The Wealthy Women: A Man Is Not A Financial Plan Book Review

The Wealthy Woman: A Man is Not a Financial Plan: A Woman's Guide to Achieving Financial SecurityThe Wealthy Woman is a book that is sorely needed. I have lost count of the amount of women I have met who are terrible at finance, and that is saying nothing for the ones that really do think that a man is a financial plan. I mean, they’re really not.

Relying financially on a man causes a lot of problems: he could leave you, he could lose his job, he could treat you badly and you  feel you can’t leave because you would be too poor, he could think he has all of the power because he pays the bills…the list goes on. True freedom and happiness comes when a women is financially independent. Can this book help? Yes.

Some finance books can be scary but this one isn’t. In fact it is fun, concise, comprehensive and educational all at once. The author also takes two women, one savvy and one not-so-savvy, and follows them through the years and charts the consequences of their financial decisions. I found this particularly useful. I think a lot of women would read it and it will (hopefully) give them a wake-up call.

The book gives you financial advice for each decade of your life, and where you will end up. It let’s you know that only you can be responsible for your financial future and being an ostrich won’t help at all. It also helps you calculate your net worth, sort out your finances and get out of debt if you have it.

It also covers pensions, saving and investing. In fact, most things are covered in this excellent book. Buy it for yourself or/and the females in your life. It is packed with good advice and tips that could change your life for the better.

 

‘The Wealthy Woman – a man is not a financial plan’ by Mary Waring has worked with 100s of women helping them take control of their finances.

Far too many women find ‘dealing with the money’ a daunting task and leave it in the hands of their partners. However, this can leave them with little control over their own financial lives and sadly, if they then get divorced or are widowed, they are left floundering with little understanding of how much money they have, or don’t have, and what this means to their lifestyle.

By understanding your finances and taking control you can make your money work for you. That’s the message in Mary Waring’s new book ‘The Wealthy Woman: A Man is Not a Financial Plan: A Woman’s Guide to Achieving Financial Security’.

“Many women tell me that they simply don’t do maths – and this mental block seems to be an epidemic among women everywhere. However, these are often admirable women with high-level jobs. My message is simple – you are more than able to handle all of your finances,” says Mary Waring.

So, do you want to be more confident about your finances? Do you want to be a wealthy woman?

“Wealthy” will mean different things to different women. It doesn’t necessarily mean “rolling in it” and having so much money that you’ll enter The Times ‘rich list’. It may simply mean you feel confident you will have enough money to do the things that you plan to do in the future, no matter how lavish or frugal a lifestyle you lead.

Mary’s book will guide you on your journey to become a wealthy woman by showing you how taking small steps on a regular basis can lead to a significant increase in your wealth.

If you currently have such a lack of control over your finances that you are too afraid to open your credit card statement at the end of the month, this book will show you how to take control.

“The Wealthy Woman” will encourage you to think about your attitude towards money and your relationship with it.

As Mary says; “It’s easy to be wealthy just as it’s easy to be poor. There’s very little difference in the way you can become either. You are in a position where you can improve your wealth. Whatever your dreams and aspirations around money there is nothing to stop you moving towards those dreams.”

Mary Waring is an independent financial adviser and the founder of Wealth For Women, specialising in financial advice to women going through divorce. She is both a Chartered Financial Planner and a Chartered Accountant, being one of only a handful of advisers in the whole of the UK with this high level of qualification.

Mary is passionate about changing the way women think about finance. Too many women stick their head in the sand and ignore it. Or…rely on a man to sort it for them.

‘The Wealthy Woman: A Man is Not a Financial Plan: A Woman’s Guide to Achieving Financial Security’ is available from Amazon and all good bookstores.

For more information see: www.mary-waring.co.uk

 

Boris Entrup 10-Minute Make-Up Book Review

Boris Entrup 10-Minute Make-UpBoris Entrup is the resident make-up artist on Germany’s Next Top Model and is the exclusive make-up artist for Maybelline. It is fair to say that he knows his stuff.

This rather excellent book has 50 gorgeous looks that give you everything you need to transform your image in 10-minutes. There is a good variety of looks, from natural to glamourous, that are all easy to recreate as there is before and after pictures and an easy step-by-step guide.

If that wasn’t enough; there is also masses of insider tips, techniques and tricks that all help you reveal your natural beauty.

