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katethekitcat 's review for:
This is a book on personal finance for people who have never previously heard the phrase “personal finance.” If you have heard of personal finance, warning: you may rip your hair out upon reading.
Money Diaries is a book-ized version of the popular Money Diaries Refinery 29 web series, wherein millennial women spend a week recording every dollar they spend and then share it – along with their salary, debt, and other monthly expenses – with strangers on the internet. The series was started to increase transparency around personal finance and spending. While I wholeheartedly agree this mission, it does not automatically align with wise personal finance decisions. Many, many of the money diaries regularly feature poor understandings of finance and alarming spending habits (I think the avocado toast guy probably used these journals for the basis of his argument).
This isn’t necessarily problematic on the website: its goal is to share what people are spending, and that’s accomplished each time a new diary gets published. But the book version isn’t merely a collection of those journals in print: it’s a money diary, followed by financial advice in some arena of life (e.g. debt, relationships, education).
Now, if you’re going to write a book with the ostensible purpose of helping people get their personal finances in order, you need to do some actual analysis of spending and say: this is what worked, this is what didn’t, this is where you could improve. It’s not enough to present a diary, physically place it next to some financial information elsewhere on the page, and then hope the reader magically makes the connection between the two. Doing the analysis and making the connection is why you’re writing the book. But this poses a problem, because the entire point of the original Money Diary series was to present people’s spending sans judgment. These two goals are at odds: presenting what someone spends, no comment, makes it difficult to educate the reader; writing a personal finance book means educating the reader but analyzing and judging the diary.
An example: one featured couple’s diary sees them throwing extra payments at their 0% APR credit card debt while paying the bare minimum on their interest-bearing student loans. Many chapters later, in a spread of less than 2 pages that discusses paying down debt, it’s briefly mentioned that, hey, paying high-interest debt first might be a good idea. Having spent much time reading about personal finance, it was obvious – to me – that this couple’s strategy wasn’t the strongest and they’re going to spend significantly more than they need to in interest. But if you’re a newcomer to this world, you’ll read the couple’s diary, think, “Huh! What a nice couple!” and never make the connection that they’re screwing themselves over. An effective personal finance book would have pointed out for you: by paying interest-bearing debt first, this couple will save X amount of money over the coming year. As a bonus, it could run those savings through a compound calculator and see how much they’ll have in 30 years if they could have invested it instead.
(Also noted: the couple has a high enough income to wipe out both debts completely in less than a year, but chose not to – nor does the book even hint at such a possibility. Money Diaries is heavy on the “debt is serious but hey you’re still young and should have fun! Tee-hee!” philosophy, which makes me grit my teeth and roll my eyes and beat my chest in despair all at the same time and may be contributing to why I’m spending way too much a chunk of my life writing this review at all.)
All this stems from the fact the book itself doesn’t truly understand personal finance. There’s no cohesive philosophy: instead, it’s numerous other financial approaches – e.g. Your Money or Your Life, Dave Ramsey – repackaged and thrown at the reader in a manner that makes it feel knowledgeable but isn’t detailed enough to allow one to do anything with the information. It’s like throwing a whole bunch of mud at the wall and hoping some of it sticks. I get the sense that if I was new to personal finance, I would have read the whole thing, felt really inspired, and then walked away and never thought about this again because it’s too many concepts in too little detail to truly apply to any area of my life.
Finally, while the cover lists Lindsey Stanberry as the author, it should say, “with Priya Malani,” because at least 80% of the advice sections start with, “I asked Priya to tell me how…” or, “Priya helped me…” or, “Priya told the best way to…” and then proceeds to simply repeat whatever Priya said. This may explain the lack of depth. (Poor Priya gets nothing except a brief callout in the acknowledgements section, and even then her name is lumped together with a bunch of other people.)
I gave this book 2 stars because for the truly, absolute beginner whose money is a disaster, the process of seeing other people’s spending might encourage them to at least do their own money diary for a week and become more aware of their habits. And also because, if nothing else, it was entertaining to read (but in a train-wreck kind of way. On the website, the comments section has a culture of “people read this series just to write judgy comments.”) But in the hands of someone who actually wants to get their financial life in order, the cavalier, “oh you’re fine!” attitude without any philosophy or clear approach may actually lead to the kind of passivity and lack of improvement that will set you back.
