How to think about Money – Book Review

Money is powerful. It has the power to dominate someone’s thoughts and ambitions. Yet it is also necessary to navigate life. How do you regard money in a healthy manner? Is it possible to use money wisely to help you achieve goals that increase your happiness (rather than making the accumulation of money the end goal)? How do you invest prudently? In his book, How to Think About Money, Jonathan Clements offers some compelling answers.

As a longtime personal finance columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Jonathan Clements is well positioned to help readers understand how to lead a calmer, richer life. A key plank in his book is that humans are “hard-wired” for “financial failure”. We do not naturally incline towards sensible financial decisions that benefit us over the long term. Therefore, managing (and regarding) money wisely takes a great deal of mental resilience. His book, How to Think About Money, provides some useful tools to help develop this toughness and bring more financial order to readers’ lives.

How to Think About Money is highly practical, enabling readers to engage in helpful, impactful steps from the very outset. As encouraging results start to manifest in your life, this gives great motivation to read further and explore ways to build further on your progress.

Managing monthly finances is a key skill that many people fail to master throughout their lives. Yet Clements offers a step-by-step guide which everyone can use to move towards this mastery. Doing so helps unlock huge wealth potential – transform mental health, future prospects and relationships. This book is particularly pertinent in 2022 as households across the UK face a cost of living crisis. Fortunately, you do not need to feel like your finances are out of your control.

Clements’ book is only 200 pages long and can be read easily within an afternoon (for a determined reader). The author is also very good at continually reminding us why people should go to such efforts to put their finances in order – to maximise happiness. Ultimately, saving and guarding money helps to build healthy financial habits which put you in a better position to meet your life goals.

For those who think that the main goal is to “beat the market” and simply amass wealth, this book is a powerful reminder that those who focus on these goals never arrive at them. Instead, happiness can be found by squeezing more out of the money you already have. There is a connection between money and happiness, but the relationship is more complex (and difficult to manage) than most will admit. Clements helps the reader to “rewire their brains” to understand this relationship better and to navigate it more effectively.

Two powerful takeaways from How to Think About Money are “assume you will live a long life” (where 20-30 years might be spent in retirement) and “to win, don’t lose”. The second piece of advice is especially powerful, as it stresses that people should think more about how to prevent finances from being derailed – rather than just focusing on growing wealth.

Overall, How to Think About Money is a great resource to help those looking to develop a better relationship with their monthly finances. We commend this book to you!