The book starts off with an introduction from Boris, then some advice on skincare, beauty tools and products. I have read a lot about beauty and review a lot of products but I found that I learned a lot. I also love that the book shows all 50 looks at a glance over two pages. Very handy and useful.

The book also goes through the basic techniques of applying different products and different facial features. It also gives advice on different face shapes and different tips for each decade of your life, along with S.O.S tips at the end.

This is a brilliant beauty book. It has great advice and pictures. I highly recommend it.

Boris Entrup 10-Minute Make-Up

Kerry Wilkinson Thicker Than Water & Behind Closed Doors Book Review

Kerry Wilkinson is the author famous for writing and self-publishing his first novel as a challenge and then having it go straight to No 1 in the Kindle bestseller chart. He became Amazon UK’s top-selling author for the first quarter of 2011. The first three books in the Jessica Daniels series sold 250,000 copies in six months. Very impressive. We reviewed the sixth and seventh books in the series below.

 

Thicker Than Water

thickerthanwaterbookAnother brilliant, pacey novel. A good read from start to finish. Keeps you engaged and entertained.

When Cameron and Eleanor Sexton arrive home to find their teenage babysitter missing, their immediate concern is for their young daughter. Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel is dispatched to find out what’s going on, but with all apparently well, she thinks she’s been sent on a fool’s errand.

 

Soon, the teenager’s body is discovered in an apparently random house on the other side of Manchester. The puzzle deepens when a journalist points out that someone placed an obituary for him just days before his disappearance.

 

A string of clues point to a club whose owner has an unhealthy interest in Jessica, but then something happens which makes her question the very core of her beliefs.

 

She is left to turn to the one person she knows she can rely on . . . but is that trust misplaced?

 

Behind Closed Doors

9781447247852With great twists and turns and a brilliant flawed heroine: we reckon it is only a matter of time before these novels get snapped up and made into a TV series. Behind Closed Doors is yet another brilliant crime novel from Kerry Wilkinson. Entertaining and well-written.

Detective Sergeant Jessica Daniel has barely left her house in months, isolated away from friends and colleagues. She may have given up on herself but one man is sure she still has something to offer.

DCI Jack Cole gives her a chance at redemption: An opportunity to help a neighbouring force by discovering what is going on with a reclusive community living in a stately home in the middle of nowhere.

People are going missing, turning up dead with only a vague link back to the house. But can Jessica beat her own demons in time to find out exactly what’s going on behind closed doors?

Thicker Than Water

Behind Closed Doors: A DS Jessica Daniel Novel, Book 7

The Financial Times Guide to Management Book Review

For those in business, or hoping to be, management is very important. Or to be more precise, being good at management and doing it properly is important. This guide to management comes from The Financial Times and is written by Ann Francke, CEO of the Chartered Management Institute. So far so impressive.

Ann Franckle book The Financial Times Guide to Management

Also impressive is that it has an entire chapter on managing yourself. I think this is a genius idea that not many books would think of. Getting yourself sorted out first obviously makes perfect sense: lead by example. Each chapter starts with what you will learn in that chapter and then ends with top tips, pitfalls and takeaways.

For all of the wealth of information in this book it is surprisingly easy to read. Add in the graphs, anecdotes and exercises then you have one hell of a book on management. Part 7 even has view from the front line: top tips, pitfalls and takeaways from top managers, along with views from the FT’s Finest.

FT Guide to Management: How to be a Manager Who Makes a Difference and Gets Results is an essential business book for managers. Don’t be without it.

What they say:

“Ann Francke, CEO of the Chartered Management Institute, writes a much needed straight talking guide to management.


According to a 2012 survey by CMI and Penna*, 43% of individuals rated their managers as ineffective or highly ineffective. This statistic will be no surprise to most – many surveys and research papers have revealed similarly gloomy results in recent years.

 

So why do we struggle to ‘get management right’? Probably because so many people have become ‘accidental managers’; they have been promoted into management positions due to specialist skills. Many are given little or no training when they are promoted and are left to work it out for themselves.  The mind boggling array of management books on the market does little to simplify the ‘management message’ as approaches are many and varied.

 

In response, Ann Francke, CEO of the CMI, has written The Financial Times Guide to Management. Backed by the wealth of CMI research, her extensive global management experience, and advice from over 40 frontline managers, Ann has created a straight talking and balanced guide to management.

