Review: Worry-Free Money: Stop budgeting, Start Living

Worry-Free Money: Stop budgeting, Start Living by Shannon Lee Simmons
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Great book if you're looking for a happier way to budget your money so you don't feel so strapped down. I'm a finance major so I love learning new ways of organizing finances and budgeting so I enjoyed this book, it's very practical.

Basically you figure out where all your money is going, and mark it down as either a fixed expense (which you can't change, like hydro, car insurance, etc.), and everything else you spend your money on. You look at your expenses and find out what's most and least important to you and get rid of the expenses that are unimportant. That way you can create an Emergency account, a Short term savings account (trips, upgrade car, etc), and a long term savings plan (retirement). The thing that's different about this book is that Simmons sections out a sort of allowance, a guilt free account that you're allowed to spend on whatever you wish, literally called the "Happy spending account."

I'd say the majority of the book is going through examples of different people's finances. Whether it be a young couple, a divorcee, an older couple trying to retire, literally all walks of life. There are soooo many examples walking through all their expenses and cutting out what and prioritizing what they really want.

When we are faced with situations that we want to spend additional money we need to sit back and calculate if it’s within our means, and ensure we would still be able to pay our fixed expenses and savings.

Write down every category of expenses and rate from 1-5, 5 being must and 1 being unimportant to you, work through the 1-3’s to see if you can eliminate those expenses.

The psychological benefit of having an emergency account is better than putting a few grand into your debt repayment plan. Me personally, instead of putting it into a 1% savings account which isn’t even beating inflation out it into a GIC that you can tap into if necessary, in your portfolio anyway you should have some GIC’s anyways, low risk investments. But that's just me, I know most people would benefit psychologically by having an emergency account.

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