Love and Money: A Life Guide For Financial Success - Hardcover

Opdyke, Jeff D.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0471476587 ISBN 13: 9780471476580

Publisher: WILEY, 2003

Synopsis

"The financial decisions we make in our lives are sometimes not the easiest to discuss but have long-lasting effects. [Opdyke's advice] has opened the door in my relationship to conversations that were a long time coming."
-Josh, regular reader of Opdyke's "Love & Money" column, Florida

Real answers to real questions about money and relationships:
* I have too much debt and my credit isn't very good. How can I fix my financial problems? And how do I break the news to my boyfriend?
* How do I teach my kids the value of money, when my parents shower them with expensive gifts?
* My wife makes more money than I do, does that give her a greater voice in our financial decisions? Are we still equal?
* How much should I give my child in allowance? And will it really help him learn the value of a dollar?
* We want to have our first baby, but we don't know if we can afford it yet. How much money do we really need to have in the bank?


If you're like most people, you're struggling with questions like these. Whether we like it or not, money makes a big difference in the choices we make and the lives we lead. Unresolved questions about money can put unwanted stress on even the healthiest relationships-between spouses, between parents and children, and even between friends. In Love & Money, columnist Jeff Opdyke offers practical personal finance advice, as well as strategies for dealing with touchy financial topics-so that money doesn't end up costing you something even more valuable.

About this title

About the Author

EFF D. OPDYKE is a personal finance reporter in The Wall Street Journal’s New York bureau. He is also the author of the "Love & Money" column that runs weekly in The Wall Street Journal Sunday–a four-page supplement carried by more than eighty newspapers across the country. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and son.

From the Back Cover

"The financial decisions we make in our lives are sometimes not the easiest to discuss but have long-lasting effects. [Opdyke’s advice] has opened the door in my relationship to conversations that were a long time coming."
–Josh, regular reader of Opdyke’s "Love & Money" column, Florida

Real answers to real questions about money and relationships:

• I have too much debt and my credit isn’t very good. How can I fix my financial problems? And how do I break the news to my boyfriend?
• How do I teach my kids the value of money, when my parents shower them with expensive gifts?
• My wife makes more money than I do, does that give her a greater voice in our financial decisions? Are we still equal?
• How much should I give my child in allowance? And will it really help him learn the value of a dollar?
• We want to have our first baby, but we don’t know if we can afford it yet. How much money do we really need to have in the bank?

If you’re like most people, you’re struggling with questions like these. Whether we like it or not, money makes a big difference in the choices we make and the lives we lead. Unresolved questions about money can put unwanted stress on even the healthiest relationships–between spouses, between parents and children, and even between friends. In Love & Money, columnist Jeff Opdyke offers practical personal finance advice, as well as strategies for dealing with touchy financial topics–so that money doesn’t end up costing you something even more valuable.

From the Inside Flap

Most personal finance books are strictly about the finance–how to invest, plan for retirement, save money, or become a millionaire overnight. Love & Money delves deeper into what’s truly personal about finance, exploring how our most intimate relationships are affected by money and then offering proven strategies for managing money without creating needless tension in the household.

Based on Jeff Opdyke’s popular Wall Street Journal Sunday column of the same name, Love & Money is the definitive personal finance guidebook for ordinary folks, uncovering the real money issues that divide and unite our relationships every day: merging bank accounts, arguing about the finances of having a child, handling a parent who has been irresponsible with their money. Love & Money shows readers how real people have resolved these and many more issues both peacefully and practically.

Money problems aren’t responsible for ruining relationships. Our inability to talk about those problems is. Few people know how to broach the topic of money at all, even with the people they’re closest to in life; Love & Money is the road map to those discussions. While affirming that our relationships will always be worth more than dollars and cents, Opdyke shows us how to balance and grow both. Drawing on the author’s own experiences, as well as those of his many faithful readers and correspondents, Love and Money offers thoughtful and actionable advice to readers at every stage of life.

Everyone has a different attitude toward money, but we must take care not to allow these differences to obscure what’s really important. Opdyke suggests that effective, straightforward communication is the key. Love & Money will show you how to talk to your loved ones about money before financial conflicts become insurmountable–and even after they’ve seemingly passed that point.

By understanding how and why you and your partner, friends, and family diverge in perspective, you can learn to effectively navigate the financial obstacles–and opportunities–you encounter. That knowledge will do far more to promote a sense of financial well-being and stability than any investment advice ever will. Offering a fresh and widely relevant new approach to personal finance, Love & Money is a thoughtful guide to both better finances and better relationships.

Reviews

With so many people having trouble managing their money, it's not surprising that different attitudes about finances can cause serious arguments between otherwise happy spouses. The solution, according to Opdyke, a reporter and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, is for individuals to first understand their own relationship to and views about money. Drawing on his own marriage as well on the experiences of his readers, Opdyke takes a simple approach to the basic personal finance decisions. He says people shouldn't think about budgets-which, like diets, rarely work-but instead should devise a spending plan (which encourages one to look to the future rather than focus on previous spending habits): "Once you create your spending plan, strive to live with the boundaries you've set. Remember, there's fluidity to your plan. If you realize you're not going to spend $200 this month eating out, you can shift that money to some other expense you'd rather make, or just shovel it into savings for a later date." The writing is clever and the inclusion of comments from readers makes this an enjoyable primer on the psychological and emotional issues related to money. But the chapters on saving for college, retirement and helping aging parents, for example, provide few strategies for readers.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

If it's not sex, it's money, the root cause of so many family breakups and divorces. This well-reasoned personal-finance guide offers help in harmonizing love and money. Wall Street Journal reporter Opdyke, in this book drawn from his newspaper column and reader e-mail, talks personally about his own life: his personal finances, his wife and son, his worries and successes. The result is a series of amazingly candid conversations about money, a philosophy borne out through his belief that "talk is cheap; it's the silence that's expensive." He discusses emotional events everyone can identify with, from his and hers accounts to inequality of salaries, and arrives at common-sense solutions. Trust is important in his ethos, often opening completely new ways of dealing with monetary pitfalls, as in his resolve not to lie to his son and say, "Dad doesn't have money," when his youngster pleads for a toy. Different chapters explore situations such as divergent vacation desires, parental support, and financial compromise with aplomb, respect, and much love. The new Bible for money management. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: WILEY
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0471476587
• ISBN 13: 9780471476580
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 255