Manage Your Money Like A Fucking Grownup by Sam Beckbessinger

Let me make an embarrassing confession.

I know the author of this book. We were friends in high school, but split acrimoniously in our final year. Something I realised I had not gotten over at all when I saw her name pop-up in a news feed and found her website. At which point I underwent a paroxysm of jealousy at her being a published author and looking so successful. Its not a moment I’m proud of.

A few weeks later I saw her damn book in a shop. By that time I had calmed down and decided I might as well see if it was any good (I was rather hoping it wouldn’t be honestly).

Sadly I was wrong, it is quiet simply, excellent. Its everything I wished I had known about money. Frankly, every 25 year old should receive a copy as their coming of age gift.

Finance in English

Beckbessinger goes about demystifying the financial world. She covers all the important aspects of personal finances in an engaging manner. The book has flow charts, templates and cutesy illustrations of important concepts. The purpose of the book is more than showing you how to manage your finances, its about getting you invested in your own financial wealth. She explores why you should care about your finances, what taking responsibility and action on them gets you, (spoiler alert: the answer is freedom) and how most of us get into financial trouble, including being candid about her own mistakes.

She also discusses how money – aka the financial world – works, both the big scale stuff, and how that impacts on you at a personal level. Who you shouldn’t trust in the finance world and what is in it for those players. Lets put it like this, for the first time I understand what compound interest is, and what equity refers to.

So what’s in there?

There is a lot of information on credit, covering safe and unsafe practises, how to manage it (pay it off) and how the system works. Choosing and juggling bank accounts – she is a major proponent of having multiple accounts. What kind of insurances one should go for and what’s just fluff. Also basic taxes. And entire chapters devoted to investing. I now feel I can go into a discussion about investments and have some idea of what I should be focusing on at least. I think my favourite page in the whole book is the reproduction of an investment fund fact sheet, over which she has sharpied notes on what’s relevant and what it means. With an especial emphasis on getting yourself a retirement annuity. Basically the whole book is helping you work to one goal:

Don’t be Old and Poor

Sam Beckbessinger

The Actually Useful Bits

Probably the most valuable thing this book provides is a practical and actionable guideline to managing your money. She breaks down several potential “money games” depending on the state of your finances and your goals (each with a cutesy name), and then lays out a plan for getting to your goal.

There is a whole chapter devoted to walking you through budgeting. I followed her advise and signed-up to an app, and it has been a game changer. Budgeting, in her mind, is about taking all your financial assets, accounts, cash boxes, everything, and consolidating their information. What are your spending, your income, your credit, the investments you have been talked into but don’t know what they mean. With the use of a free app and a spreadsheet (provided on her website) you will be able to build a money dashboard. It takes the thumb-sucking out of it is what I am trying to say. With these tools I now know exactly how much I am worth and where my money is going.

Further, there is an entire chapter devoted to cutting spending, that looks as much at the psychology of your behaviour as the practical.

This book has earned itself a permanent place on my book shelf, it’s one I intend to refer back to over many years as my financial situation fluctuates. So to conclude: get the book, if not for yourself then for the young people in your life.