– Publishers Weekly, 10/26/2009

Wealth Watchers: A Simple Program to Help You Spend Less and Save More
Alice Wood with Glenn Rifkin. Free Press, $19.95 paper (288p) ISBN 978-1-4391-5819-7

Wood, founder of the ingenious Wealth Watchers program, shares her accessible plan for financial independence in this highly original, commonsense approach to managing money. Her plan is based on the tenets of Weight Watchers—but rather than counting calories, readers are encouraged to figure out how much money they can spend each day. It’s extraordinarily simple: Wood advocates basic action steps that anyone can take, including getting organized, creating a monthly budget, setting goals and journaling. She discusses the best approach to handling fixed expenses (e.g., housing and insurance) and semifixed expenses (e.g., transportation and child care) and includes a daily, monthly, quarterly and yearly journal in the back of the book for the reader to complete. Easy to follow and complemented by the author’s well-told personal story, this unassuming book won’t intimidate those with little financial knowledge and provides the simple tools everyone can use to take control of their finances. (Jan.)

By Martha Hamilton
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, January 24, 2010
 

MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR MONEY NOW

By Jane Bryant Quinn

Simon & Schuster. 1207 pp. $35

Scared silly by the Great Recession and thinking about changing the way you handle money? That seems to be what the authors of three new books are hoping to take advantage of — improving people’s habits before our attention moves on.

Of the three, the best and most comprehensive is the new version of Jane Bryant Quinn’s “Making the Most of Your Money Now” (Simon & Schuster). I found myself racing through this gigantic compendium because it was engagingly written and full of useful information. And she writes compellingly enough to make you want to spend more time getting things in order. I swear I would have followed the advice about getting financial and health-care powers of attorney on page 30, except I had more than 1,000 pages ahead of me.

The book is organized around eight steps, which she takes you through in detail in multiple chapters. The first, “Building Your Base,” includes chapters about the right way to keep records; finding the right bank in the Internet age; and “Twelve Checklists for Life’s Milestones,” which includes what you need to keep in mind if you are having a baby, facing a divorce or think you might be laid off. “Step Six: Understanding Investing” is nearly 300 pages about stocks, bonds and mutual funds. It also contains warnings about bad investment ideas and information about socially responsible investing as well as the Vice Fund, founded in 2002.

“It revels in global gambling, tobacco, liquor and aerospace/defense,” she writes. “Since its inception, it has performed almost twice as well as the S&P 500.”

I know the length sounds daunting — imagine how I felt when I picked up the paperback proof, which, according to my bathroom scale, weighs 5 pounds — but it is a relatively fast read. And I kept finding the occasional interesting facts, such as Louisiana is the only state that does not allow a parent to disinherit a child.

One other good thing is that for every subject, Quinn refers readers to multiple Web sites with more information. As you might expect in a book of this size, there is substantial repetition, but in most cases, it is warranted. You might have skipped over the divorce checklist, which advises: “Don’t borrow against your house if your marriage isn’t going well.”

Maybe things aren’t going as well as they should be, but you don’t consider yourself a candidate for divorce. Still, it might be useful to read in the chapter on “All the Best Ways to Borrow Money to Invest” that “when you’re married, it takes only one signature to originate a home equity loan. One spouse could borrow up to the limit of the line and spend the money, yet you’re both responsible for the debt.”

(Quinn is a contributing editor to Newsweek, owned by The Washington Post Co.)

As a fan of Chris Farrell’s for his role as economics editor of “Marketplace Money,” I was looking forward to reading his book, but it didn’t pull together. The subtitle of his Bloomsbury Press book, “The New Frugality,” is “How to Consume Less, Save More, and Live Better.” Its genesis seems to be not just the Great Recession but also two personal incidents in Farrell’s life, the death of his father and his scare with colon cancer. Farrell’s father was able to say as death approached, “I’ve lived a good life.” And Farrell’s approach to life and money seems modeled on how his dad lived: “He wasn’t cheap. He wasn’t extravagant. He saved, took calculated risks, provided a home, educated his children, enjoyed his money and gave back to community.”

Another strand ties the way we should live now to sustainability but never gets fully developed. Still, the book is full of information about how to manage money wisely, including a quote from the 15th-century French poet Charles d’Orleans: “It’s very well to be thrifty, but don’t amass a hoard of regrets.”

The book has a lot to like, including the storytelling style and such tips on saving and sustainability as to share books with friends. We’ll see whether he is right that “our love affair with consumer debt is over.”

In “Wealth Watchers” (Free Press, with Glenn Rifkin), Alice Wood has a compelling personal story and a gimmick. Wood worked as an estate planning lawyer before living through a horrifying experience on an airplane — breathing into a faulty oxygen mask, which resulted in serious brain damage. In the wake of the accident, she had trouble managing her work, her weight and her money.

