Tending Your Money Garden: A Practical and Friendly Money Management Guide

This is a slim, fast and un-intimidating read on personal finance for those socially and ecologically-minded souls who find themselves mystified and befuddled by all sorts of money issues. Although I did not agree with everything the author said, some of the more interesting insights I gleaned from this book are the following: 1) Money is a means and an enabler; it is not an end in and of itself. 2) Having money creates options; not having money creates constraints and limitations- indeed, not having money creates headaches and considerable heartache (and more than a few bleeding ulcers!) 3) Your past financial mis-deeds place limitations on you now and in the future. Only until you resolve your past mis-deeds can you focus on the future. 4) It is really not how much you earn, but what you get to keep that matters most. Trying to beat the tax man is a losing game. These and other gems get the reader in the proper frame of mind to provide for his or her financial future by investing. Although I do not agree with his stance on socially responsible investing (after all, we invest in order to earn a satisfactory return on our hard won funds, and it is this return that we can put to good use, in a socially responsible way if we like), I commend the author's effort to reach out and get more individuals, especially those eco-hip, ecologically aware, and socially idealistic individuals, to at least consider the possibility of providing for their own financial future.

Tending Your Money Garden is perfect for anyone who gets stressed out at the thought of money. This is the first finance book I've found that's actually entertaining. Tending Your Money Garden addresses all sorts of finance quandries - from balancing a checkbook, to getting out of debt, to preparing taxes. Bob Dreizler delivers good, practical and humorous advice for beginners and seasoned investors alike. What's best about Tending Your Money Garden is that Dreizler uses personal anecdotes and stories to support the facts. For anyone who thinks that financial advice has to be dull and boring, read Tending Your Money Garden. On top of all of the great advice in the book, there's also a section about socially-conscious investing, which is really interesting. Tending Your Money Garden is fantastic -- perfect for anyone who wants to learn, or just learn more, about finance.