Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is: Finding Financial Happiness

PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR HEART IS reminded me of Walden. Both are about living deliberately and well, and both are filled with good advice. It will probably be shelved under “Finance and Financial Planning” because it is a comprehensive presentation of everything a reader needs to learn in order to handle money well and use it wisely. But the book also contains a healthy element of inspirational autobiography as well as a compendium of spiritual and philosophical quotations perfectly integrated into her sharply focused text. Clearly, this writer has listened well to clients and has learned much from them, as well as from her fellow professionals, whose work she everywhere praises along the way.

Ms. Stevens provides all the self-help tools anyone might want or need, along with clear explanations of what to do with them. One of my favorite sections is called “The Stevens Wealth Management Survivor’s Checklist” in which she provides a list of practical steps to take when we lose a loved one. Each step is brief, clearly explained, and vital. Nevertheless, even as she navigates for us the murkiest of financial planning waters, she says quite clearly that self-help alone is unlikely to suffice, and explains the advantages and disadvantages of each type of available help , and how best to select from among them based on one’s own personal values.

The result is a book to keep on the shelf and use often, sometimes for the nuts and bolts of needed number-crunching, but just as often for ongoing inspiration. Her style is personal and conversational, friendly and informative, factual and–thankfully–never condescending. One hopes this treasure of 168 pages will live on many bookshelves, dog-eared, coffee-stained, bookmarked, underlined, well-traveled and often shared with friends, children, parents, and all others for whom we care and who share with us this increasingly complex world.
Rating: 5 / 5

This book elegantly integrates the personal and practical aspects of successful money management. In an engaging voice, the author generously shares her own experiences and philosophy about how money is but one tool to make our lives richer. I particularly appreciated how she provided a template to budget your spending with an eye towards meeting all your physical, emotional and spiritual needs – whatever they might be. The theme of re-defining wealth in broader and deeper terms wraps around specific examples of how to effectively manage the money you have. An excellent book with timeless concepts and advice. I’ll refer to it often.
Rating: 5 / 5