STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

sephorablue · Marc Jacobs

i am a new woman

carmenb513 · Coach

I'm currently on a reading kick to, I think after I go away next week, I will seriously try to put thngs in perspective as far as wants and needs.

Good luck on your ban!

lovelygirl · Kenneth Cole

Congratulations! It sounds like you've learned so much. I'm graduating law school in a few weeks and between my government salary and all those law school loans, I know money is going to be tight. It will be hard to curb spending when I'm finally making some money! Can you recommend any of the books you read?

sephorablue · Marc Jacobs

I loved Suze Orman's The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Broke. I know Farrah (who is never on here anymore!!) loves her too. She has a great, straightforward writing style, the book is well-organized, and everything she says makes good solid sense. She covers stuff like credit cards, credit reports and FICO scores, car loans, buying homes, retirement plans, investing, student loan debt, etc. All the biggies.

Also--I swear I don't work for them--I've only had Quicken a week but I can already tell it's going to be unbelievably useful. I think with many if not most financial institutions, you can download your statement info directly to your computer, so you don't have to enter everything manually, and so it becomes a one-stop-shopping look at your finances. As I learned, seeing everything broken out into individual categories is incredibly revealing of what you spend your money on, which will in turn help to highlight where you need to cut back. Love it.

ILoveChoo · Hermes

I tried using quicken and found it to be difficult to use- I didn't download the statements from my bank though- that ,ight make a difference. Did you read a book on it or something, or just play around with it to figure it out?

Now that I think of it, it might not even have been quicken that I was using...

NCshopper · Hermes

Sephorablue, I've been reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad and HIGHLY recommend it if you want to continue reading about finances. I've found it fascinating and I feel like there are a ton of AHA! moments for me in reading it where it all seems to click in my mind. DH and I are on a financial kick right now trying to get that aspect of our lives organized and I've been thinking about getting Quicken. In reading some of this stuff about finances I realize that I spend way more than I need to on clothes and just stuff in general and it's always motivated by emotions, not by rational thought or even really a "need." So my spending habits are changing, big time. Not a ban, really, but I'm realizing that I need to start putting money away now so it can start making money for me instead of buying things that will lose their value as soon as I take the tags off.

If you ever want to talk money and books and stuff, pm me! I'm always interested to hear what people are reading, doing, etc.

poptart · Coach

I have also been doing some reading on this topic, so thanks for the recommendations, Sephorablue! I might need to get quicken. Is it free to download?

Also, not to hijack, but I thought I would add two recommendations of books I've really enjoyed on this topic.

A Girl and Her Money by Sharon Durling. She helps you identify your spending personality and think about why and how you spend. It makes reference to religion, but not in a way that I found off-putting, though some people might, so just a warning.

Girl, Get Your Money Straight by Glinda Bridgforth. This is targeted to African American women, which I am not, but I loved it anyway! Very practical, and good checklists and worksheets.

curiouscookie · BCBG

Glad you brought this up! I have been reading about financial stuff and investing and trying to get control of my money too. I recently got Microsoft Money, similar to Quicken I think.

I loved the Rich Dad Poor Dad book - recommend it too.

poptart wrote:

A Girl and Her Money by Sharon Durling. She helps you identify your spending personality and think about why and how you spend. It makes reference to religion, but not in a way that I found off-putting, though some people might, so just a warning.

This book sounds interesting, I will have to check it out.

I hope we can support each other in being more in control of our money. Keep the ideas coming!

gingembre1 · Kate Spade

Could you share which books you read? I've been looking for some good books on investing. Thanks!

blink · Coach

Good for you! I used to work for a financial advisor and accountant with over 20 years experience, even he had a couple of Suze Orman's books in his office!

I also use Quicken, it is such a great tool for financial organization.

luckylily · Gucci

I've been using Quicken for a few years and I love it! I actually prefer to put everything in by hand rather than downloading. I find it helps me to have to acknowledge each transaction I made.

Updating my Quicken is part of my morning routine. Every day before I leave for work I take a few minutes to put in all the expenditures from the day before and check to see if my totals match my bank account. Once you have everything filled in, it really only takes a couple of minutes.

