The Simple Dollar (Book On Tape)

Hay House (Published 2010)
Written By Trent Hamm
USA

Review 4 stars— Excellent Book

How the blurb describes the book:
The Simple Dollar can change your life. Trent Hamm found himself drowning in consumer debt, working in a job he couldn't stand and figured out how to escape that debt and build the fulfilling career he'd always dreamt about, all at the same time. Hamm shared his experiences at TheSimpleDollar.com and built it into one of America's top personal finance websites. Now, The Simple Dollar is a book: packed with practical tips, tools, and lessons you can use to transform your life, too.

This isn't just another personal finance book: it's profoundly motivating, empowering, practical, and 100% grounded in today's American realities. Trent Hamm will show you how to rewrite the rules, creating healthier relationships with money and with your loved ones, too. With his help, you can get out of debt, start moving forward, and build the strong personal community that offers true happiness no matter what happens to the economy.

Escape the plastic prison, and stop running to stand still

5 simple steps to eliminate credit card debt and 5 more to start moving forward

Shift your life's balance towards more positive, stronger relationships

Learn how to put the golden rule to work for you

Discover the power of goals in a random world

Learn how to overcome inertia, and transform goals into reality

Navigate the treacherous boundaries between love and money

Move towards deeper communication, greater honesty, and more courage.

Mr Home Budget's Review:
Trent Hamm was not born under any special star. He was born with complicated health problems which got worse as he got older. In fact, he has only one eye which works and one ear with 100% hearing. Plus as he puts it, a weight condition where if he even looks at a chocolate thick shake he adds mass. But he never looked at his health problems as a problem. Instead, he looked on them as a challenge to overcome.

What he did look on as a problem was his home budgeting skills. One day in 2006, he was watching his new born baby nap when he was overcome by tears. He was deep in the red with his money and had very little idea how to get out of it.

While some other people may have looked at bankruptcy as a possibility, Trent Hamm started taking the necessary steps to get his money and life back where he believed it should be.

The book "The Simple Dollar" dictates his journey from being overcome with grief and debt, to being out of debt and in charge of his money. He documents what changes he had to make and what changes you should be making as well, if you would like to improve your fiscal situation.

I must say he is a very good writer. The words almost talk to you as if he is sitting in the room with you. The stories he documents are heartfelt with a big lump of emotion. You will actually feel his family's pain as they try to get themselves from in debt, to out of debt.

Also the book talks about life changes which are not money related. These included making goals, choosing your friends wisely and confronting fears head on. The book basically challenges your mindset which may have led you to your money issues in the first place.

One bit which really stood out for me was, "As we shopped for our next car we test drove many different models in many different price ranges. Some of them offered exquisite experiences. Leather seats, perfect leg room; full surround sound, a DVD player, an in-dash GPS, clever storage, great handling and so on. After trying them all, Sara and I walked back to one of the least expensive models we drove; a Toyota Prius with almost no bells and whistles on it. It did what we wanted and it provided full efficiency for a lengthy commute, plus a high reliability and safety for the money spent. We could have afforded the Lexus with the leather seats, or the BMW with the superb engineering. In the end though, that expensive car would have just served the same function as the Toyota would, getting my wife back and forward on her daily commute. We smiled at each other as we drove away in the Prius, knowing the tens of thousands of dollars we saved by not keeping up with the Joneses and simply buying what we needed. It put us that much closer to our dreams".

Trent sums up the rules on how a family and home budget should work, and why a lot of people are failing to follow these rules causing them heartache and problems. The rules are not complicated, but they will require willpower to follow through.

To sum up, this book can do nothing but improve your outlook on your money situation. It also gives you a true feeling of, "I'm not alone on this journey". Where the book can let itself down is that it can get too far off topic. Sometimes you will be wondering why a book about money is talking about these issues. But this small complaint aside (and it is only small). Just learning about Trent's health problems and the way he deals with them can't fail to bring a smile to your face. This book should be a recommended read to anybody looking to improve their life and budget.

Pros:
The book keeps everything extremely simple, and nothing regardless of how small is overlooked.
It is quite entertaining with lots of laugh-out-loud good moments.
Heart-warming stories are peppered throughout this book, which really bring a smile to your face.

Cons:
A lot of the time it goes off the subject of home budgeting and getting out of debt. This can bring you to the point of wondering why the book is covering this topic at all.
The book is a tad too long and some of the subjects were covered twice, if not three times.