I feel like I understand most of the laws. Basically, if you can reasonably manage your emotions, you can manage your money, especially if you can get past that “money is a mysterious thing that only Earl Pansypants understands, not someone like me” thing. The one law I probably misunderstood was the last one, where—I mean, I would say, even though personal power can be an effective tool in getting money, However:—having money is /not/ a substitute for personal power.

The one idea that she didn’t separate out as a law but which was useful to me was the idea of the problem of—as I call it—perfectionism. Like, your stock has gone up a zillion percent, but you don’t sell any of it, because “stocks—especially MY stocks!—are Always Supposed To Go Up, so we can never sell”…. Instead of saying, You know what, it went up a lot; we did okay; now let’s sell a little and buy something we really want, or else sell some and transfer it to a safe/savings investment kinda thing, like investing in a bank or the government or something, right.

Incidentally she writes not about making more money (jobs, businesses) but about relationships, spending, and investing (ie you should probably sell a stock that you don’t feel good about, that’s “too risky” for you…. Unless it has some value probably but has gone down to zero recently because of mass panic), but she basically talks about managing money and achieving a reasonable amount of security for later in life on a reasonable amount of income coming in now, which is certainly a useful as well as a practical thing to know about…. It’s obviously not inspiration, but this is one non-inspiration money book where I would say that, despite the caution and at times the technical/specifics aspects, she’s not teaching fear-based or harmful things, so it’s good.

Money is a difficult subject for many people. From investing in the wrong thing to having bad money habits, these are things that can be reversed. So says Suze Orman, the financial guru who went through her own battles with finances back in the day.

Now, my version of this book is published as “The Laws of Money,” but it was initially printed as “The Laws of Money, the Lessons of Life.” The book is somewhat dated in that it was printed in the early part of the new millennium, but as the book says, the advice is timeless.

I did not expect a Jesus fest in reading this book, but that is a bit of what I got. It read like a twelve step program. The Laws take their inspiration from the Ten Commandments. Faith permeates the pages of this book. Well, at least in the beginning. The fourth law has really good investment advice and talks about IRAs and other investment options. Although I can understand that faith is a large part of Orman’s life, it becomes a bit saccharine. The other half of the book is a workbook where you can write down your personal exercises with money and thinking back and so on. Since I don’t write in my books, that part will go unused.

The book was fine other than those parts about the commandments. It just felt like down-home folksy wisdom. I can give this a 3 out of 5. ( )

OK ( )