Customer Reviews

One Year to an Organized Financial Life: From Your Bills to Your Bank Account, Your Home to Your Retirement, the Week-by-Week Guide to Achieving Financial Peace of Mind

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What can I say about a book that in ten minutes had me doing something I had been putting off for thirteen years--i.e. making a living will and getting my mother and my mother-in-law to do the same? (The book even includes the living will for you to fill out.) This book is so well thought-out, so calming and supportive, it truly makes you feel that you can do every one of the author's essential tips. Plus, unlike most financial books, it is packed with tips for the self-employed and it's rational, Zen tone makes dealing with finances...well, a new pleasure. Highly recommended.

Just released in 2010, One Year to an Organized Financial Life is the latest installment from Regina Leeds, the "Zen Organizer". I've previously read her book "One Year to an Organized Life" and found it a refreshing change in the field of organization. This book continues a winning pattern and expands it to an area where I (and many others) especially need some serious help - our finances.

Overhauling any aspect of our lives can be an intimidating. There are so many things we could do differently. So many small and large habits that need changing. Regina approaches this problem by having us concentrate on only one issue at a time, one per week, over the period of a year. Every month she introduces one key habit for the month, one helpful tool for the month, and then introduces one change or habit each week, in nice bite-sized pieces. Follow through on these easily manageable assignments, and in one year, ta-dah! you're financially organized. Or at least in a lot better shape than when you started.

One of the beauties of this approach is that you can pick up the book any time during the year and start the program. You don't need to start in January (although January would make a great time to start). Some of the months deal with items specific to that time of the year. for example, in November Regina deals with gift-giving, holiday spending and organizing holiday parties and get-togethers economically. The fact that I tend to start thinking about these things in December instead of November is an indication of just how much help I need.

The chapters and assignments give some really exceptional ideas for spending less money, making more money, saving for the future and protecting yourself from life's uncertainties. Regina covers insurance (of all kinds), investments, retirement, college planning, budgeting, entertainment, and the aforementioned holiday spending. In this book, she has a certified financial adviser (Russell Wild) along to supplement her organizational knowledge with expert financial knowledge about such things as various kinds of tax-deferred savings accounts and tax-loss harvesting (if you don't know what that is... you need this book).

When I open up a book on financial organization, I generally expect to hear that I should spend less, save more and make spartan cuts in my lifestyle. Perhaps that's why I don't generally like such books. The ideas in this book, however, are surprisingly fresh. I am getting a lot more new information out of it than I expected. And, like her previous book, Regina doesn't focus exclusively on the mechanics of organization, but also explores and rehabilitates your feelings about financial issues, through such tools as journaling tasks. The goal, after all, of "Zen Organizing" is a feeling of peace and security - not organization for its own sake.

So, if you feel your financial life needs some serious help (we know who we are), this is a gentle program that takes you by the hand and leads you through a year of easy steps to feeling much much better about your economic situation. There are no theories without simple, practical steps. Take the first step and give the book a try.

I am a few months into this book and I have to say that I am slightly disappointed. I started off with high hopes. The book had some good tips in the introduction and the author sounded powered up about getting my financial life in shape and organized. I had a few gripes early on, but kept pushing through thinking that it would get better as it went, but it hasn't. I have found the book to be a mixture of irrelevance and surface-level information. For example, the budgeting week tells the reader to set up a budget. It explains a little bit of why a budget is important and sort of gives one example, but if the reader has never created a budget before they may not even know what categories are appropriate to budget for or how much they should be contributing to each area. Another example, one week she says to organize your office area, but she doesn't cover what is important to include in your desk or office area.

As I get further into the book I am continually frustrated by the fact that the author just tells the reader to do something instead of explaining how to do something or what the best way to do it might be. After reading I usually can't even recall what I am supposed to be doing, or I have to look-up information to fill in the blanks, which is frustrating--I feel like the book should be a comprehensive guide (or at least that's what I expected it to be).

Additionally, you may want to consider that you will have to make further investments to go along with the changes that the author suggests. I had to buy pouches to organize my purse, files to create a filing system, drawer organizers to organize my desk, and so on (and I didn't buy many of the items that she suggested). She even suggests buying new furniture for your office if it is not suitable. Mine is not suitable, but I am on a tight budget (the reason why I am reading books about finances) and I cannot afford to replace furniture.

On the bright side, I did find the chapter about creating a filing system helpful. The author explained exactly what the reader needed and what exactly to make files for. If only all of the weeks were as detailed.

The book may be helpful for someone who needs a sort of coach to tell them to do something and when. I find myself skipping through it, because when I get interested in something I want to learn everything about it, fast. (Maybe that's why I've been frustrated with the fact that it seems incomplete).

