Generation Earn: The Young Professional’s Guide to Spending, Investing, and Giving Back.
I must confess two things. I still have a few books reviews that I need to write that I’ve been slacking off on lately. I also haven’t read many personal finance books since the spring time. My reading habits have altered a bit: from outside-the-box career advice to productivity books. Last month I finally got around to reading a personal finance book. Below is my review of Generation Earn:
Who should read this book?
The book is spread out between three core subjects: Building your life, creating a home, and changing the world. At the end of the day this book is a solid read for any college graduate, regardless of your level of financial expertise. There will be sections of the book that resonate with your current situation. There will also be sections of the book that you find useless. There will definitely be something valuable in this book for you though.
What did I enjoy?
All of the resources. The book shares many resources. By resources, I mean it provides links to useful sites and it cites other books/magazines as references. This is pretty cool because if you want more help or you want to conduct additional research after reading the book, you can easily do so.
Topics covered. From resenting your friends for making more money to forming a non-profit organization, all the way up to running a yoga studio. This book covers more topics than any other book I’ve read on personal finance.
Stock investing (diversifying, avoiding the news, re-balancing your portfolio). Generation Earn does a great job of covering the topic of stock investing for 20-somethings.
Easy to read. This book is really easy to read. The way it flows and is structured makes it a pleasant read that you won’t have to dread. I’m the kind of person that will stop reading a crappy book and I never felt like stopping once.
What did I not care for?
I just can’t relate with some of the thoughts. From divorce to babies to childcare. Some of the topics in Generation Earn are simply not for me at this time in life. However, I do understand that these issues could be important to me at one point.
There are many topics in this book that are useless to me at the moment. As mentioned above, some of the stuff just isn’t for me. Of course, the obvious solution is to simply skip these chapters.
Kimberly puts it best near the end of the book:
“Our generation might have grown up in an era of relative opulence, but as I make use of a closet full of second-hand baby clothes and a hang-me-down crib, I can’t help but feel lucky that we had the chance to learn some of that old-school frugality.”
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