Money Diaries is a book-ized version of the popular Money Diaries Refinery 29 web series, wherein millennial women spend a week recording every dollar they spend and then share it – along with their salary, debt, and other monthly expenses – with strangers on the internet. The series was started to increase transparency around personal finance and spending. While I wholeheartedly agree this mission, it does not automatically align with wise personal finance decisions. Many, many of the money diaries regularly feature poor understandings of finance and alarming spending habits (I think the avocado toast guy probably used these journals for the basis of his argument).
This isn’t necessarily problematic on the website: its goal is to share what people are spending, and that’s accomplished each time a new diary gets published. But the book version isn’t merely a collection of those journals in print: it’s a money diary, followed by financial advice in some arena of life (e.g. debt, relationships, education).
Now, if you’re going to write a book with the ostensible purpose of helping people get their personal finances in order, you need to do some actual analysis of spending and say: this is what worked, this is what didn’t, this is where you could improve. It’s not enough to present a diary, physically place it next to some financial information elsewhere on the page, and then hope the reader magically makes the connection between the two. Doing the analysis and making the connection is why you’re writing the book. But this poses a problem, because the entire point of the original Money Diary series was to present people’s spending sans judgment. These two goals are at odds: presenting what someone spends, no comment, makes it difficult to educate the reader; writing a personal finance book means educating the reader but analyzing and judging the diary.
An example: one featured couple’s diary sees them throwing extra payments at their 0% APR credit card debt while paying the bare minimum on their interest-bearing student loans. Many chapters later, in a spread of less than 2 pages that discusses paying down debt, it’s briefly mentioned that, hey, paying high-interest debt first might be a good idea. Having spent much time reading about personal finance, it was obvious – to me – that this couple’s strategy wasn’t the strongest and they’re going to spend significantly more than they need to in interest. But if you’re a newcomer to this world, you’ll read the couple’s diary, think, “Huh! What a nice couple!” and never make the connection that they’re screwing themselves over. An effective personal finance book would have pointed out for you: by paying interest-bearing debt first, this couple will save X amount of money over the coming year. As a bonus, it could run those savings through a compound calculator and see how much they’ll have in 30 years if they could have invested it instead.
(Also noted: the couple has a high enough income to wipe out both debts completely in less than a year, but chose not to – nor does the book even hint at such a possibility. Money Diaries is heavy on the “debt is serious but hey you’re still young and should have fun! Tee-hee!” philosophy, which makes me grit my teeth and roll my eyes and beat my chest in despair all at the same time and may be contributing to why I’m spending way too much a chunk of my life writing this review at all.)
All this stems from the fact the book itself doesn’t truly understand personal finance. There’s no cohesive philosophy: instead, it’s numerous other financial approaches – e.g. Your Money or Your Life, Dave Ramsey – repackaged and thrown at the reader in a manner that makes it feel knowledgeable but isn’t detailed enough to allow one to do anything with the information. It’s like throwing a whole bunch of mud at the wall and hoping some of it sticks. I get the sense that if I was new to personal finance, I would have read the whole thing, felt really inspired, and then walked away and never thought about this again because it’s too many concepts in too little detail to truly apply to any area of my life.
Finally, while the cover lists Lindsey Stanberry as the author, it should say, “with Priya Malani,” because at least 80% of the advice sections start with, “I asked Priya to tell me how…” or, “Priya helped me…” or, “Priya told the best way to…” and then proceeds to simply repeat whatever Priya said. This may explain the lack of depth. (Poor Priya gets nothing except a brief callout in the acknowledgements section, and even then her name is lumped together with a bunch of other people.)
I gave this book 2 stars because for the truly, absolute beginner whose money is a disaster, the process of seeing other people’s spending might encourage them to at least do their own money diary for a week and become more aware of their habits. And also because, if nothing else, it was entertaining to read (but in a train-wreck kind of way. On the website, the comments section has a culture of “people read this series just to write judgy comments.”) But in the hands of someone who actually wants to get their financial life in order, the cavalier, “oh you’re fine!” attitude without any philosophy or clear approach may actually lead to the kind of passivity and lack of improvement that will set you back.