Want Riches? Get Money.

How's my thumb taste, Ben?

This blog has never been very good at dispensing actionable advice, or even many helpful tips. We like to keep things at the conceptual level around here.

For one, theories that can be debated are what I find most interesting. Plus, so many great ideas get shot down by others when they point out that they do not actually work, as if practicality were such a big friggin deal.

On the downside, this blog doesn't do much to actually "teach others about personal finance" or "help people" or "do anything useful". But that's where other writers come in.

Kristin Wong has been a friend of the blog for a long while, and I've watched with admiration as she's written excellent pieces for Lifehacker, New York Magazine, and the New York Times. She's never shied away from the hard work of putting personal finance and behavioral economics into practice. She can blend the theoretical and the pragmatic, helping readers take the concepts out of their laptop screens, and into the routines of their daily lives.

As such, I've found her writing to be some of the most truly helpful personal finance advice on the internet.

I was so happy to see this spirit of teaching woven throughout her book, Get Money. Ever aware of the fact that most people do not nerd out on personal finance blogs, Wong reaches readers where they are. She understands that many readers may not know much about debt repayment, investing, or creating a budget that actually works, and her writing reflects that reality. We Americans are a nation of beginners, and need primers on money that match.

More importantly, Wong understands that all the knowledge in the world is somewhat useless if readers do not take it, and make positive changes in their financial lives. The innovative part of Get Money is not found in its content, but in the construction of the book as an interactive game with ever-more difficult levels that the reader must complete. Instead of passively flipping through the book, readers are asked at every opportunity to pick up a pen and write directly on the page.

Get Money is personal finance, gamified.

Covering topics from frugality, to side hustles, to budgeting, investing, and asset allocation, all the way through behavioral economics, the scope of Wong's book is so broad that my initial assumption was that she wouldn't be able to cover all the topics within a fairly svelte book. But she doesn't linger on any one topic for too long. She hits the subject, asks the reader to think how it applies to them, and then gets out of the way. 

The result is a process of self-reflection that challenges the reader to think about money in a real, actionable way: an approach that far too few personal finance books undertake.

Is Get Money the only personal finance book you need? No, probably not. But for a lot of Americans, it's likely the first personal finance book they should read.