One Year to an Organized Financial Life (S/PG)(NYR 3)

One Year to an Organized Financial Life is just that, a step by step, week by week plan to go from chaos to organization nirvana. Now, I highly recommend that if you want to deep dive into this book, buy it so you can go week to week to week. I checked it out from the library, read through the whole year in about 2 days, and then went back and picked out what I was needing at the time. The only issue I see with my approach is that it isn't the overall goal of what the author, Regina Leeds, is trying to convey. It isn't just having a filing system, or paying your bills on time, but a lifestyle of organization. Her philosophy is that in order for the organization to work, you cannot just be organized in one spot, or in one room, or in one thing (i.e. your finances are in order, but your housekeeping isn't, etc). She clearly demonstrates how she perceives that sloppiness in one arena can and will carry over to another if you allow it, but they cannot both exist in your lifestyle and for the most part I agree. It is funny that since I took to task on going through the paper work, creating files, etc., I have also finally cleaned out the garage, wrote a specific to do list down, etc. As she stated, the momentum I created in doing the finances have carried over into other aspects (I'm sure to the cheers of my wife). I just have to keep the momentum going.

The other thing is this is not just about bills and files. It covers taxes, wills, insurance, credit cards, budgeting, etc. I think this is great considering most personal finance books only focus on bills, or getting out of debt, etc. This book is a plan that umbrellas everything.

I would give this a 7 out of 10. People who desperately want a plan and can buy into the organized lifestyle will probably take it as a 8 or a 9. However, those picking this up thinking that it will only focus on getting the bills paid on time will probably be disappointed and put it at a 5 or 6.