Review of Good Money Book. Understand your choices. Boost your Financial Wellbeing
I do enjoy a good book about money and was excited to receive the Good Money Book, written by Nathalie Spencer and part of the Build + Become series of books. This is a great series of books to help you get your head around the current fast changing world. With titles like ‘Get technology’, ‘Being creative’ and ‘Read People’ there are some fascinating titles. A great range of books to collect.
and is structured in a very logical way, making it easy to pick up and read and digest. And it has certainly got me thinking about some of my attitudes to money. I love how it explores the psychology behind money thoughts and issues. I studied psychology as part of my degree, I am always keen to see how this directly relates to real life money mindsets and thought patterns.
The book is structures into five areas with 20 lessons. Its packed full of beautiful images and standout quotes worthy of Instagram posts.
Money and Us
Such an interesting section that questions how we are with money. And exploring how much of an impact our past has on our attitudes to money. Nathalie, the author discusses attitudes to money, I found it interesting to learn that research shows many whom associate money with power experience adverse financial events such as being denied credit or repossession. And those who associate money with security are less likely to have experienced these.
I believe I associate money with security and put this down to me losing my house when a teenager, my parents died, and the house was sold. Money has always been very important to me, and having enough of it, so I have never experienced denial of credit or repossession.
This chapter also discusses impulsivity and the preference of short-term rewards compared to waiting. With people coming from an upbringing with less financial means preferring the short-term rewards. I was brought up in an average household I would describe it as. We were neither rich or poor. I wanted for nothing but didn’t have lots of expensive treats such as holiday.
I really enjoyed the studies in lesson four on the impact of people when services are paid for or not. Especially how lateness in a nursery setting got worse when payment for lateness was introduced!
Money in the Day to Day
Lesson 5 happens a lot for me, the ostrich effect. I often bury my head in the sand to ignore finances. I don’t normally do it for long, but it’s a habit that many people exhibit. The discussion on the cashless society was fascinating looking at how any friction from making a payment is being removed. Nathalie encourages adding friction back into spending money. The use of apps to notify you of spending, the use of cash, technology to track or give you advice when you might be overspending.
Being mindful when spending money is so important and will help you to keep control of your budgets. And really think about those bargains, that might not be a bargain!
Resilience
This was a tough chapter for me to read, as I’m currently not feeling very resilient with money. My emergency fund is not big enough and I have a pot of (what feels like) never-ending debt still being paid off.
I loved the lesson about luck in success. I do not believe there is such a thing as luck but there are opportunities that come along. Nathalie shares that one should always be able to react to these opportunities and benefit from them. Being in the right place at the right time with the right resources available can be interpreted as luck!
Financial optimism and rose-tinted glasses was an interesting read. As I do recognise those feeling in myself. I live with the optimistic attitude thinking things will often be financially better than they are. Money is spent before I have it or expect contracts to be landed and then they don’t. I recognise that I need to be more of a realist with money and have more set aside for emergencies.
Lesson 12 is all about debt and different methods of paying it down. I believe in the financial method of paying off the debts with the highest interest charges first, as opposed to the smallest amounts of debt, like Nathalie.
Long Term Planning
I spend a lot of time writing about this subject area and the importance of setting money aside for the future. But there is a tendency to put this off, to feel like its so far in the future to worry about. There was an interesting study around children and marshmallows. Eat one now or two later and the link to trust and reliability.
Lesson 15 about connecting to your future self really made an impact. To really put myself into the position of me aged 60 or 70 and ensuring that I have enough money to live comfortably. I must re-start adding money to my pension. Its been on hold for three years now since I left employment and became self-employed.
Better with Money
I really enjoyed the lessons in this section and very much so identified with the cant keep up section. Keeping up with modern life, its hard and sometimes you must step off that treadmill.
Goal setting has always been important to me with all matter’s money, business and personal. But an important lesson with goal setting, it should be hard enough to strive for, but not unachievable.
The last lesson focusses on spending to improve happiness. Spending on ways to save time can help people whom are time poor. Spending money on experiences rather than things can promote happiness. The concept of prepaying, and the opposite to credit was something I need to think about. Buying something upfront and consuming later is really something that I need to move towards.
Summary
A good overview of many money concepts. It is going to get you thinking about how you behave with money and why you do what you do. I found the addition of experiments and research really useful. I enjoy books that make me think about why I behave a certain way, this certainly does this. To get a copy head over here.
This is a collaborative post written with Build and Become.
