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Check out this book here!
Who is Chelsea Fagan?
From her early days on Tumblr, Chelsea has been providing money tips and guidance to women!
Chelsea has a successful blog with the same title, and a YouTube channel that provides tons of helpful financial information. She, along with a business partner, Lauren Ver Hage, created this great book.
She continues to manage her website and social media for The Financial Diet, and help women (and guys, too!) with personal finance in a relatable way.
“Waiting until you’re rich to start caring about your money is like waiting until you’re married to start dating” – The Financial Diet
Book Summary
This book not only has beautiful graphic design, but is great for young women!
The best audience for this book is a female millennial.
First, it has a cute cover that would draw in a younger crowd. There are some expletives throughout the book, so, heads up if that isn’t your cup of tea! Yet, she has a fun writing style that is easy to read.
The book can be superficial in the content it provides. It is a book for beginners, but the information is foundational. It is important information, however! It can be so helpful for us women to learn basic money management from someone who has gone through it all!
Another great aspect of this book is the inclusion of advice from prominent authors from blogs, podcasts, and other areas such as the food industry, to provide legitimate and current money advice.
If you are starting out your financial journey, this book could be a great first step!
Getting Good with Money
The Foundational Beliefs of TFD:
1. Create a Budget
As with nearly every financial writer, you’ll continue to hear this. Get a budget! Truly, how else can you control your money if you don’t understand where it is coming from? There are so many resources available on the Internet to help you with this.
In this section of the book, Chelsea goes over her “DYFD’s” (it stands for, Don’t you F**king Dare rules). They are blunt but necessary for everyone to review and take to heart. You must have your behavior around money established before you can consider making significant progress! It isn’t easy but absolutely required, and Chelsea helps the reader understand this.
Another part of this section that is great is the explanation of different ways to budget. There is no perfect way! You must find what works best for your situation.
2. Build an Emergency Fund
The emergency fund is nothing new or novel, yet so few even have one established! We fully agree with the authors that this is necessary when starting to control finances. An emergency fund will help to mold your behavior around money and is so important in case of financial emergencies such as a dishwasher going out, to prevent you from dipping back into debt.
3. Do a Credit Card Check Up
Chelsea writes about her credit score and how detrimental it can be to let your score get low from bad financial choices, especially for young women. She even states how she still is working toward getting her score up after years of following her rules. It is important to know your score!
4. Automate What You Can
Automating your bill payments (as long as you know ahead of time in your budget what will come out!) is helpful! This can help with the credit score!
5. Know Your Credit Score
This is so important, especially for the younger women. Know your score and learn how much it will take to get the number up!
6. Plan for Retirement
We completely agree with this statement. Investing is critical for financial independence, building passive income, and retiring early (if you wish do so!). One easy way is through a free app called Personal Capital!
7. Run a Career Checkup
This book outlines some great ways to have a more satisfying and rewarding career. Definitely worth the read!
8. Add at Least One Source of Extra Income
Sometimes a hard reality to accept, but Chelsea knows personally the power of adding extra income.
9. Treat Yourself
A great tip! The book also talks about how to be a more successful woman, and states to “diversify your happiness”. Great advice to read through.
Investing
This book does not go into detail for someone wanting to learn about investing, but it appropriately covers everything that is necessary for a beginner to understand! We love that it covered investing nevertheless! From IRA’s to important investing advice specifically for women, this is a great section in the book!
Some of our favorite investing points include:
- Never forget the Rule of 72! This helps you understand when your investment will double.
- Budgeting, saving, and paying off debt are prerequisites to investing. Stocks come last! Understand your money before you invest.
- The distinction between Roth and Traditional IRA accounts is a detailed explanation from a financial expert that is an asset for this book.
- The section of “10 Investing Rules Every Woman Should Follow” is great and every women should indeed read and follow them. Such a good inclusion for this book.
“Start measuring your wealth not in money but in freedom” – The Financial Diet
Should You Buy It?
I’ve outlined a few reasons why I would/not recommend purchasing this book:
- YES: This book is written for you. Chelsea writes with the woman in mind. Especially young (20-30’s) women. She understands your life and your struggles. The language is reads like a conversation and is never dull!
- YES: If you need a wakeup call. This book will tell you to eat everything you buy and to learn how to do basic household tasks like fix a toilet lever. There are so many ways to save money and to get a more successful and confident woman, and this book will outline quite a few of them.
- YES: The book uses expert advice. This is a unique addition to this book in comparison to other mainstream personal finance books. The authors include a handful of successful women and men to give advice about work, cooking, investing, budgeting, and success overall. It is great to see other personal finance bloggers talk about their view of money. The inclusion of all of the experts was a nice touch to this already good book.
- NO: The book may not be helpful for seasoned women in personal finance. This book covers a wide range of foundational concepts. From money, to work, to the kitchen, it covers a little about a lot. If you are looking for a book to dive into investing, or to hold your hand through a full budgeting process, this book may not be the best option for you.
Learn more about this book here!
Okay, Let’s Summarize!
- If you are new to personal finance or money management, this book could be great to add to your collection.
- This book explores more topics than just money. You’ll get great advice for your career, happiness, success, cooking, your home, and more!
- The authors are not new to personal finance and have been helping women for awhile with money. Even with this said, they recruited experts in nearly every topic that is written in this book to help the reader understand the content on a deeper level.
Have you read this book, or used The Financial Diet? We think it is such a good resource!
Let’s keep learning!
ThirtyEight Investing is in no way affiliated with any of the authors or individuals mentioned in this article. All advice and opinions provided in this post are reflections on experience and are for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please see our disclaimer page for more details.
