The MsSpent Money Guide: Get More of What You Want with What You Earn - Hardcover

Knuckey, Deborah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0471396346 ISBN 13: 9780471396345

Publisher: Wiley, 2001

Synopsis

Change your spending habits to achieve your personal andfinancial goals

The hardest part of personal finance for most people is livingwithin their means. Spreadsheets, budgets, and tables make moneymanagement seem like hard work. In The MsSpent MoneyGuide, readers are introduced to an innovative approachthat focuses spending habits to allow for everyday costs and futureexpenses while finding money for things you really enjoy.

MsSpent's bottom line is to help people have a more fulfillinglife by helping them clarify their financial goals as well asdevelop systems and habits that manage their spending. We are allunique and there is no single way to manage money. TheMsSpent Money Guide helps each individual discover a waythat will work for them. Readers of all ages will benefit fromMsSpent's message-if you are clear about your values, you will getmore of the life you want with the money you have.

About this title

About the Author

DEBORAH KNUCKEY is a writer, money coach, and speaker. She writes an Internet money advice column, speaks and coaches groups about Conscious Spending, and regularly appears in the media. Knuckey has an MBA from UCLA and has worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Co., Inc., Andersen Consulting, and Ketchum and as a financial reporter at News Corporation. She lives in Washington, D.C.

From the Back Cover

Praise For The MsSpent Money Guide

"An inspiring, sensible money guide that helps people learn how to spend without feeling guilty, deprived, or unhappy, and feel good about saving for their future. A wonderful book for anyone wanting to take charge and make the most of their financial life."- John Gray, author, How to Get What You Want and Want What You Have and Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

"Deborah Knuckey shows us that spending and investing aren't just about money. It's about realizing our dreams, and being true to ourselves."- Carrie Schwab Pomerantz, Vice President, Consumer Education, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.

"The Ms. Spent Money Guide is innovative and offers exercises that can really help readers learn about themselves and money. The Conscious Spending model is an especially innovative planning approach that reflects how people feel about money."- Dr. Gwen Reichbach, Director, National Institute for Consumer Education

"As a divorce planner and financial advisor specializing in women's issues, I found Deborah Knuckey's book both informative and interesting. Her Conscious Spending approach can help every woman, in every financial situation, to be more aware of her money habits."- Ginita Wall, CPA, CFP, Director, Women's Institute for Financial Education (WIFE.org)

"One of the best books to apply coaching principles to managing your money."- Henry Kimsey-House, coauthor, Co-Active Coaching Cofounder, The Coaches Training Institute

From the Inside Flap

"Over the course of your life, you will probably earn more than a million dollars. . . . How will you spend it? Will you consciously use it to live out some of your dreams, or will you unconsciously spend it just living? Will you consciously choose your lifestyle, or will you unconsciously drift into it?"-Deborah Knuckey, from The Ms. Spent(TM) Money Guide

Despite the many necessary expenses and unplanned events that impact spending, you have control over most of the money that goes-and too often slips-through your hands. You may not be an over-spender, an irrational spender, or a compulsive spender. You may even be great at saving money. But if you are not actively making choices based on what you want your money to do for you, you are most likely not getting as much of what you want as you could-which makes you an unconscious spender. "Conscious Spending," on the other hand, minimizes the money you spend on things you enjoy less, to free up money for what you enjoy more. That is what this book is all about-getting the most out of the money you work so hard for.

Using a coaching approach, The Ms. Spent Money Guide introduces you to an innovative way to change your spending habits without feeling deprived. Knuckey operates from a perspective of defining your goals and using your money to move toward them right away. The true money masters are those who align their resources, large or small, with what they really want out of life. In effect, they become masters of their destiny as well. The key lies in knowing what it is that you actually do want.

Conscious Spending motivates you to take charge because it starts with what you want. Whether it's buying a high-fashion wardrobe or making charitable donations, The Ms. Spent Money Guide's no-judgments bottom line is to supply you with the tools to illuminate your goals, get on track-and stay there. Among the many life-changing things you will learn here are how to:
* Manage your money so that you have enough left after everyday spending to pursue your dreams
* Keep sight of the big goals when you are mired in the smaller daily tasks
* Develop habits that make it easy-and painless-to stay on track
* Recognize the emotional costs of maintaining a lifestyle that does not bring you deep happiness-such as anxiety, unfulfilled dreams, and forever buried talents

Including fascinating case studies that will both inspire and instruct you, this indispensable book will equip you to uncover your priorities and values and live a more fulfilling life.

Reviews

There's no "right" way to spend, says Knuckey, a personal finance consultant who calls her system "coaching" not "counseling," since "you may never understand the details" of your feelings about money, but "you can still change your behavior." Happily, her behavior modification plan involves no penny-pinching, few rules and not much of that "b-word" (budgeting), which is about as much fun as dieting. The bottom line to Knuckey's system is her focus on "Conscious Spending," which means only buying what really makes you happy. While there are the obligatory passages on the trap of escalating wants and the ball-and-chain of debt, her main message is positive: focus on satisfying yourself, and you'll never lack motivation. Apart from such truisms, there are occasional mentions of more radical notions, like the idea that having enough is a very real concept for people who have come to the end of their "journey of self-expression." Knuckey's program is basically sensible and unthreatening, low on "shoulds" and sprinkled with humor. Her own personal lifetime spending program, for instance, assumes "that I will die broke" why support lazy heirs? And, she advises, don't play the lottery: "if you want to buy hope, buy a drink at a singles bar!" By the end of the book, a complex budgeting plan sneaks in anyway, but readers who've gotten that far won't mind. (Mar.) Forecast: While there's no dearth of personal finance self-help books on the market, Knuckey's down-to-earth tone should appeal to 20-somethings, especially considering her online presence, detailed in the book's final pages.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0471396346
• ISBN 13: 9780471396345
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288