The Financial Diet: A Total Beginner's Guide to Getting Good with Money

by Chelsea Fagan, Lauren Ver Hage

Overview

*A Refinery29 Best Book of 2018*
*One of Real Simple's Most Inspiring Books for Graduates*
*Indie Personal Finance Bestseller*

How to get good with money, even if you have no idea where to start.

The Financial Diet is the personal finance book for people who don’t care about personal finance. Whether you’re in need of an overspending detox, buried under student debt, or just trying to figure out how to live on an entry-level salary, The Financial Diet gives you tools to make a budget, understand investments, and deal with your credit. Chelsea Fagan has tapped a range of experts to help you make the best choices for you, but she also knows that being smarter with money isn’t just about what you put in the bank. It’s about everything—from the clothes you put in your closet, to your financial relationship habits, to the food you put in your kitchen (instead of ordering in again). So The Financial Diet gives you the tools to negotiate a raise and the perfect cocktail recipe to celebrate your new salary.

The Financial Diet will teach you:
• how to get good with money in a year.
• the ingredients everyone needs to have a budget-friendly kitchen.
• how to talk about awkward money stuff with your friends.
• the best way to make (and stick to!) a budget.
• how to take care of your house like a grown-up.
• what the hell it means to invest (and how you can do it).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250176165
Publisher:	Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/02/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	221,125
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Chelsea Fagan is a writer and the cofounder of popular website and YouTube channel “The Financial Diet.” After not graduating from college, she began her writing career at Thought Catalog, where she spent three years before starting The Financial Diet as a personal blog in August of 2014. In between, she’s written for dozens of outlets, including The Atlantic, Cosmopolitan, VICE, and Grantland, and published a first book, I’m Only Here for the WiFi.

Lauren Ver Hage is an art director and the cofounder of The Financial Diet living and working in New York City. She graduated from Ramapo College of New Jersey with a major in visual communication design, and from there worked as an art director at an advertising agency and a freelance designer for Nickelodeon, before moving on to cofound The Financial Diet.

Table of Contents

Introduction: How to Give a Shit About Money
1 Budget
2 Investing
3 Career
4 Food
5 Home
6 Love
7 Action

Editorial Reviews

11/20/2017
Introducing financial concepts with a light touch, Fagan, cofounder of the Financial Diet website, begins with her own story of bad financial behavior and its costs both financially and to her peace of mind. Fagan leads millennials and Generation Zers—the tone and content of the book are clearly aimed at the generations born after 1980—through building a solid understanding of finances and how money affects all areas of life, from one’s career to one’s romantic life. Offering the expected topics of credit, investing, and retirement savings and a sparse glossary of financial terms, this slender book succeeds best as a life guide. Fagan elevates her book above other beginner guides by showing how finances and aspects of lifestyle such as diet and your relationship with money intertwine. In short interviews, experts give out sound advice in their areas of expertise, including on saving, deciding when buying a home makes sense, and knowing when to spend money. In a section useful to those just starting out on their own, after discussing renting versus owning and the cost savings of being able to do basic repairs, a list of tools and their uses is given, and why you’ll need them. The breezy lifestyle-magazine-like writing style and easy-to-digest layout make this guide a useful and readable resource. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"A personal finance guide written in an actually helpful tone...approachable for people who don't have a clue how to create a formula in Excel or have just been too intimidated to figure out their own situation." —BuzzFeed

"Chelsea Fagan sets herself a high bar in writing THE FINANCIAL DIET: She wants to prove to people who know little about personal finance that investing is both vital and not all that difficult. Does she deliver? Yes, and surprisingly well."—The New York Times

"Immediately useful advice you can actually implement no matter what you're working with, from two women who truly get it. Your future self will someday thank your present self for this good reading decision." —Refinery29

"This book is the perfect gift to help recent grads make smart money decisions early on." —Real Simple

"Based on Fagan’s popular blog, The Financial Diet—TFD for short—this book dispenses practical, no-nonsense financial advice, with balance as a key ingredient for success...Whip-smart, collaborative, and mindful, The Financial Diet dispenses timeless advice that goes above and beyond asking readers to give up their avocado toast." —Booklist

"Fagan elevates her book above other beginner guides by showing how finances and aspects of lifestyle such as diet and your relationship with money intertwine...The breezy lifestyle-magazine-like writing style and easy-to-digest layout make this guide a useful and readable resource." —Publishers Weekly

"This handy manual is packed with concise, clear advice on fundamentals like maintaining a personal budget and building credit. Fagan, a journalist and successful blogger, strikes a breezy, cordial tone on the page. Untangling knotty topics such as investing and retirement planning, she delivers a crash course in economics that’s informative and—yes!—enjoyable...With a nifty layout by designer Lauren Ver Hage, this appealing book can help you make 2018 the year of spending—and saving—wisely." —BookPage

From the Publisher