a comfortable and productive relationship with money, starting from the inside out. Unlike other books on personal finance, it helps you not only with the technical side of money, but also with the often neglected emotional or psychological side of finance. If you feel stuck in a cycle of destructive money decisions, or you worry constantly about money, the problem may have more to do with your emotions than your finances. Money choices are governed, not by logic and facts, but by your deepest emotions and beliefs about money. You can identify and change those unconscious beliefs and the destructive behaviors they generate. This book shows you how. It explains the hidden beliefs about money we all have--beliefs we aren't even aware of, but that can keep us making the same money mistakes over and over. More significantly, it offers detailed and specific exercises to help you change those beliefs in order to successfully change your financial habits for the better. In addition, Conscious Finance offers clear, easy-to-understand explanations and instructions for managing money. For novices, it provides all the information you need to create and follow a workable spending plan, get out of debt, invest wisely, and plan for the legacy you want to leave. For those already knowledgeable about finances, it includes cutting-edge information on asset protection and on choosing financial advisors. The authors, who are financial planner and client, share their own stories with humor and insight, presenting authoritative financial advice in a warm, readable style. This book goes far beyond strategies for solving immediate money problems. It is a unique blend of information on exterior finance (the mechanics of managing money) and interior finance (your emotional relationship with money). Conscious Finance includes exercises for clarifying your life aspirations and setting goals to help you achieve them. This book can help you learn to give money its appropriate place in your life--not as something to be accumulated for its own sake, but as a valuable tool to be respected and used to help you build a satisfying and fulfilling life. This second edition includes a foreword by country music legend Wynonna Judd. She is one of many clients who have used the tools described in Conscious Finance to help build a healthier relationship with money.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Money has been around a long time but we still know very little about how deeply and profoundly it affects our lives. Our histories, our experiences, our deepest fears and our most cherished goals are inextricably tied to our relationship with money. Rick Kahler and Kathleen Fox have performed a seminal service to the world of personal finance with this breakthrough work which has taken that which was hidden and brought it into the light of CONSCIOUS FINANCE. They'll help you discover the truth about money in your life, and that truth will set you free. --Mitch Anthony, Author of The New RetireMentality, Founder of The Institute for Financial Life Planning

As a financial planning professional, I am disappointed in many of the self-help books on personal finance that stress the quantitative steps necessary to accumulate wealth and ignore the more important interior issues. Rick and Kathleen have written a wonderful book that helps readers to not only improve their finances, but to improve their lives. --Roy Diliberto, CFP, Author of Financial Planning: The Next Step

A truly balanced approach to financial "security" and fulfillment, combining tools for both inner and outer growth and transformation. Anyone who is having any kind of money issues can truly benefit from this wonderful book. And for those who already think their relationship with money is on solid ground, this book may help uncover some long-forgotten, hidden beliefs just in time to save you money, time, and a lot of grief. --Marie Jones, Bookideas.com

From the Publisher

Conscious Finance has generated significant interest in the financial planning community. Increasing numbers of financial advisors have begun to recognize that technical knowledge about money, while important, is not enough. They realize that successful financial planning also requires working with clients’ emotions and beliefs related to money. Conscious Finance is the first book to blend these exterior and interior aspects of money into a self-help format. It is designed to help readers understand and permanently change the underlying emotional issues that keep them making the same money mistakes over and over. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 273 pages
• Publisher: FoxCraft, Inc.; 2 edition (August 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966554337
• ISBN-13: 978-0966554335
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #871,031 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The contents of this book could be life changing!, February 23, 2005

By 

Morning Glory (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conscious Finance: Uncover Your Hidden Money Beliefs and Transform the Role of Money in Your Life (Paperback)

I've read an enormous number of books on personal finance over the years, and this is the best one by far. It takes the reader to the core beliefs that influence our decisions, and gives practical help on shifting from unhealthy money beliefs to healthy ones. It also shows the reader how money beliefs pervade most aspects of our lives, and gives lots of real-life stories to encourage and illustrate how to make good money decisions. There are exercises that will enable the reader to identify the root causes of bad decisions and learn how to address those issues. If you're looking for something that can help you make significant changes in the way you think about and deal with money, this is the book for you!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but read with some caution, April 1, 2008

By 

liz blue eyes - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Conscious Finance: Uncover Your Hidden Money Beliefs and Transform the Role of Money in Your Life (Paperback)

I will say up front that I am not the poster child for perfect control over my finances. I read this book to try and increase my understanding of the reasons behind my sometimes self-defeating financial habits. While I have never come close to anything like a bankruptcy or foreclosure, I work in the financial services industry and talk to people day in and day out who are in that very situation.