As she began to keep her weight under control through the Weight Watchers program, she had what she describes as a “light bulb” moment, in which she realized that “the solution to both my weight and spending problems lay in the simple, daily discipline of keeping track.”

She takes the reader through the steps of creating a monthly budget, projecting it for the year and dividing disposable income by 365 to get a daily gauge. The book is a good argument for being cheap, the power of small savings multiplied and attentive spending. Like the other books, it has suggestions for saving money, such as getting the first two years of a college education from a community college and substituting experiences with one’s children for material gifts.

I didn’t know till I read it here that www.edmonds.com has information on “true cost to own” for car buyers that factors in depreciation, financing, insurance, taxes and fees, fuel maintenance and repairs. What it is not is a comprehensive financial guide.

And, in the spirit of not spending more than you need to, I should note that the reader is asked to write 126 of its 279 pages in the form of a daily journal. Wouldn’t a one-page model have done?

Martha M. Hamilton writes the Your Financial Future column for AARP Bulletin Today.

Alice Wood submitted photo

She’s already convinced corporate heavy hitters like McDonald’s and Visa to embrace her personal finance plan. Now Naperville’s Alice Wood is the author of a new book. “Wealth Watchers: A Simple Program to Help You Spend Less and Save More,” was published Jan. 1 by Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster.

Wood, an attorney and lifelong Naperville resident, conceived the Wealth Watchers program several years ago after her own finances went into a tailspin.

In an effort to empower employees with free, comprehensive money management tools, McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) and Visa Inc. have launched the country’s largest employer-based financial literacy program. The "McDonald’s Practical Money Skills" program is being made available to more than 500,000 restaurant-level employees throughout the majority of McDonald’s 14,000 U.S. restaurants.

As part of this program, employees will receive a printed Wealth Watchers® budgeting guide to track expenses and access to an instructional video and web resource center at www.practicalmoneyskills.com/mcdonalds with additional tools and information. The materials, which are based on Visa’s popular "Practical Money Skills for Life" financial education program, are being made available in both English and Spanish.

"Empowering Americans with the knowledge they need to make informed financial decisions is crucial," said Bill Sheedy, President, North America, Visa Inc. "A challenge of this size requires an equally large response, which is why we are proud to be working with McDonald’s on this innovative financial literacy program for their employees."

"The McDonald’s Practical Money Skills program is part of our ongoing commitment to provide a wide-range of benefits to our employees," said Steve Russell, Chief People Officer, McDonald’s USA. "Providing information and educating our employees about the importance of financial responsibility has become increasingly important — now more than ever."

During these challenging economic times, the state of financial literacy in America has become increasingly important. A survey released earlier this year by the JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy showed that a majority of high school seniors in American failed a test on basic personal finance.

In addition to the tools available through its work with Visa, many McDonald’s restaurants offer a number of other benefits to employees, such as:

–  McDonald’s Insurance Program: Provides employees the option to participate in health, dental, prescription, life, vision, and short-term disability plans, to assist them in paying for healthcare expenses.

–  McDonald’s Gold Card: A discount program that helps employees save money on everyday   purchases at multiple retailers nationwide.

–  McResource Line: An Employee Assistance Program that provides help on work-life issues    such as child care, transportation, and housing.  It also provides assistance in financial areas   including credit counseling, debt consolidation, financial planning and bill           payments.

–  McDirect Shares®, McSave®, Credit Union and 401k Plans: Allow employees to invest and save money for their future.

Since 1996, Visa’s free "Practical Money Skills for Life" and "What’s My Score" financial literacy programs have helped millions of Americans master the fundamentals of budgeting, saving and the wise use of credit. More than 20 state governments have officially distributed Visa’s personal finance educational programs to every public high school in those states, at no cost to the taxpayers. As part of this ongoing commitment to financial literacy, Visa has pledged to reach an additional 10 million people worldwide by 2013 with personal finance education.

About McDonald’s
McDonald’s USA, LLC is the leading foodservice provider in the United States serving a variety of wholesome foods made from quality ingredients to millions of customers every day. More than 80 percent of McDonald’s 13,700 U.S. restaurants are independently owned and operated by local franchisees. For more information about McDonald’s visit http://www.mcdonalds.com/.

About Visa, Inc.
Visa Inc. operates the world’s largest retail electronic payments network providing processing services and payment product platforms. This includes consumer credit, debit, prepaid and commercial payments, which are offered under the Visa, Visa Electron, Interlink and PLUS brands. Visa enjoys unsurpassed acceptance around the world, and Visa/PLUS is one of the world’s largest global ATM networks, offering cash access in local currency in more than 170 countries. For more information, visit http://www.corporate.visa.com/.

©2008 McDonald’s

CONTACT:
Danya Proud
McDonald’s USA
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Angela Waugaman
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