Friday, March 12, 2010

Wealth Watchers by Alice Wood


After a freak brain injury caused author Alice Wood to have to relearn many basic skills, personal accounting among them, she developed this personal finance system based on the principles of the Weight Watchers healthy living program. Because I am very familiar with the Weight Watchers philosophy, and can always use some financial guidance, I thought this book sounded very intriguing.

For those of you not familiar with the basic tenets of the Weight Watchers program, it basically assigns point values to foods, based on its calories, fat, fiber, etc. Each person has so many points that they can use on a daily basis, so they must budget their points to ensure they have enough quality meals to get them through the day. Wealth Watchers works much the same way, except instead of points, individuals work out what their "DDI" - (daily disposable income) is and attempt to stay within these guidelines to maintain good financial health. If they want something above and beyond the daily DDI, they must save for it.

Wood's book does a good job of laying out the basic tenets of the program, and includes some background information on how she ended up needing the program in the first place. Roughly half the book is a space for journaling your finances, so the book itself is a quick read. As with the Weight Watchers program, this book provides the tools for financial health; it is up to the reader to utilize them! I would recommend this book to those who are looking for a technique to get their financial lives in order - this book provides a simple solution for a complicated issue.

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