A Smart Girl's Guide: Money: How to Make It, Save It, and Spend It

This is a great book to help my daughter understand money better. However, the cover of the book had some crusty red stuff on it, and every single page had already been written on or things checked off. Not at all the condition it said it was in. Super bummed the condition did not the description. This does take away from the use of the book as it’s already completely filled out :(

My daughter has been asking about ways to make money for the last couple of weeks, so I decided to get her this book. It gave her some ideas and encouraged her to look for more ideas on her own.

Money is such a simple thing, but the way we earn it, save it, spend it, owe it, etc. is a very complex thing, indeed. A Smart Girl's Guide to Money is an exceptionally well done book aimed at a young audience -- hopefully before they make the uninformed miscalculations that drive an alarming number of Americans into debt, sometimes before they graduate from school. How wonderful that American Girl has combined both survival skills and entertainment to benefit their target audience! Well done!

The first thing my daughter, age 11, read was the 101 moneymaking ideas and unfortunately, she was "smart" enough to point out that it really wasn't 101 unique ideas. For example: Decorate tins for Valentines day (#98) is similar to #99, #100 and #101 which are to decorate tins for other special days. Nevertheless, I pointed out that one idea can have different uses... She seemed satisfied with that answer and quickly moved on to "How to get a raise" in the allowance section. I was impressed at the succinct ways in which ideas are addressed. The book includes: ~ many different emotions associated with money (including friendships and partnerships), ~ how everyone's personality is different (creating a different spending style) ~ values of money (good or bad purchases and needs or wants) ~ budgeting (including plastic money, use of checks with ledger entry, and types of investments) ~ a few quizzes such as one to figure out what type of work is best for you Don't expect a lot of heavy discussion and explanations. As I said, the text is succinct, even to the point where you may need to add some parent explanations. Parent involvement is a good thing though, because the sooner you discuss finances with your child, the better off he or she will be.

This book was awesome! It talked about saving, spending wisely, credit cards, starting a business and much more! I got this book and it helped me so much! I also use it as a reference book. I think every girl should have it. Go American Girl!