 

It covers the full spectrum of management skills, including managing others, managing change, managing stakeholders, managing budgets and resources, creating business strategy and executing plans.  A chapter offering Views from the Front Line, grounds the book in practical advice, with over 40 senior executives sharing their top tips, pitfalls and takeaways. Contributors include Paul Polman (CEO, Unilever), Steve Marshall (Chairman, Balfour Beatty) and Cilla Snowball (Chairman and CEO, AMV BBDO).  In a similarly neat framework, a 20 page Guide to the Gurus takes readers through a pithy summary of the bestselling and most admired management gurus.

 

From motivating a team and developing star talent to controlling budgets and fostering innovation, The Financial Times Guide to Management is the authoritative guide to becoming an effective manager.”

 

The Financial Times Guide to Management, is published by Pearson.

 

 

Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots By Jessica Soffer Book Review

Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots By Jessica SofferTomorrow There Will be Apricots is written by Jessica Soffer who is a mere 25-years-old. It is an impressive book, drawing you in immediately and not letting you go until the very last page. Not one word is wasted in this heartwarming- and at times heartbreaking- book about redemption, love and food.

It is impossible to not fall in love with the characters: Lorca, a troubled 13-year-old who just wants her cold mothers loves and will go to any length to get it, and Victoria, recently widowed and finding it hard to cope. They find themselves through cooking and friendship.

I don’t want to give too many spoilers but this absolutely amazing book is now one of my favourites. I love the characters and I learned a lot about food and other cultures. I was very hungry when I was reading it and even got inspired to learn how to cook. No mean feat for someone who usually hates cooking. Buy this, steal this*, borrow this: just read it.

*not really.

 

Two women adrift in New York – an Iraqi immigrant widow and the latchkey daughter of a famous chef – find each other and a new kind of family through their shared love of cooking.

 

Lorca, a sensitive and troubled thirteen-year-old, spends hours poring over cookbooks, seeking out ingredients for her distracted chef of a mother, who is about to send her off to boarding school. In one last effort to secure her mother’s love and prove herself indispensable, Lorca resolves to replicate her mother’s ideal meal.

 

Victoria, an octogenarian Iraqi immigrant, teaches cooking lessons. Grappling with grief over her husband’s death, Victoria has been dreaming of the daughter they gave up forty years ago.

 

Together these two women – a widow and an almost-orphan – begin to suspect they are connected through more than a love of food.

Tomorrow There Will be Apricots

Russell Brand To Release New Book On Politics

russellbrandComedian, actor and political activist (or non-politics activist, whichever you prefer) Russell Brand is to bring out another book. Ben Dunn, Publishing Director of Century has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to the new book.

The book will tackle Russell’s views on ecology, inequality, rioting, financial meltdown, and the total mistrust of politicians. Told with humour and passion, the book will act as a provocation; urging its readers to discard apathy and challenge the status quo.

Russell Brand said ‘People keep asking me how The Revolution will work? “We all want to bring down the government and establish a personal and global utopia but how?” They ask. Well in this book, I’m going to explain it. Having accrued the greatest wisdom known to man (by conducting interviews, watching DVDs, reading books, thinking and looking at the sky) I am now able to put in a simple, accessible book(y wook) the solution to internal and external turmoil. And about time too.’

Ben Dunn said ‘Like the rest of the world, I have been avidly following Russell’s writing and stand up and have been inspired by his passionate call to arms. This book will be a massive extension of that and I can’t wait to publish his brilliant words later this year.’

Century will publish in hardback in October 2014 with an Arrow paperback the following year.

Russell Brand is an acclaimed, comedian, presenter, author and actor. Beginning his career as a stand-up comedian, Brand rose to fame in 2003 for his appearances on MTV and on Big Brother spin-off, Big Brother’s Big Mouth. His career really took off with his first nationwide stand-up tour, Shame, in 2006; which was released on DVD as Russell Brand: Live. Brand launched his second nationwide tour in 2007, Russell Brand: Only Joking ; released on DVD as Russell Brand: Doin’ Life and in 2009 he brought his stand-up comedy tour to the United States with Russell Brand: Scandalous. At this time, Brand also hosted countless award shows including the 2006 NME Awards, 2007 Brit Awards and he has hosted the MTV Video Music Awards three times in 2008, 2009 and 2012. After his phenomenal success as a stand-up Brand turned his attentions to Hollywood where in 2008 he was seen as rocker ‘Aldous Snow’ in the Judd Apatow-produced box office hit comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Since then Brand has starred in several films including Rock Of Ages, Arthur, Hop, Get Him To The Greek, Bedtime Stories, The Tempest, Paradise and the voice of ‘Dr. Nefario’ in the hugely successful Despicable Me series. Brand is also an acclaimed author, and has written two books, My Booky Wook: A Memoir of Sex, Drugs and Stand-Up, and the follow up, Booky Wook 2: This Time It’s Personal. Currently Brand is touring his new stand-up show Messiah Complex around the globe, a DVD of which was released in December 2013.

