One Year to an Organized Financial Life: From Your Bills to Your Bank Account, Your Home to Your Retirement, the Week-By-Week Guide to Achieving Financial Peace Of Mind [Paperback]

What can I say about a book that in ten minutes had me doing something I had been putting off for thirteen years--i.e. making a living will and getting my mother and my mother-in-law to do the same? (The book even includes the living will for you to fill out.) This book is so well thought-out, so calming and supportive, it truly makes you feel that you can do every one of the author's essential tips. Plus, unlike most financial books, it is packed with tips for the self-employed and it's rational, Zen tone makes dealing with finances...well, a new pleasure. Highly recommended.

Just released in 2010, One Year to an Organized Financial Life is the latest installment from Regina Leeds, the "Zen Organizer". I've previously read her book "One Year to an Organized Life" and found it a refreshing change in the field of organization. This book continues a winning pattern and expands it to an area where I (and many others) especially need some serious help - our finances.

Overhauling any aspect of our lives can be an intimidating. There are so many things we could do differently. So many small and large habits that need changing. Regina approaches this problem by having us concentrate on only one issue at a time, one per week, over the period of a year. Every month she introduces one key habit for the month, one helpful tool for the month, and then introduces one change or habit each week, in nice bite-sized pieces. Follow through on these easily manageable assignments, and in one year, ta-dah! you're financially organized. Or at least in a lot better shape than when you started.

One of the beauties of this approach is that you can pick up the book any time during the year and start the program. You don't need to start in January (although January would make a great time to start). Some of the months deal with items specific to that time of the year. for example, in November Regina deals with gift-giving, holiday spending and organizing holiday parties and get-togethers economically. The fact that I tend to start thinking about these things in December instead of November is an indication of just how much help I need.

The chapters and assignments give some really exceptional ideas for spending less money, making more money, saving for the future and protecting yourself from life's uncertainties. Regina covers insurance (of all kinds), investments, retirement, college planning, budgeting, entertainment, and the aforementioned holiday spending. In this book, she has a certified financial adviser (Russell Wild) along to supplement her organizational knowledge with expert financial knowledge about such things as various kinds of tax-deferred savings accounts and tax-loss harvesting (if you don't know what that is... you need this book).

When I open up a book on financial organization, I generally expect to hear that I should spend less, save more and make spartan cuts in my lifestyle. Perhaps that's why I don't generally like such books. The ideas in this book, however, are surprisingly fresh. I am getting a lot more new information out of it than I expected. And, like her previous book, Regina doesn't focus exclusively on the mechanics of organization, but also explores and rehabilitates your feelings about financial issues, through such tools as journaling tasks. The goal, after all, of "Zen Organizing" is a feeling of peace and security - not organization for its own sake.

So, if you feel your financial life needs some serious help (we know who we are), this is a gentle program that takes you by the hand and leads you through a year of easy steps to feeling much much better about your economic situation. There are no theories without simple, practical steps. Take the first step and give the book a try.

I am a few months into this book and I have to say that I am slightly disappointed. I started off with high hopes. The book had some good tips in the introduction and the author sounded powered up about getting my financial life in shape and organized. I had a few gripes early on, but kept pushing through thinking that it would get better as it went, but it hasn't. I have found the book to be a mixture of irrelevance and surface-level information. For example, the budgeting week tells the reader to set up a budget. It explains a little bit of why a budget is important and sort of gives one example, but if the reader has never created a budget before they may not even know what categories are appropriate to budget for or how much they should be contributing to each area. Another example, one week she says to organize your office area, but she doesn't cover what is important to include in your desk or office area.

As I get further into the book I am continually frustrated by the fact that the author just tells the reader to do something instead of explaining how to do something or what the best way to do it might be. After reading I usually can't even recall what I am supposed to be doing, or I have to look-up information to fill in the blanks, which is frustrating--I feel like the book should be a comprehensive guide (or at least that's what I expected it to be).

Additionally, you may want to consider that you will have to make further investments to go along with the changes that the author suggests. I had to buy pouches to organize my purse, files to create a filing system, drawer organizers to organize my desk, and so on (and I didn't buy many of the items that she suggested). She even suggests buying new furniture for your office if it is not suitable. Mine is not suitable, but I am on a tight budget (the reason why I am reading books about finances) and I cannot afford to replace furniture.

On the bright side, I did find the chapter about creating a filing system helpful. The author explained exactly what the reader needed and what exactly to make files for. If only all of the weeks were as detailed.

The book may be helpful for someone who needs a sort of coach to tell them to do something and when. I find myself skipping through it, because when I get interested in something I want to learn everything about it, fast. (Maybe that's why I've been frustrated with the fact that it seems incomplete).

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 15 reviews  4.6 out of 5 stars