29 Days...to Save Money and Financial Independence by Richard Fast

This appears to be two books “29 Days” and “...to Saving Money and Financial Independence”. The first book is all about the process of habits and how to to change them with scattered detail. He quotes from several psychological models and theories as to why his method will work. He uses excessive quoting and anecdotes with very little citing of sources. The various models and theories are not explained well enough in the book but appear to be taken out of other books like some people quote scripture. He seems to assume that the reader understands the context. The other books in the series are all letter for letter the same book until page 109 when the “...to save money and achieve financial independence” part starts. When reading this book I had the feeling of one book grafted onto the second.

The second book was actually a lot better. It has a lot of common sense ways to save money and become more aware of spending. Quotes were again not cited. While the front matter gives you everything you would need to put together a way to put together a plan to form or break most habits the back actually does a god job with creating and suggesting a plan. I found the constant congratulations annoying but can see were some people might need the encouragement. The whole book felt like he was targeting a below average intellect reader using formating gimmicks and attempting quotations of intellectual giants to convince his audience he was right and that the program would work. In several places he made the suggestion that opportunities would open up if the reader had the money saved to invest but did not explain what constituted a good opportunity and how the reader could determine good from bad. He did mention the importance of not being guided by someone who was not an expert but did not go into how to find the right person to be guided by. This book would be good for someone with an above average job trying to save money but would be of less use to someone living minimum wage.

2 Bookmarks
Paul Cherry II, reviewer
Mind Fog Reviews