 

Feel Good: How To Change Your Mood And Cope With Whatever Comes Your Way

feel good

By Dr Shane Pascoe & Dr Graham Law

Published by Capstone, February 2014

Paperback, £10.99

 

 

If you are feeling down, overwhelmed, stressed or depressed then this book takes two of the ‘it’ therapies of the moment- Mindfulness and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy- and combines them to get you back on your feet and keep you there.

It is easy to read and apply thanks to its invaluable post-it technique and lay out. It also has an entire chapter on relaxing and the stuff on confirmation bias is very interesting. The book is like you are being talked to and supported by a friendly, intelligent and concise friend.

The book is actually fun and enjoyable to read, surprising considering its subject matter. It has a unique combination of science and psychology which really works. It also has exercises and is practical and accessible.

A very good and helpful book.

Feel Good: How to Change Your Mood and Cope with Whatever Comes Your Way

Mood can affect every aspect of life, from performance at work to personal relationships. Being able to take control of moods, rather than have moods control them, is something all the most successful people have in common.

In their new book, authors Dr Shane Pascoe and Dr Graham Law combine techniques from two powerful, complementary therapeutic approaches – Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Mindfulness – to help readers keep their spirits and confidence high and instil a more upbeat, positive, can-do attitude, come what may.

Packed with practical information on how to start feeling happier and more positive about life, and optimise how you deal with people and situations in life and at work, this expert guide to beating stress and anxiety is designed for quick reference, letting readers access practical information relevant to how they are feeling at that moment.

Individual chapters cover areas including anger, self-efficacy, distress, unhappiness, well-being and happiness, self-esteem, leading a balanced lifestyle and relaxation techniques. The book finishes by discussing “Where to go from here?”.

 

For those that are feeling overwhelmed, overstressed, or just plain down about life, Feel Good is a practical, inspirational guide to help manage moods, improve outlook and beat stress and anxiety.

 

Feel Good: How to Change Your Mood and Cope with Whatever Comes Your Way

Kiss Your Fights Good-Bye Book Review

Kiss Your Fights Good-byeKiss Your Fights Good-bye: Dr. Love’s 10 Simple Steps to Cooling Conflict and Rekindling Your Relationship by America’s “love doctor”, Dr. Jamie Turndorf is an interesting read. Everyone spends time thinking about their relationships. The book is a practical 10-step programme that says it will help achieve a deeper, healthier bond with your partners.

I have a good relationship with my other half and there aren’t any huge issues but I was still excited to read the book and pick up some tips, but to be honest I didn’t relate to the book. I thought it had too many gender stereotypes that I could not relate to. Like women withholding sex as punishment or to get what they want- which I actually thought was offensive, and that men just withdraw every time a fight happens. I also did not like some of the scenarios with couples. The men calling their wives bitches for example. If a man called me a bitch there would not be a relationship to fix.

I feel that this book is for people with worse relationships than me, or people who are more suited to typical gender stereotypes. It is not that it doesn’t have any good advice: it does but most of it was not relatable to me. Worth a read if your fighting all of the time and you, or your partner, fit the stereotypes.

Known to millions as ‘Dr. Love’, Jamie Turndorf, PhD, has been seen on numerous TV shows and has over 30 years’ experience as a relationship counsellor. Her impressive endorsements include:

“Dr Turndorf has relationships figured out. If you want a great relationship, you must follow her ten-step method for lasting love.” – Jack Canfield, Chicken Soup for the Soul.

“If anger and fighting are ruining your dream of a happy marriage (or relationship), Dr Turndorf’s conflict-resolution programme is for you.” – John Gray, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

Kiss Your Fights Good-bye: Dr. Love’s 10 Simple Steps to Cooling Conflict and Rekindling Your Relationship