50 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Solid Book About Getting Your Finances Together, August 28, 2010
This review is from: Psych Yourself Rich: Get the Mindset and Discipline You Need to Build Your Financial Life (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
This book contains sound financial advice that will help even the most financially clueless reader start down the path to riches. I have studied personal finance since 2002, and I consider myself a very frugal and informed person, and my review reflects this perspective. Let me begin with my positive impressions:
- Torabi's advice is solid, even though a lot of it is "commonsense." Unfortunately, in America today, saving money, identifying goals, setting and sticking to deadlines, spending within one's means, etc, have been replaced by the behaviors that led to the credit and housing bubbles. This shows that there is a wide-open market for "commonsense" wisdom. This book would be a helpful handbook for all students, and those entering the "real world" for the first time.
- Torabi has done her homework, and includes research, statistics, and other hard data that make her presentation stronger.
- The book is interesting. She loads the text with stories of herself and others. I was genuinely interested in reading what came next.
- Torabi explores psychological aspects of money and finance. Our spending or saving is a function of our personalities and past. Certain exercises in the book helped me see why I view money and finance the way I do. Chapter four was particularly helpful, and caused me to reevaluate my views on money and success. Looking back to my childhood, I heard the word "financial crisis" far more than I ever heard anything about investing. My relationship with money has not been very positive, and I plan to change the relationship!
- The last chapters, within the "Raising the Bar" section, were the most helpful to me, which makes sense given the knowledge of finance I already have. Here Torabi discusses overcoming fear of risk (and how this fear is conditioned into us in school), finding alternative investments, and embracing and nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit. I believe that if I want to earn good money and enjoy my work to the fullest, becoming an entrepreneur is the way to go.
Below are two reasons I would not recommend this book for everybody:
- Successful and financially informed people already know most of her advice. This book seems to be written for the type of people that Torabi helped on her reality TV show, those who are in a lot of debt, spend too much, and are financially clueless. If you have ever read a "Finance for Dummies" book, a lot of this content will be redundant. For example, I already know how to ladder CDs, set goals, pay my bills on time, and how to apply for college financial aid.
- The title misled me. I was hoping for a book that provided psychological techniques to get me over the mental blocks that stop me from earning the kind of money I know I am capable of making. The preface mentions Torabi's interest in behavioral psychology, which effectively gets people over their fears and hang-ups, so I thought the book would provide techniques to change the way I think. Such techniques do exist (Neurolinguistic programing "patterns," for example). Unfortunately, the book is mostly basic financial and goal-setting advice, with some self-exploration and psychology thrown in.
Overall, if I were younger, or less informed, this book would be a godsend, worth 5 stars. If you are in a lot of debt, spend too much, can't seem to get ahead, etc, and need a way to get your finances together, this book will help you. However, I was looking for a book with psychologically based tips and tricks to help me get over any hang-ups I might have about money, success, etc. Because this book is more financial lesson than psychological session, it is a 3 star value to me. This averages out to a solid 4 stars, my overall rating.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Going from financially supported to supportive..., October 21, 2010
This review is from: Psych Yourself Rich: Get the Mindset and Discipline You Need to Build Your Financial Life (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I have proudly been a stay at home Mom for the past 9 years. It was a decision that both my husband and I both made together and although it was certainly tight at times, we managed it and I am so thankful that I have had an opportunity to do it.
We didn't have hoards of money growing up and I certainly didn't in my 20s when I met my husband and I am ashamed to say though that I've never been great at managing money long term so we've been 'one of those' households that my husband has managed our finances. He's great at it, I'm not so the job has always been his. Getting caught up with busy kids, it was easy to lost in the day to day and justifying putting off REALLY learning about money so I did. Some might say, how hard is it? Live within your budget and save your extra money. Now that our youngest has started Kindergarten, we now have a dual income household. Now what? I've decided that it's time that I REALLY learn about money and how to HELP manage, contribute and build our nest egg for our family.
This was the perfect book for me to review since I consider myself a beginner with long term finances. Some of it doesn't apply to me...it has a feel to the younger crowd at times (early 20s) but not so much where I couldn't benefit from learning. It's simple, easy to read, understand and to start to implement. IDEALLY I think it's great for parents to read then to encourage their college bound / 18, 19, early - mid 20s kids could read.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Psych yourself up for a let down, May 4, 2011
This review is from: Psych Yourself Rich: Get the Mindset and Discipline You Need to Build Your Financial Life (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
With a title like "Psych Yourself Rich", you'd expect some really innovative and creative ideas and exercises about how you think about money. From the title I expected this book to talk about mental and emotional views of money and how we can change how we relate to finances. Sadly that was not the case and the title was a bit misleading. There is nothing about \mind, and all about matter (like one reviewer noticed).
It's a fine, solid book about finances but its not innovative at all. This book isn't any different than most other books about managing your money on the market. Its the same old, same old. It does read easier than alot of dry financial books, and the author does pepper it with some personal anedoctes along the way. Its a good book if you are young and need to learn basic finance help. For most readers, this has already been learned and is common sense.
The author is young and I think this is geared towards a younger audience who over indulge. If you are looking for something about changing your mental/psychological relationship with money this isn't the book for you.
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