Jill Schlesinger

This surprised me. I was recommended the book by several people and blogs but was turned off by the author being part of the mainstream media machine which usually spews dumbed down bad advice. Jill Schlesinger did a great job of hitting the main points of personal finance that should apply to most people. Sadly for my poor behind, all of the examples were of professionals who make $100k or more per year and have $1 million in savings or assets. So it takes some creative and objective thinking to see the main points from each chapter and learn how they can be applied to poverty financing.
I also really enjoyed that she brought a sense of humor and curse words to the topic. It's easy to zone out when trying to digest this stuff. I look forward to checking out her podcast.… (more)

This was a quick afternoon read, and I jotted down a few notes and tips that will be helpful. However, my main issue with her book was “smart” seems to equal rich. She mentioned multiple times that the majority of Americans headed to retirement in the next 10-15 years have less than $200k set aside, yet her “real-life examples” were always of clients making 6-7 figure incomes. In the chapter about how to talk about money with children her real-life examples were a couple making $700k who were jealous of their friends making a lot more, a woman earning a $1 million yearly bonus and a friend who married a billionaire but raised down-to-earth kids. The advice was relatively good, but these examples made it feel like in no way could it pertain to me. These are the types of examples through the entire book. I’d be a lot more impressed if she shared some success stories of Americans with average salaries, but I’m guessing in her financial consulting work that isn’t her clientele… (more)