I am already organized. If I weren't, I wouldn't have advanced so far in my profession. Yet this book taught me a great many useful things. It is now my best reference book for negotiating the demands of everyday reality. Psychologically, it makes sense to go through the calendar, our common unit of existence, to build associations to taking on our tasks. This builds healthy habits a bit at a time. However, since I am already organized, I attacked the book in an unorganized fashion. I jumped around by topics that interested me, and along the way I found tidbits that are gems. I don't drink enough water. I learned that by keeping water at my workstation and sipping it throughout the day, instead of the ever present coffee- that I would actually more alert. Dehydration kills concentration more than the lack of caffeine. I learned that and many other neat things on my way to learning how to deal with my paper paranoia. I am forever confused about what to keep and what to throw away. I learned that the IRS usually would make an audit within the first three years of filling your taxes. What you need to keep for 3 and maybe up to 6 years (if fraud is suspected) are those documents that can prove your tax deductions. Throw away the rest. Keep your old federal and state tax returns forever as references and to prove that you filed. A great tip is to have them scanned and kept on a DVD. This saves space and makes it easy to search the documents. The last part of the book is one of the best sources of internet sites that can help you with issues related to: banking, cars, colleges, identity theft, investing, legal, medical, taxes, travel, and much more. This is a great book for both the unorganized and the super-organized.

This book is very organized and easy to navigate. Most financial books are either too complex and make it confusing to figure out what to do or they are so overly simplistic as to be of no help at all. You know those books that tell you, "Stop doing the one thing you enjoy and you'll be a millionaire someday!" I hate those books.
The authors break down the overwhelming task of getting your financial house in order into manageable chunks. The calendar format is helpful but you don't have to start with any particular month. They do a good job of giving one pointers on both where and how to get started and make the process less intimidating. The foundation work in how to get organized will help me keep things on track in the future also. That alone will reduce stress and time wasted looking for documents. I've always spent way too much time looking for things. As they say in the book, "An organized environment is your launching pad, not your jail."
A good mantra.

I've been a fan of Regina's since her first "Guide to An Organized Life." Now with her easy to understand approach along with her new collaborator, I can conquer all my money worries.

I've read many financial self help books ... and this book and its step by step, week by week approach is simple, direct and above all, easy! I also love the narrative asides and the personal touches that the authors utilize. I feel like I'm talking with a good friend.

I'd compare it to RICH DAD, POOR DAD, but unlike that book, this tome sets out a recipe that anyone can follow ... not just the real estate investment minded.

I'm buying is as a gift for some of my family, especially the young people in my life. This will help them get on the road to financially security early.

True, there are some interesting and helpful parts of this book. But so much of it is a re-hash of what everyone surely already knows.

And the most annoying aspect of the book is its tone! It sounds like a "go to your room!" order to a wayward child.

So skip the "naughty, naughty" approach and give us some clear, adult recommendations for managing finances. It isn't necessary either to write an Economics textbook or go to the other extreme of finger-wagging lecturing.

What most people would welcome, I believe, would be a serious, detailed approach to a reasonable financial management system. Such a system is not given here. Borrow this book from the "Young Adult" section of your library.

"One Year To An Organized Financial Life" is a great book and easy read. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to organize their lives and their finances. The book would be especially helpful and is geared towards people who are just starting out managing their personal finances. But, there are some wonderful tips in the book that can benefit investors and money mavens of every level of sophistication and skill.

I love how the book is broken down into distinct sections. While you can start reading the book at any time of the year and in any order, the book's chapters each represent a month on the calendar and are then further broken out by that month's weeks. So, for example, June looks like....June - Build A Nest Egg... Week One: "Establish a Retirement Plan", Week Two: "Calculate How Much You Need To Save", Week Three: "Assess How Much Risk You Can Afford", and Week Four: "Max Out Where It Pays".

Other personal finance topics covered throughout the book include: accessing your finances, spending less and saving more, getting ready for taxes, borrowing smartly, long range planning, children and money, and many other great money topics. It is a week by week guide to finding the financial piece of mind that you deserve. The book builds on a slow and methodical way to bring your finances under control and lays out certain tasks or goals that you have to accomplish each week. Some of the tasks that I found very helpful were cleaning out my wallet of unneeded receipts and business cards, etc.

"One Year To An Organized Life" is a great book full of practical money and organizational advice for everyone. I highly recommend it.

One Year to an Organized Financial Life is a great book and bargain. It is full of useful, clearly-explained and - no surprise - well-organized ideas. It is the financial and organizational blueprint most of us need to begin to straighten our lives out. I gave my daughters copies of the book as Christmas presents.

One Year to an Organized Financial Life is just the book I needed to read on New Year's Eve Day. I am not sure I knew that when I started to read but I want you to know that you will get hooked once you start. Regina Leeds and Russell Wild have created a format that helps those who need this most to believe it is possible. I love that Ms. Leeds shared her own experiences because then we readers know that we all can learn from our mistakes.
If you finally want to find a way to start to straighten the "boat" I really think this book is the answer. Time to get started!