Money Management Tips during this recessive economy

I’m reading Suze Orman’s new book “Women & Money: Owning The Power to Control Your Destiny” which I checked out at my local library (I always check the library for good reads before going out and buying them). Anyway, if you’re not familiar with Suze like I wasn’t until a few weeks ago, she is a self made millionaire, she started out as a waitress with a speech impediment to now hosting her own CNBC TV show and makes her money as a financial advisor. I encourage you to read her life story, which is very entertaining. She doesn’t hold anything back. She made some embarrassing mistakes when she was younger, but she learned from them, and grew to be this powerful, amazing, and rich woman that she is today. You can read all about her at Suze Orman’s Website as a matter-of-fact, this link About Suze Biography link is the link you need to follow to read her life story which is also in her book, as well.

I decided to blog about this book because of how important I feel it is, plus it is so needed right now. As a mother to 2 grown daughters, I feel like I was not much help to either of them as far as money matters goes. This book is a complete guide for someone who has never had a checking account to those professional women who are at the top of the corporate ladder! Suze explains that the reason she wrote this book was she was surprised to find that very close friends of hers, although they had successful careers and were very prestigious women, that they had problems managing their finances and their long term financial future. Suze is not just emphasizing the current things we must do, but she explains what we need to do in the future. Her plan “The Save Yourself Plan” covers a 5 month program which Suze specifically detailed actions to take during each month. Each month covers the following topics: Checking & Savings, Credit cards and credit scores, Retirement investing, Important documents like wills and trusts, Insurance protection like life insurance and home owners insurance.
Not only does she cover these important financial aspects, but she also includes her own beliefs and values that she feels women should have and ways to work on maintaining balance not only with a checkbook, but in a woman’s life as well. How learning to maintain balance in her own life has created so much happiness (not just wealth) and she even gives examples of the changes she made and how the changes worked out for the better. Friends and relationships are emphasized. Also how we tend to sell ourselves short is a very important part of this book. Basically if you could take your knowledge if you were given a set of rules to follow on money management, and you followed all those rules of money management, that is what this book is in a nutshell. It is to inspire and encourage women to not fear financial matters, but to confront them while giving us knowledge that we didn’t have before on some issues. If I could write a book about all the things a woman should know how to do to manage her money her whole life then this would be the book I would want my daughters to read.