From pandemics to recessions, bear markets to energy crises, life is full of financial setbacks. The hard truth is that it’s not a matter of if there will be another economic downturn, but when. The important question to ask is this: how do you prevent a crisis from turning into a full-blown catastrophe? Drawing on years of experience as an award-winning personal finance columnist, Michelle Singletary shares her expert advice for weathering a financial storm. In this book, she answers the most pressing questions that crop up when money suddenly becomes scarce, like: What bills need to be paid first? When is it right to dip into savings? What are the best ways to cut back on spending? How do you keep from panicking when the stock market is down? Is this “opportunity” a scam in disguise? This hands-on guide covers debt concerns, credit card issues, cash-flow problems, and dozens of other common financial matters. Whether you’re in the midst of one crisis or preparing for the next, this book provides the tools to secure your wealth and your future.
Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 If you’re financially frustrated, this chapter may be overwhelming. But press through to the end. Some of the advice may be difficult to implement, but it’s important to remember that this is for your own good. #2 If you’re in a financial crisis, you should triage your debt payments and bills, ensuring that the most important bills are paid first. #3 Having a roof over your head is vital, and if you can’t pay your rent, the first thing you should do is talk to your landlord or mortgage servicer, which is the company or lender who handles your home loan payments. #4 Communication is key when it comes to dealing with a financial bind. If you have a mortgage, lenders will work with you for as long as you’re current on your payments. But the longer you wait to communicate about your situation, the fewer options you may have.
Whether you're living paycheck to paycheck or just trying to make smarter financial choices, let award-winning writer and Washington Post columnist Michelle Singletary show you the practical steps you need to take for the financial peace you long for. In The 21-Day Financial Fast, Michelle proposes a field-tested financial challenge: for twenty-one days, put away your credit cards and buy only the barest essentials. What happens next will forever change the way you think about wealth. With Michelle's guidance, you'll discover how to: Break bad spending habits Plot a course to become debt-free with the Debt Dash Plan Avoid the temptation of overspending for college Learn how to prepare elderly relatives and yourself for future long-term care expenses Be prepared for any contingency with a Life Happens Fund Stop worrying about money and find the priceless power of financial peace Join the thousands of others who have already discovered practical ways to achieve financial freedom and experience what it truly means to live a life of financial peace and prosperity.
In her softcover book The Power to Prosper, award-winning writer Michelle Singletary has a field-tested financial challenge for you. For twenty-one days, you will put away your credit cards and buy only what you need for survival. With Michelle's guidance during this three-week financial fast, you'll discover how to: * Break your spending habit * Handle money with your significant other or your spouse * Break your bondage to debt with the Debt Dash Plan * Make smart investments * Be prepared for any contingency with a Life Happens Fund * Stop worrying about money and find the priceless power of financial peace As you discover practical ways to achieve financial freedom, you'll experience something even more amazing ... your faith and generosity will increase, too.
The best financial planner Michelle Singletary ever knew was Big Mama, her grandmother. Big Mama raised Michelle and her four brothers and sisters on a salary that never reached more than $13,000 a year. Yet at her death, Big Mama owned her own home, had paid off a car loan, and had a beautiful collection of Sunday-go-to-meeting church hats and a savings account that supplemented her Social Security check and small pension. Most important, she had taught Michelle “7 Money Mantras for a Richer Life.” Those mantras serve as the inspiration for this straight-talking book of practical personal financial advice that really works. The 7 Money Mantras are: 1. If it’ s on your ass, it’s not an asset! 2. Is this a need or is it a want? 3. Sweat the small stuff. 4. Cash is better than credit. 5. Keep it simple. 6. Priorities lead to prosperity. 7. Enough is enough. Michelle Singletary is a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post whose popular personal finance column appears in more than 120 newspapers. She’s also a mother of three children who understands what it’s like to live on a budget. In a plainspoken, sassy, no-nonsense voice, Michelle provides answers to the financial issues that confront almost every household: how to teach children the value of money; how to address money issues in a relationship or marriage; household saving tips; getting the best loans; and much more. “This book is about saving enough money to have choices,” she writes. “It’s about feeling free to be cheap if you can’t afford to buy a ton of gifts at Christmas. It’s about eliminating wasteful spend-ing so you can begin to save and invest. It’s full of uncommon commonsense lessons and guidance on the way people should use their money.” With humor and down-home financial wisdom, Michelle Singletary offers practical and realistic advice that will help you live well with the money you have. Michelle Singletary on . . . Romance and Money “It’s okay to say: ‘Honey, I love you and everything, but if you need money, ask your mama.’” Credit Cards “We are minimizing our financial potential by making minimum credit-card payments.” Car Buying “If you want to save money, keep your car until you’re on a first-name basis with the local tow-truck drivers.” Leasing a Car “You, too, can drive a car you can’t afford and then have to give it back. It’s crazy.” Gift Giving “Generosity isn’t about how much you spend. It’s about how much thought you put into the gift.” Penny Pinching “I once bought a stick-shift car because it was $1,000 cheaper than the automatic in the same model. There was just one little problem. I couldn’t drive a stick-shift. But at least I saved $1,000!”
