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Understanding Money
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All books about managing personal money seem to come down to fundamentally the same principles, because there are only so many ways to save it and manage it. But there are huge differences in approach in terms of what kind of life you want, what you are willing to do in order to make money, and what your emotional attitude is toward making, spending, saving and investing money.
It must have been pointed out a million times now that Americans in general have not been saving money, and that boomers in particular are ill-prepared for retirement. As always, this is more descriptive of women because we have generally earned less, invested less, and have learned to have less confidence in our financial intelligence. For those of us living without a second income, this can be an especially serious problem as we get older in an unstable economy with costs rising continually.
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 *Emotional Freedom Technique
Carol Look, LCS, DCH
www.carollook.com (buy new here)
Buy used at Amazon.com
Carol Look, an EFT Master who is featured in several of the EFT Training videos (emofree.com), has written this book in a simple and very effective way. It can apply to all areas of your life in which you want to create abundance, but it’s aimed at financial prosperity. The procedure is based on the idea that everything in the universe operates by frequency, and everything has its own energy signature. We all know that a certain amplitude and frequency of light wave will always produce the same color. Here’s a cool little interactive tutorial that demonstrates this.
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 How Women Get Smart About Money
Barbara Stanny
1997
http://www.barbarastanny.com
Buy new or used from Amazon.com
If you feel reluctant or confused about how to begin to understand how you take control of your money, manage and invest it, competently, yourself, start here. This is not a scary money book, but a friendly, well-written, personal, engaging study of what it is that keeps women "dumb" about money, and the simple (once you know them!) insights that will make you smart. Whether you're barely getting by, earning a lot but spending it all, or you have saved or inherited money but don't understand investing, Stanny is talking to you. In fact, unless you are one of the miniscule percentage of women who have learned that you are responsible for your financial security even if you currently have a husband and a bevy of financial advisors, this book is for you.
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This is the best book for those with lower incomes, though extremely relevant for everyone, especially if you are even slightly Green or feel attracted to the Simple Living movement. Dominguez and Robin concentrate deeply on subjects that are addressed more generally by other writers: discovering your values, getting your spending into alignment with your values, and focusing on achieving financial independence. The goal is to achieve the point where your earnings will support you without working, or at the level and kind of work you want to do. . .
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 Terry Savage
1999
www.terrysavage.com
There’s lots of hard information here, and an archive of her newspaper columns which gives you a good sense of her approach.
Buy new or used from Amazon.com
FinancialEngines.com
Web-based financial advice recommended by Terry Savage--you subscribe to get personalized advice on investment and retirement.
Specializing in a “straight from the hip” delivery, Savage covers a lot of information. This book is more computer and internet-oriented than most, and includes an excellent chapter on setting up your bank accounts on Quicken or Microsoft Money. (I did this years ago and it is great for taxes, especially if you have a small business—all your transactions are downloaded and can be assigned a customized tax category as you review them. You can also connect credit card accounts, and print out reports any time to see how you are spending your money.) She gives lots of web resources, and covers a lot of material related to finances. This is not directed particularly at women or at midlife women, though she has a chapter on issues that relate more to women.
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 Napoleon Hill
Orig version 1937, abridged version 1960, restored version 2004
Buy this book new or used from Amazon
Think and Grow Rich! is one of the granddaddies of self-help books. The first version was published during the Depression. The 1960 version was abridged by Hill, who removed a lot of the text that was focused on Depression era concerns. The new version restores the cuts (now once again relevant) and annotates the text. The new version has some interesting additions, but the meat of the book is in the earlier edition, which is available inexpensively used.
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This is another upbeat, enthusiastic guide from Richard Bach on how to get the money to save for retirement, and how to save it. He has a lot of experience in women’s concerns and weaknesses because of the Smart Women Finish Rich seminars he has been teaching for years. (Smart Women Finish Rich covers quite a bit of the same ground but is focused more on investing and is directed specifically to the issues women have with money.) Surprisingly, he says that women in general are more competent investors than men, because we are better able to commit to a plan and stick to it without being tempted by something more exciting.
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 The Courage to Be Rich
Everything You Need to Know in Good and Bad Times
Suze Orman
http://www.suzeorman.com/ This is a media star website, but you definitely get the flavor of her approach!
Buy new or used from Amazon.com
Financial books for women who have an uncertain relationship with money—which is almost all of us. Written in from a personal point of view with lots of stories that provide examples of her points, they are all easy to read. The Courage to be Rich has some good general chapters on finances during and after divorce and after a death, but you will need a more detailed discussion like Financial Self-Confidence for the Suddenly Single if you are in that situation. Everything you need to know has a good question-and-answer format which addresses the simple questions as well as the more complicated ones. Orman’s approach is get-rich conventional, and her presentation doesn't exactly reflect sobriety, but she also makes a pass at addressing the question of the real value of money in the context of one’s life.
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 A Woman’s Guide
Alan B. Ungar, CFP
1997
Buy new or used from Amazon.com
This is excellent if you are thrown unexpectedly into a situation where you need take over managing your finances and you haven’t been accustomed to doing it. If your husband dies or you divorce, whether you have more or less money than before, it's crucial for your future security not to make mistakes--and at a moment when generally you are in shock and finances are the last thing you want to think about. This could also be relevant if a parent dies suddenly and leaves an inheritance.
We have so many unconscious feelings about and reactions to money that it is easy to make decisions under pressure that we will be sorry about later on. Ungar is sensitive to the state of mind you are likely to be in, and he clearly lists financial decisions you need to take during the mourning period after you are divorced or widowed, and those that can safely be postponed until later.
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Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence
A No-Fail Plan for Achieving Financial Freedom at Any Age