Lesley Scorgie

I picked up this book at a speaking engagement with the author, it was held at my university. Lesley is a successful young woman; she is in her mid-twenties and has been featured on Oprah for her financial success. I thought Lesley could have interesting things to say to young people about money and investing so I decided to purchase her book. The focus of her talk was on student debt and how to start saving after leaving university, I imagined the book would add on these ideas.

This book is targeted at young people; in it Lesley shares her own secrets to financial success and provides tips and tricks young people might find useful. The book is broken down into several action chapters:

- Get Motivated – In this chapter Lesley discusses why it’s important for young people to think about money. She introduced simple ideas such as compound interest and setting personal financial goals.
- Get Organized – In this chapter Lesley urges readers to organize all of their financial documents into a file system and to use online resources to set up accounts and money transfers.
- Get Started – Here Lesley starts in on a budget. She goes through the basics of developing a personal budget.
- Get Out from Under – This chapter discusses the dangers of credit, she outlines how much consumer debt can cost you over the long term.
- Get Saving – In this chapter is a discussion on saving money, most of the chapter contains tips on frugal living.
- Get Investing – There are two chapters under this heading. The first discusses the basics of investing such as different types of investments and investment strategies. The second chapter discusses specific types of instruments and gives very brief treatment to having a long-term focus.
- Get Specific - This chapter deals with specific situation such as saving for education or buying a first home.

Lesley’s style is very inviting. She writes as if she is having a conversation with you. She uses simple language and explains all of the concepts very well. She uses meaningful illustrations that make it simple to digest the financial information and she chooses examples with impact, they are thought provoking and really highlight the main points. The conclusion provides a summary of all the important points in an easy to follow format.

Unfortunately for me I found the book quite elementary. Anyone with an interest in personal finance has already read about all of the items in this book. This is a very short book, only 155 pages and pocketbook sized; I read the entire thing in about an hour. I was looking for information that would be useful to me as a young person about to embark on a real career, instead what I found was information that would be better geared towards high school students with no knowledge of personal finance.

Overall for myself I give this book 2/5 as it contained nothing I did not already know. I have given my copy to a friend who is younger and not as informed. I would recommend this book for any teenager in your life, it provides valuable information that many teens are not aware of. For a teen reader I would give this book 4/5.… (más)