Get Good with Money

Get Good with Money is a non-fiction book focused on finance by Tiffany Aliche, also known as The Budgetista. If you didn’t know she was the #TheBudgetista before reading this book, you would know by the end of the first chapter as Aliche continually asks you to follow her and post your progress on Instagram.

This book is for a very particular audience, namely women. Most finance books are written by men and have a particular dry and mildly condescending tone. Instead, Get Good With Money is written how women speak and talk — it’s conversational and feels like a friend giving you advice. However, the book also emulates some habits that may not be healthy in women, such as down playing your success (Aliche often prefaces or concludes sections with self-effacing comments).

Aliche describes the ways she has made mistakes with money and the actions she has taken to overcome them. This makes the advice in the book very approachable and Aliche comes off as likable.  However, it’s best to take the finance advice in this book with a grain of salt. Like many finance books and programs, Aliche is clearly making a lot of her money by giving people basic financial advice, but making it sound revolutionary.

Aliche was a pre-school teacher, and it really shows in some of her writing. For example, her motto to “save like a squirrel” is introduced as follows: ”During the seasons when acorns are in abundance, those squirrels don’t mess around—they get to work, gathering and stashing acorns like nobody’s business. They even dig holes and drop the acorns in, planting them for their future (sounds an awful lot like investing, right?). When winter arrives and acorn gathering isn’t possible, they don’t stand up, hands on hips, and say, “Wait, what?! It’s winter again?” They knew it was coming, and they prepared for it. Those little smarties tuck into their little homes and live off the savings they’ve put aside during the good times. I’m telling you, they are super savvy savers!” This over-enthusiastic writing style is grating. The pre-school teacher tone is not as exaggerated in later chapters (maybe because if you’ve read that far, you don’t need as much encouragement).

Overall,  the book is a  fine finance book for beginners. It goes over finance fundamentals such as how to create a budget, save for retirement, and get out of debt. However, it does not go into detail about certain financial nuances such as backdoor Roths or unconventional investments (such as Bitcoin). Maybe this is for a reason, like a moral imperative to protect her readers, or maybe because a book can only be so long.

The Don’t Call Me Ishmael Official Book Rating, Sponsored by Whalers for the Rapid Procreation of Whales (WRPW):

2.5 Whales — Readable