In The News

Nonfiction Book Reviews

— 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.)