The emphasis in this book is to encourage and guide everyone to prepare for their eventual transition by completing an "Exit Plan" in order to save them much practical and emotional heartache. This will be an extremely helpful book for all who are interested in "getting their house in order." It also might well cultivate such an interest in those who haven't yet thought about how to prepare for their own death.
The fiasco that sank millions of Americans, including one journalist, who thought he knew better. A veteran New York Times economics reporter, Ed Andrews was intimately aware of the dangers posed by easy mortgages from fast-buck lenders. Yet, at the promise of a second chance at love, he succumbed to the temptation of subprime lending and became part of the economic catastrophe he was covering. In surprisingly short order, he amassed a staggering amount of debt and reached the edge of bankruptcy. In Busted, Andrew bluntly recounts his misadventures in mortgages and goes one step further to describe the brokers, lenders, Wall Street players, and Washington policymakers who helped bring that money to his door. The result is a penetrating and often acerbic look at the binge and bust that nearly bankrupted the United States. Enabled by know-nothing complacency in Washington, Wall Street wizards used "collateralized debt obligations," "conduits," and other inscrutable financial "innovations" to put American home financing into hyperdrive. Millions of Americans abandoned the safety of thirty-year, fixed-rate mortgages and loaded up on debt. While regulators insisted that the markets knew best, Wall Street firms fragmented and repackaged unsound loans into securities that the rating agencies stamped with triple-A seals of approval. Andrews describes a remarkably democratic debacle that made fools out of people up and down the financial food chain. From a confessional meeting with Alan Greenspan to a trek through the McMansion bubble of the OC, he maps the arc of the Frankenstein loans that brought the American economy to the brink. With on-the-ground reporting from the frothiest quarters of the crisis, Andrews locates what is likely to be the high-water mark in America's long-term embrace of higher borrowing, higher risk-taking, and the fervent belief in the possibility of easy profits.
WASHINGTON POST “COLOR OF MONEY” BOOK CLUB PICK Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck and Get Your Financial Life Together (#GYFLT)! If you’re a cash-strapped 20- or 30-something, it’s easy to get freaked out by finances. But you’re not doomed to spend your life drowning in debt or mystified by money. It’s time to stop scraping by and take control of your money and your life with this savvy and smart guide. Broke Millennial shows step-by-step how to go from flat-broke to financial badass. Unlike most personal finance books out there, it doesn’t just cover boring stuff like credit card debt, investing, and dealing with the dreaded “B” word (budgeting). Financial expert Erin Lowry goes beyond the basics to tackle tricky money matters and situations most of us face #IRL, including: - Understanding your relationship with moolah: do you treat it like a Tinder date or marriage material? - Managing student loans without having a full-on panic attack - What to do when you’re out with your crew and can’t afford to split the bill evenly - How to get “financially naked” with your partner and find out his or her “number” (debt number, of course) . . . and much more. Packed with refreshingly simple advice and hilarious true stories, Broke Millennial is the essential roadmap every financially clueless millennial needs to become a money master. So what are you waiting for? Let’s #GYFLT!
Why are some couples happy when so many others are not? Is it just the luck of the draw? Or do happy couples actually do things that make their happiness possible? In this lively, encouraging, and occasionally irreverent book, author Claire Vande Polder interviewed real couples in happy marriages to learn what they do to make it work. What she discovered is collected here in short, readable segments on topics from romance to "roommate issues" like housekeeping and chores, conflict, money, life changes, gift giving, when to seek professional help, and more. The individuals in the interview group represent 1,000 years of married life-in which they've acquired 1,000 years of wisdom. And since the identities of those interviewed were kept anonymous, they felt free to dish on intimate truths through confessions, advice, and stories that readers will find both entertaining and inspirational. Whether you're newly engaged, in a long-term relationship, or celebrating decades of wedded bliss, there's something here for everyone. MAKING MARRIAGE HAPPY is a collection of hard-won wisdom from real people, a fresh and often-funny take on the joys and challenges of being in it for the long haul.
