The Real Cost of Living: Making the Best Choices for You, Your Life, and Your Money

by Carmen Wong Ulrich

Overview

Every decision, from buying a home to grabbing a daily latte, has costs and benefits-personal as well as financial. The Real Cost of Living helps you make better decisions, both big and small- decisions that involve money, but aren't all about money. Well-known personal finance expert Carmen Wong Ulrich makes personal finance personal and takes into account that we all have motivations that go way beyond number crunching. From marriage and family to career, investing, and more, Carmen examines the "real cost" of the choices we all make every day.

*Is deciding whether to go back to work full-time after you have a child really all about money? Should it be?
*Is prepaying a mortgage a smart-money move, or is it really about craving security and stability-and which means more to you?
*How much do your bad habits really cost you? And is saving thousands of dollars enough of a motivation to get you to stop?
*Are college degrees really worthwhile? And if so, how can you maximize the odds of gaining all the benefits of a degree, both personally and financially?
*Is becoming your own boss the answer to your career malaise? Can you handle the costs?

The Real Cost of Living is a rare melding of personal psychology and personal finance at an important time when we have discovered that having more money may not bring more happiness, but knowing what really will make you happy can be worth any cost.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399536441
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/28/2010
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Carmen Wong Ulrich is an expert contributor to The Dr. Oz Show and Glamour's personal finance columnist. She is the former host of CNBC's daily personal finance show On the Money and can be seen regularly on Today, MSNBC, and Extra. She has appeared on The View, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, CNN, HLN, Rachael Ray, and the CBS Early Show. She is the author of Generation Debt: Take Control of Your Money-A How-To Guide; has a master's degree in psychology from Columbia University, Teachers College, and a B.A. from Fairfield University; and lives with her family in Brooklyn.

Editorial Reviews

Flustered by your finances? Afraid of making the wrong decision? The former host of CNBC's On the Money, and a personal finance expert, Ulrich wisely points out that our financial choices are often less about money and more about the intangibles that we want: happiness, security, domestic peace. The only way to make an educated decision is to have all the factors—conscious and unconscious, financial and psychological—laid out before us. Using callers to her show as examples, Ulrich presents the pros and cons—the "real costs"—of buying a home, marrying and divorcing, having a family, pursuing higher education, starting your own company, incurring credit card debt, investing, and indulging in the most common American vices: eating poorly or excessively, smoking, driving recklessly. In a firm but sympathetic voice, Ulrich takes the guesswork and fear out of major money decisions. A must-read for anyone eager to make sense of their financial lives. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Personal finance expert and former host of CNBC's On the Money, Ulrich (Generation Debt: Take Control of Your Money) arrived at her profession through a nontraditional route: she has a master's degree in psychology. So naturally, her approach to personal choices in life encompasses more than simply their economic implications. She recognizes that it's not just about money—even when it is. Ulrich examines the "real costs" of life events like marriage and divorce, family, college, bad habits, and being your own boss, in addition to the more traditional monetary arenas of credit cards, saving, investing, and home ownership. She demonstrates how understanding the emotional and psychological motivations driving financial decisions is as important as calculating the bottom line. VERDICT Since few of us are robotic enough to make choices based on purely rational motives, this book will help readers consider personal financial decisions from a more holistic vantage. It will ring true for those wanting to dig a little deeper when weighing their financial decisions.—Carol J. Elsen, Univ. of Wisconsin-Whitewater Lib.

Library Journal