Cheap 52 Weeks to Financial Fitness : The Week-by-Week Plan for Making Your Money Grow (Book) (Marshall Loeb) Price

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Customer Reviews of 52 Weeks to Financial Fitness : The Week-by-Week Plan for Making Your Money Grow

Give this one a pass!
I don't know what's more annoying about this book, the chirpy tone or the moronic advice. Not only are the tips all over the map, but they are just that--tips--with no help at all given to developing an overall philosophy or strategy. Loeb also completely ignores the emotional aspect of financial planning, leading to ridiculous advice like taking out a home equity loan to pay off credit card bills. Sure you can reduce your rate by doing that. But you're likely to run your cards up again. And now you've put your house at risk. Real smart move, Marshall.

I'm so grateful that I checked this book out of the library rather than spending good money on it. My advice: Almost any other basic personal finance book would serve you better than this one. A couple of good ones that deal with the emotional and the practical aspects of financial planning are Suze Orman's, Ruth Hayden's, and Jerrold Mundis'. Don't waste your time with this one.

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One Financial Fitness Regimen Does Not Fit All!
The author suggests that you "look at this book as your . . . friendly, expert, immediately useful, personal trainer." Well, I agree that would be wonderful, and that's what financial advisors do. Like personal trainers, they start out by finding out all about you to diagnose where you need work, and then focus your attention on appropriate activities in those areas.

By contrast, this book focuses your attention in every possible direction, and probably overburdens you with detail in many areas where the benefits will be negligible for you.

Since the book does not focus you properly for your situation, you'll have to use the book differently than it is written to get full benefit from it. The advice is fine, just not organized to be the most helpful to you.

My suggestion is that you read the whole book first fairly quickly, making notes about how much financial benefit you think you will get from the more beneficial subjects, how much effort will be required to get that benefit, and your level of enthusiasm for pursuing that item.

Before going further, then think about other ways that you could increase your income. Add them to the list. The main content weakness in this book is that it emphasizes reducing risk with insurance, cutting costs and taxes, and increasing investment income. The book pays almost no attention to other ways to increase your income other than by adding a new skill and changing jobs.

Then count off about how many items look attractive to pursue, and pick the top 10 percent or so in value and attractiveness to you to start with. You will probably get 50 to 80 percent of the total benefit from Mr. Loeb's advice from these few items. Work on them first.

When you find that you have excess time to take on a new item, then add the next highest item for value and attractiveness.

At whatever point you've increased your income and cut your costs to be able to afford a fee-based financial planner to work with you, do so. Then in the process of working with that person, other high value opportunities will probably arise. The book advises you to do this also, but not until week 26. By then, most people will have stopped working on this enormously long list of things to check out, and you may never get around to getting that personalized advice.

Let me mention that Mr. Loeb is the former managing editor of Fortune and Money magazines, and did a terrific job at both places. He is very knowledgeable, thorough, and trustworthy. His advice is far more valuable for implementing what you need to do than many popular advisors like Ms. Orman.

He does not, however, pay any significant attention to the psychology of why people do the wrong things with their money. Most financial advisors tell me all their clients know what they "should" do, but don't do it anyway. I suggest that you also seek out books that consider that topic. "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" is a good basic book that most people can relate to. On cutting costs, reducing debt, and starting to invest, you will probably find "The Finance Doctor" easy to understand and apply.

My primary suggestion is that you take the goal-setting parts of this book the most seriously. But I would encourage you to expand that goal-setting to include all parts of your life. "Awaken the Giant Within" is a good resource for that purpose.

May you find peace of mind along with a fuller wallet . . . and the time to enjoy both!