Ecclesiastes says: “There are no limits to the production of many books. This tired reaction seemed appropriate when considering another product about personal finance. But Paco de León’s Finance for the People: Getting a Grip on Your Finances is a refreshingly original contribution to this crowded field, and her fellow millennials will find it especially valuable as they think about the decisions that will shape their financial futures for decades.
De Leon is the founder of Hell Yeah Group, a financial company with an emphasis on serving creatives, and he touches on all traditional foundations, from how to deal with debt to retirement savings and investments. Most of these recommendations, such as automatically saving and maximizing contributions to retirement accounts when an employer is matched, don’t stray too far from the traditional path. But as she leads readers through the perilous climb of what she calls the “financial pyramid,” several aspects of her approach stand out.
Acknowledging that we are all “weird about money,” de Leon offers a compassionate yet concrete perspective to overcome the psychological barriers that prevent many people from effectively handling financial decisions. While she wasn’t against discipline, she despised some of the popular emphasis on austerity (think David Bach’s The Latte Factor). Rejecting the worldview of “scarcity over abundance,” she is committed to “helping people connect with their financial power,” encouraging them to at least think as hard as they think about saving to create more income to balance out what she calls the “personal finance equation.”
De Leon conveys her message in a light-hearted and lively dialogue style, emphasizing the main points through a variety of clever caricatures. At the same time, she is very pragmatic and insists on setting aside 30 to 60 minutes of “weekly money management time” as the first step in systematically building good financial habits. Most notably, De Leon offers tips for using journaling as a means of “digging into your beliefs about money” and using mindfulness meditation to develop the ability to delay gratification that are unlikely to be found in other books of this type. Above all, she is a fascinating, self-deprecating storyteller who illustrates her advice with stories of some of her own monetary blunders and her hard-earned lessons.
Dealing with money is one of the inevitable realities of life, and for most people, there will always be some pain associated with it. Having a friendly tour guide like Finance for the People can help make your journey more bearable and more profitable.