I have read a great many books on finance and business, and again, I work in the industry, so I have a good foundation on how to handle my personal finances. I also have read many so-called self-help books, and have done a great deal of emotional work on uncovering my hidden and unconscious beliefs, mostly through Harry Palmer's Avatar system. That said, I had never really looked at my monetary beliefs with a close eye. It is such an important part of our lives, but it terrified me to look at my money scripts.

This book did give the courage to look at my financial beliefs, which had gone unchallenged my entire life. I considered myself pretty self-aware, but this book certainly opened my eyes in that regard. However, I thought that, while the book did a great deal to help one uncover such beliefs, there is not a lot of advice on how to HANDLE these beliefs. It seemed that the authors pretty much thought that, once your beliefs are uncovered, that's all there is to it. Hardly. I would have liked to see more exercises geared towards dissolving the old beliefs and creating new ones, but perhaps that was beyond the scope of the authors' abilities.

While the second part of the book went into some left-brained financial advice, it didn't address the problem of what many people live with day-to-day. The book was overly simplistic, in my opinion. Old standard advice like "Don't spend money on it if you can't afford it" doesn't help address real issues, like the cost of living in a major city being far more than what the average person can earn. It played into the "blame-the-reader" scenario, in which the reader held complete fault for their financial issues, and if they would just learn to discipline themselves, they'd have no more financial problems.

In a perfect world, those of us who forego designer clothes, shoes, handbags and that daily latte at Starbucks because we can't afford it should be able to live in a comfortable (if modest) home, drive a decent car, have an emergency savings account, and still be able to retire on a decent income. But that is simply not always reality. There are some people working very hard, living minimalist lifestyles, and yet they still have nothing left over to save at the end of the month. This book doesn't address that problem, and I think that's a shame. The same old advice, "Don't take on any debt"(including student loans, which the authors consider to be bad debt- I disagreed with that point) seemed to me to be a hidden belief on the author's own part. Debt is not always a bad thing, especially if it is incurred for the greater good of your life. And some of the advice was downright absurd- "Don't spend more than 4% of your yearly income on a car". Assuming you make $40,000.00 a year, that would mean buying a car that is no more expensive than $133.00 in payment/month (assuming you pay no taxes & $40,000 is your take-home pay!). Huh!? I'd like to get to work without being stranded on the highway- buying a lemon of a car will NOT help anyone's financial life.

Overall, I'd say this is a book for those that have a shopping addiction or a spending problem, and need some psychological help with uncovering the reasons behind that. If you are already living a modest lifestyle and need to find more money just to get by, I don't think that this book will help much. Buy this book, if you want to, but take the advice given with a BIG grain of salt. Good luck to you!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Financial Integration, September 25, 2005

By 

Laura Longville "Walking in Grace, Inc." (Rapid City, SD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Conscious Finance: Uncover Your Hidden Money Beliefs and Transform the Role of Money in Your Life (Paperback)

This book offers a balanced approach to our relationship with money.The stories illustrate the topics discussed which makes the information real, applicable and personal. As a counselor, I haven't discussed specific money issues or beliefs with clients. This book has changed my approach to helping others. I have found that now when I discuss money beliefs with clients we end up addressing core life beliefs which in turn, help them make the life changes they desire.
When people are equipped with accurate information, understand their thoughts and beliefs and are aware of their emotions, they are better able to make conscious and purposeful decisions in their lives.The "technical" or exterior information provided in the book is easy to read and understand.The book has helpful, practical and wise suggestions for budgeting, investing and long term planning. Read this book and you too can be transformed.
Laura Longville
Therapist and Life Coach
Walking in Grace, Inc.