Book Review - Pocket Your Dollars

“When a fundamental building block is missing from our lives, then no amount of fine-tuning can move things forward.  That’s why we’re not starting with budget or expense trackers.  Those are mechanisms for fine-tuning once we have a solid foundation.”

Pocket Your Dollars by Carrie Rocha is an easy and honest read about a difficult subject.  It is about building a strong mental foundation for financial success by changing your attitude.  Her first recommendation is not a budget although it is an important tool.   Our greatest hope for real change is to take personal responsibility for past decisions.  More money is not always the answer if you are not fundamentally different than when you had less money.  The author gives us examples of lottery winners who lost it all to illustrate this point.

Rocha appears to be doing an operation on our thoughts about money.  The sharing of her personal experience with help us improve our financial life. She does not want us to put a band-aid on our financial woes like more money or a budget. She wants us to get to the heart of the matter.  When our attitude is correct then tools like a budget become more effective.

Buying can fill an emotional need that we did not even know we had. I have been done the “I deserve a treat” road.  Life is tough, hard day, annoying boss and family problems can lead to “I deserve this something special”, but this behavior does not keep money in your pocket.

Satisfaction with what we have helps us to keep more of our money.  We do not have to get caught up in comparison with others when we choose to be content.  

Once our attitude is correct then we need skills to maintain our new outlook on money. Rocha helps us with that, too.  Resilience will keep me moving even when I mess up.  Her discussion about reframing was helpful to me.  Instead of looking at failures as the “nail in the coffin”, you can reason that I am successful because of my failures.  I learned from my past and I will keep moving forward.

The creation of a spending plan will definitely keep you focused on what is most important.  The spending plan is not just about the mundane bills we have.  It is even about the extras that use to get us in trouble before our attitude change.  The extras like gifts and vacations do not have to produce guilt if properly planned.

This book is full of common sense.  We need to own up to our mistakes and figure out what attitude is preventing us from moving forward.  Financial tools like a budget and the right attitude will give us long-term success in our financial life.

Rating: 5 stars

This book was provided to me by Bethany House Publisher for my opinion.

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