Green With Envy: A Whole New Way to Look at Financial (Un)Happiness - Softcover

Boss, Shira

Softcover

ISBN 10: 044669598X ISBN 13: 9780446695985

Publisher: Business Plus, 2007

Synopsis

A silent struggle with our money is raging across America. Everyone wants to keep up with the Joneses, regardless of income, occupation, or net worth. Our contentment is based not on the size of our bank account but on how we measure up to those around us. But how can anyone make realistic comparisons to others when everyone's personal finances are shrouded in secrecy and shame? GREEN WITH ENVY offers a tantalizing mix of hard facts and juicy gossip while exposing the shocking gap between public image and what's really going on behind closed doors. Boss peers into the lives and checkbooks of our neighbors--from a U.S. Congressman to a New York City couple to a suburban family--and gives readers practical steps to improve their financial well-being without touching their bank account.

About this title

About the Author

A graduate of Columbia University, Shira Boss has been a fulltime freelance journalist writing mostly on personal finance and business. She has been a regular contributor to Forbes.com, Good Housekeeping, Christian Science Monitor, Crain's New York Business, and NPR's "Marketplace." She and her husband live in Manhattan.

From Publishers Weekly

Freelance journalist Boss performs a real service by putting some of America's financial hangups on trial, charging that "the money taboo"—our good-manners reluctance to discuss what we earn and spend—is "destructive nonsense" that leads to debt and despair. Boss argues that envy ("the only vice warned against in both the Ten Commandments and the Seven Deadly Sins") can be good for the economy, but our drive to keep up with our neighbors can be unhealthy. In five case studies, she shows the consequences of maintaining appearances when we can't afford it; the highlight is a chapter in which Boss lives a fantasy by interrogating her seemingly well-off next-door neighbors and getting the real scoop on their savings, income and credit card bills. The scope of the author's reporting is a bit limited—except for one billionaire, her subjects aren't especially socioeconomically diverse—and we never learn whether non-U.S. cultures suffer the same pangs of envy. Worse, her soft concluding chapter tacks toward self-help, offering counsel that's surprisingly platitudinous ("The universe will provide"). Even so, Boss's case for candor is valuable. (May)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Business Plus
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 044669598X
• ISBN 13: 9780446695985
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224