A Couple’s Guide to Financial Peace
By Bill Willard on May 13, 2009 in Book Review
Book Review
The Back to Basics Book of Money
–A Couple’s Guide to Financial Peace
By John R. Ingrisano
Paperback, Copyright 2009
Text: $15.99 & Workbook: $14.99 Set: $24.99
Reviewed by
Bill Willard
News Flash: The newly married typically have long, bumpy roads ahead of them under the best of circumstances. An economy that stinks out loud does nothing to improve the terrain. One thing that can help, however, is knowing where you’re going and being able to navigate when you hit the trail.
There! I think we’ve gotten our dime’s worth out of that metaphor. It’s time to see how John Ingrisano’s latest Money Book can help newlyweds get their financial house in order, and begin married life on solid financial ground.
Learning By Doing
Ingrisano has a rare talent for pulling rather than pushing readers into subjects. This time he gets right to it in the Table of Contents. He begins by setting out a series of learn-by-doing money-management and wealth-building objectives. He then develops those through 10 “Couple Money Skills” in the text, which the newly married who are smart enough to be serious about all this can put to the test with real numbers and real results in 31 “Wealth Builder” workbook projects.
The use of “projects” not “exercises” is a lot more than semantics.
Example: Couples learn Money Skill #5: Treat Debt as a Curable Disease, (“Learn How to Use Credit Not Abuse it”) then put that new mindset to work in Wealth Builder #16: Stop Adding Debt, (“The first step in getting your debt under control is to stop adding new debt”).
Sound almost too simple? Ask young married folks shelling out for debt consolidation about that.
Words of Advice: To the newly married who can’t have John Ingrisano around giving Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down to their financial moves: First, count your blessings! Then order The Back to Basics Book of Money –A Couple’s Guide to Financial Peace. That’s one financial decision I wish Sue and I could have made when we were starting out in 1968!
Bill Willard is a freelance writer and editor in Clearwater FL. He has been a high-impact writer and editor for over 30 years. He began his “faith journey” to Catholicism in 2008 at his wife, Sue’s urging. After putting up with him for 40 years, all she had to do was ask! Visit his Website: www.writergazette.com/WillardAssociates.shtml. Or contact him at billw15@tampabay.rr.com to sign up for his popular eblog: Daily Grin.
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John Ingrisano | May 19, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for the great review, Bill. I had a lot of fun writing this book and workbook series, and I’m already hearing from a number of folks who tell me it is helping them revitalize not just their finances, but also their relationships.
One unexpected surprise: Many sales so far are from people in their mid-forties to mid-sixties. They’re buying the books for their adult children. JRI
Bill Willard | May 19, 2009 | Reply
Thanks! Glad to hear that. Soon after the review posted last week, a friend who manages insurance sales reps wrote to say that he, too, was ordering the book for a newly married couple, one of whom is related to him by birth!
I’d say you’ve hit (another) one for extra bases. Congratulations!