Budget Book Review: Expecting Money
May 23, 2009 by Jennifer Chait
Filed under family, finances, financial matters
A money saving book review today for you guys…
Book: Expecting Money: The Essential Financial Plan for New and Growing Families (Paperback) by Erica Sandberg
Cost: $12.44
Basics: This book is set up to help you budget for your family, no matter your financial or marital situation. Below is Sandberg’s website description of the book:
“No matter how much you earn, own, or owe, having children will dramatically alter your financial picture. Whether you’re thinking of expanding your family, are pregnant now, or have recently had a baby, Expecting Money: the Essential Financial Plan for New and Growing Families will help you prepare for the economic demands of parenthood. From setting a financial start line to developing a comprehensive new budget, you can build lasting security with the techniques outlined in this guidebook that is designed specifically for the most important time in anyone’s life – beginning a family.“
What I think…
Erica Sandberg is a nationally recognized credit and money management authority. She’s accumulated over a decade of experience working with folks and writing about both personal and business finances. It’s easy to tell, after reading this book, that Sandberg is indeed an expert. This book is highly comprehensive and perfect for all types of family situations. Perks I enjoyed included:
Logical time-line of information. For example, the book opens with a couple of chapters that help you understand both how financial issues work, which money matters should concern you personally, and how to figure out where you are now on the path to financial success. The book then moves on the pregnancy money issues, then baby money issues, child care, and so on.
Covers relationships + finances: The book not only covers partner money dynamics but also solutions for those not in relationships (single parents). Many budgeting family books I read leave out single parents, and being a single parent myself it’s awesome to see an entire chapter devoted to this financial experience.
Covers consumer issues: One thing I liked about this book was the coverage given to consumer choice. I’m big on consumer choice as a money saving issue, and this book dives into this with topics like marketing to parents and pressure to buy products when really it’s unnecessary.
Future financial goal coverage: The second to last chapter, “Making It Happen” covers all sorts of ways to manage your future finances. Big issues like life insurance and planning for emergencies are covered but so are some fun things like vacation savings.
Budget planning help: The last chapter is a total how-to on planning your family budget. From setting goals, to tracking expenses, to crunching numbers, this chapter can help just about anyone plan for a more successful budget.
OVERALL SCORE:
For the price (not expensive) I’d give this book 5 out of 5 stars. It’s positive and upbeat without being one of those lame, “BUILD WEALTH NOW!” sort of deals. This book isn’t preachy it just offers solid advice that’s digestible in small chunks. Lastly, it’s practical and contains plans that should be easy for even non-financial types to implement.
Check out Expecting Money: The Essential Financial Plan for New and Growing Families at Amazon or take a look and see if your local library carries it.
For a more up to date resources check out my book How to Afford Time off with Your baby by Becky Goddard-Hill for financial planning with baby tips form pre-pregnancy to pre-school (vermilion 2009) It can be pre-ordered on Amazon now. It also has a huge resource directory to help you find all the phone mubmbers etc. you may ever need. I blog about this at http://www.babybudgeting.blog.co.uk as all my tips come out of my experiences.