Customer Reviews

A Girl Needs Cash: How to Take Charge of Your Financial Life

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Perry's "A Girl Needs Cash" is a great motivator. I was especially happy to hear here opinion that an investor shouldn't wait before credit card balances are zero before saving/investing. The book also encourages self-reliance when it comes to money matters, which is a terrific goal for any financial planner trying to help a client.

I was dissapointed that Perry several times in her book referred to home ownership as having no ability to provide future income. A reverse annuity mortgage may provide needed income to a retiree. She also refers to variable life insurance products as "private pension plans". Despite being marketed as such, referring to insurance as a pension plan borders on the unethical.

Despite these minor problems, I certainly recommend this book as one of the several men and women should read while trying to organize there personal finances.

Finally, women, not girls.. gather up your scraps of paper and receipts and straighten out your financial matters, yourself! You likely will not find a better way to begin then Joan Perry's " A girl needs Cash". You may, Like I, find yourself quoting passages to your female friends, sometimes in anger, often in great frustration, as the book deals with the many social and economic reasons women of ALL ages have not dealt with their money. the fac tthat it deals with women of all backgrounds and ages is part of its great appeal and accesibility. It is truly a bare bones, no holds barred approach to finance that will take you thru sunshine savings accounts to muny bonds, increasing your savvy and, therefore, your confidence in revamping your own financial future without the age-old dependence on the male figures in your life. This includes fathers, brothers, by the way). Simultaneously dispelling the white knight myth while providing much-appreciated advice for women battling the social challenges they face in the workplace AND outside, it neither paints women in the 'victim' role, nor tells them to jump on a feminist bandwagon. Joan Perry, like I, was raised with good financial advice and lived feminism before the word was created. Whatever your age or current status, this delightful gem will provide you with a simplified and very TARGETED approach to improving your lifestyle while regaining great discipline. We roar and applaud this book for all ages.

I was pleasantly surprised to read this book as if it were a mystery novel. I loved following the financial lives of the working and non working women she presents in her book so brilliantly. I actually read over 100 pages at my daughters volleyball practice and was able to enjoy it despite the noise surrounding me. I had and have many ongoing questions of our families finances and our future. I wish I had read this book when I was working in a higher paying job and jet setting around for a company with an apartment on the Marina Green in San Francisco! Joan thank you for this great book and I highly recommend it to any girl that needs cash! And let's face we all do.

This book should be read by every women, young and old. I found the author a bit repetitive but I still would recommend this to all. Every women should have her own money machine and Joan Perry tells how to get it.

A good introduction regarding the importance of personal finance control at a young age for women.. The cases presented should teach young women to be responsible for their own financial destiny. This is a great gift book or a book that a mother or father should read and share with a daughter. The lessons learned will last a young woman a lifetime.

For the first time in my life, I feel in control of my finances -- and what a great feeling it is! As a professional woman with feminist leanings, I've long perceived myself as being in charge of my career and my love life. But economically speaking, I've always been more or less out to lunch. For some reason, I zoned out when the topic turned to finances...I let my father -- and then my husband -- handle my money. Well, no more. After reading this book, I feel more than capable of managing my money myself. I dare say I now know more than either my husband or dad, both of whom now defer to my judgment. I've bought copies of this wonderful book for my sister, my best friend, and my niece. And I'll continue to give copies of "A Girl Needs Cash" to my nearest and dearest female friends -- anyone who would benefit from this one-of-a-kind gift of financial independence.

I just wish it had been a little more "condensed", if you will. I'm extremely busy with not a lot of time to just sit around reading a book, and this book in particular could have been a bit quicker to read without all the personal anecdotes and individual examples. BUT...this is a good book if you want to learn about taking charge of your financial future. For the most part, her strategies sound very accessible. For example, she recommends paying your mortgage plus the next month's principle, which is highly do-able. Most financial gurus admonish us to pay no less than double our mortage payment (yeah, right). And, I love the fact that the author advises readers to NOT wait until credit cards are paid off to begin saving. Another refrain of financial gurus: "it's absolutely ridiculous to put money in a 3% savings account when you could be paying it on your 20% interest credit cards." Granted, theoretically that is sound advice, but it's just not logical for most of us, including me. I for one do not want to wait until my credit card is paid off before I start building a savings account. After all, the only way to prevent more debt is by having cash available, and how will you have any if you're paying every nickel and dime on your card? I also love how the author describes credit cards as "the Draculas of the financial world, draining assets out of our lives", how true! A great and very insightful book. It wasn't entirely easy to understand (unless you're already a financially-minded person) but the more I read it, the more I get out of it. The author also encourages readers to sit down and map out their financial future, for instance, if they want to have $1,000,000 to retire on, they need to actually write out how much that will require per month and how they will get it. I did that for the first time after reading this book, it's something I've never done before, and it has given me a more tangible goal to shoot for. I love this book and others like it for encouraging women to take active control in their financial future, not just mindlessly float around expecting someone else to take care of them.

This book belongs in every woman's library. It is entertaining and easy to read, but makes finances and saving for retirement easy. Honest, even if you "aren't good at math."

The way in which Joan used real life characters to describe the book was very helpful. There were so many characters to relate to that anyone who reads this book is given the opportunity to see themself through the thoughts of the characters in the book.

Joan made the book very personable. She told many stories about her life and made the reader feel important enough to learn more about her. Throughout the book you get the feeling that she is truly writing to make you more educated about money.

The book has a totally "girl power" attitude. She talks about how we as women should take more control of our financial life. Joan's goal is to prove to women that we really are capable of feeling better about our financial life if we partake in it. If we stand back and let someone else take care of it for us then we are afraid of it and feel that it is out of our power. Our financial life should be just as important to us as our career life, family life, social life, etc.

This book can easily be understood and makes women of today's world more motivated to take part in their financial life.

For my economics class, I had to chose and read a book involving some form of economics. I read "A Girl Needs Cash" and was pleasantly surprised because I found the book to be very interesting. I enjoyed how the author was able to turn the book into an acutal story instead of just writng facts about enconomics like an encyclopedia would. Not only did the author show us the lives of other people and how their financial lives were going, but she also put herself and her experiences in the book which made it much more interesting to know that even people like her at one point stuggled with money. My favorite part of the book was the section on "The White Knight Myth". The "Money Machine" was also a very helpful tip. This book contained some very good advice and was motivating. I do belive that this book will help me with my own financial life.