It helps quite a bit to actually see the total amount we spend on different categories, but I still need to make more of an effort to get my % spent on clothes, shoes, and dining out down.

ILoveChoo · Hermes

OK, another Quicken question (Irealized I had been using quick books):

Can you have more than one "user"? Like could I track DH and my joint money, but then have a seperate part for the money that's only mine? Or would I have to buy/install it twice or something?

sephorablue · Marc Jacobs

ILC, I didn't read any instructions for Quicken--the wizard that opened after I loaded it guided me through the basic account-setup stuff. And since then I've just been adding and downloading info bit by bit, and clicking on the different tabs to see what they do.

NCShopper, I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad right after my Suze Orman book! I thought it was great, too. He doesn't really offer any specific advice but he has a lot of good insights about how and why we spend money the way we do, and why we avoid risk, and how that can be dangerous. Everything he says makes sense. Income generated without you having to do anything is not something I'd even thought about--but yesterday my initial Roth investment made me $18!

Poptart, Quicken is not free--but it's only $30 or $40. I just googled "quicken" and went right to their page, and you can download directly from there.

I also bought "Investing For Dummies" (swallowing my irritation over buying from the "For Dummies" line... I am not a dummy, damnit...) and Jim Cramer's book. I forget what it's called... his show is Mad Money, I think the book might be Real Money? Anyway I figured it's as good of a source as any to learn about individual stock picking. I won't be ready for that for a while, but I'd like to get as many ideas for how to go about it as I can. I'll let you guys know how those two are once I've had a chance to read them.

shopgirl82 · Chanel

sephorablue wrote:

and Jim Cramer's book. I forget what it's called... his show is Mad Money, I think the book might be Real Money?

aghhh. i can't stand that show! i try to watch it because my bf says that it's a really good show, but it's hard to tolerate. i'll happily get his info from a book instead of the show.

luckylily · Gucci

ILoveChoo wrote:

OK, another Quicken question (Irealized I had been using quick books): Can you have more than one "user"? Like could I track DH and my joint money, but then have a seperate part for the money that's only mine? Or would I have to buy/install it twice or something?

It depends on what you want. You can use it to track as many accounts as you like, so you would just have to set up the accounts seperately and run reports on you specific accounts.

However, you wouldn't necessarily be different "users" so you'd be able to see each others stuff.

ILoveChoo · Hermes

luckylily wrote:

ILoveChoo wrote:
OK, another Quicken question (Irealized I had been using quick books): Can you have more than one "user"? Like could I track DH and my joint money, but then have a seperate part for the money that's only mine? Or would I have to buy/install it twice or something?

It depends on what you want. You can use it to track as many accounts as you like, so you would just have to set up the accounts seperately and run reports on you specific accounts.
However, you wouldn't necessarily be different "users" so you'd be able to see each others stuff.

cool. That's exactly what I wanted. I just wanted to be able to look at my personal spending seperate from the household stuff. :)

sephorablue · Marc Jacobs

shopgirl82 wrote:

sephorablue wrote: and Jim Cramer's book. I forget what it's called... his show is Mad Money, I think the book might be Real Money? aghhh. i can't stand that show! i try to watch it because my bf says that it's a really good show, but it's hard to tolerate. i'll happily get his info from a book instead of the show.

Oh, he cracks me up. He's so manic, and I love when he starts strangling and throwing his little foam bulls. And I love the noises. I can see why it gets on your nerves though.

NCshopper · Hermes

sephorablue wrote:

shopgirl82 wrote: sephorablue wrote: and Jim Cramer's book. I forget what it's called... his show is Mad Money, I think the book might be Real Money? aghhh. i can't stand that show! i try to watch it because my bf says that it's a really good show, but it's hard to tolerate. i'll happily get his info from a book instead of the show. Oh, he cracks me up. He's so manic, and I love when he starts strangling and throwing his little foam bulls. And I love the noises. I can see why it gets on your nerves though.

I'm interested to know how his book is too. I've only seen his show at the bar, but I don't think I could tolerate actually waching it. I just hate how he rolls up his sleeves and is just so over the top. But if his advice is good, then I'd love to read the book!