Don’t Worry, Make Money (Spiritual And Practical Ways To Create Abundance And More Fun In Your Life):

Hodder and Stoughton Publishers (1997)

Written By Richard Carlson Ph D

United States of America

Review 4 Stars – Excellent Book

How the blurb describes the book:

100 brilliant strategies for achieving financial success by giving up stress, worry, anger, and fear.

Richard Carlson, Ph.D. applies his methods for achieving happiness and a worry free lifestyle to moneymaking. He takes the reader through the steps needed to create a more relaxed attitude to money and the ways this can result in highly successful moneymaking ventures.

With a more relaxed and positive outlook, you will begin to approach your financial life with wisdom instead of fear.

Learn about the relationship between moods and money – Be aware of what you don’t know, and what you’re not good at – Experiment with the one hour solution – Avoid relying on too much data, and much more!

Richard Carlson holds a Ph.D. in psychology and maintains a practice in stress management and prevention. He is a frequent lecturer on happiness and stress reduction and is the author of several books, including the bestselling Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff and Slowing Down to the Speed of Light, and co author for Handbook for the Soul and Handbook for the Heart.

Mr Home Budget’s Review: You won’t learn how to improve investment strategies in this book. You can forget about hearing tips on how to improve your rate of return in your share portfolio. There is next to nothing about home budgeting ideas or economics. So the title of the book may be a tad misleading.

The book is broken down into 100 parts. Each part is about 1 to 3 pages long. There are ideas, personal stories from the writer, inspirational moments, case studies, and uplifting statements in general. The total book is designed to alter your mindset on how you view work, family, life, yourself and yes, money.

Still confused, well here is an example from one of the 100 sections. “Several years ago, I heard a super-successful financial guru explain that the single most important thing he ever did for himself, prior to becoming rich, was to set aside two years of living expenses. Although it required enormous sacrifice, discipline, and hard work to save this much money – it paid enormous dividends, especially psychologically. Essentially, what it did was to give him enormous peace of mind, the freedom he needed to take risks that would be difficult, if not impossible, without the financial cushion. Very simply, socking away a few years of living expenses allowed him to avoid worry, to pursue dreams and interesting opportunities.”

Or “Sometimes, when you consider taking on a new venture – whether it’s raising a child, writing a book, starting a new business, beginning a savings plan or anything else – the task can seem overwhelming. It’s as though you’ll never be able to arive at your final destination, as if the first step isn’t going to help. When you look too far out toward the horizon, it can seem too difficult. You might even wonder where to begin. The trick to success sounds very simplistic, because it is very simple: Just Begin. Take a single step, followed by another, and then another. Don’t look too far into the future, and don’t look too far back either. Stay centred in the present moment as best you can. If you follow this simple plan, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish over time.”

 As you can see, this is not your typical moneysaving book. While there is saving tips, they are few and far between. The sense I got when reading the book was to totally look at things over the long term. When a problem occurs, put it in perspective of how big a problem it will be in 5 years looking back at it. The author’s first book title probably sums up the feeling of this book, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff.

One last thing which stood out for me from the book. “One of the most severely limiting beliefs that many of us have is that the person we were yesterday is the person we have to be today. This belief keeps us tied to our past mistakes, habits and limitations. We somehow buy into the notion that history truly does repeat itself, that if we weren’t successful yesterday, we certainly can’t be successful today or tomorrow.”

This would be a great book just to have around the house or at work. Every time things are getting a bit too much, just read one or two of the suggestions for a quick pick me up. Well worth a read, but don’t expect to improve your budgeting skills greatly by reading it.

Pros: Keep this book on your desk at work. Having a bad day choose a number at random from 1 to 100. Then start reading! All the things in this book are designed to give you a lift and remind you life is worth living.

Extremely easy to read and most of the tips make sense.

Cons: The book is probably best not read all in one day, as it can get a bit boring.

Some of the hints seem to repeat themselves in slightly different ways from time to time.