On Not Having Millions

You Don’t Have to Be Rich by Jean Chatzky I’m looking for a book that will help us solve our trying to pay the mortgage, the car payments, the student loans, daycare, plus saving for retirement and college and a new roof on one and a half incomes dilemma, or at least let us know which pennies can be spent without fear. I guess that’s a pretty tall order, and I have yet to find the book to do it. Still, this book was very interesting, especially in the earlier chapters. Chatzky did some homework for this book, taking surveys of people and comparing happiness to attitudes and relationships with money. The goal was to find out what people who are happy overall and especially happy with their money situation do with their money. Basically, once you have enough money to meet your basic needs, more money won’t make you happier, but money always has the power to make people unhappy. She went through and abstracted some behaviors and attitudes that make a difference. Some of these were novel to me, though they make sense: if you balance your checkbook, you’re more likely to feel in control of your money, and feeling in control will make you happier. Spending your free money on events will make you happier than buying a new toy for yourself. She did kinda lose me in the later chapters where she breezed through finding the money to save with the standard make your coffee and meals at home kinda thing – not too helpful if you’re already making the cuts she suggests. And without money to invest, her advice on investing, while it did seem good, really doesn’t seem to applicable. Still, if you’re looking for ways to improve your relationship with money, this book is a good start. And you can always just read the summary in the last chapter.