Thursday | May 24, 2012
Book Review: Wealthy Choices
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By
Cynthia E. Brodrick
29 May 2005
Sometimes personal finance books are like medicine – you know they’re good for you, but they’re tough to swallow. Well, Dr. Penelope Tzougros has an antidote for dull and impersonal finance – her new book, Wealthy Choices: The 7 Competencies of Financial Success.” It has a personal touch that makes it more interesting.
Most personal finance books are heavy on theory – telling us what we ought to be doing with our money. But it doesn’t always seem to fit our individual lives. Money is a personal matter.
However, our personal situations aren’t always as unique as we think. Tzougros’s book explores many different financial questions using stories based on real-life clients that she has dealt with as a finance advisor.
I believe most readers will find this book very open, reader-friendly and accessible. It’s not a dry tome that lectures from on high.
Tzougros begins her book with a short prologue chapter explaining how to make the book work for you. She asks the reader: “Is there something about the way you handle money that you want to change?” Who can say no to that?
The book is organized into seven sections, which the author calls “competencies.” They are: Valuing, Paying the Bills, Losing, Leveraging, Dreaming, Growing, and Gifting.
- Valuing is about the unique choices we all make about money.
- Paying the bills is pretty self-explanatory.
- In Losing, Tzougros examines small and big ways we lose money and helps identify the patterns that lead to bad money decisions.
- Leveraging provides guidelines about borrowing money.
- Dreaming returns us again to values and passions, which money can help or hinder.
- Growing gives you basic tips on investing.And then Gifting comes back to values, and discusses ways money can repair or create rifts in relationships.
Tzougros uses vignettes to illustrate points in these seven sections, to lead to a basic lesson in how to handle your money. Many of these situations are sure to strike a responsive chord in readers. The real-life stories in Wealthy Choices draw from author’s 20 years of experience helping people with their money.
These stories include little issues which can grow bigger, such as avoiding dealing with parking tickets or getting money back from a relative. The stories also deal with bigger issues many of us face everyday, such as making 401k investment choices and to conflicting values within our families.
The reader may find themselves reading the little stories in the book and saying, “HEY, I do that!” The book is not just about money, but about life and what a person needs to do to be happy. It’s about choices, which is what economics is all about (when you bring it down to human terms).” At the same time, it doesn’t get too “Oprah Winfrey” on you.
Sure, some of the perspectives can be a bit preachy. But mostly Penelope’s Perspectives are trying to get you to think about money, your values, and how you handle money. Hopefully some can make you think, and recognize behavior that’s limiting you when dealing with money.
This book breaks many of the mysteries of personal finance into small and easy steps. Readers should be able to get a lot out of the numerous tips, tricks, techniques, and insights offered.
By listening to the people in these stories, you will recognize your own habits and find alternative choices that can help you be more successful with your money. After reading Wealthy Choices, you’ll be armed with solid guidelines for making important financial decisions and begin to achieve financial goals that may have always seemed out of reach.
© 2008, Young Money Media, LLC. All rights reserved.
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