Suze Orman teaches Jamie what Roth IRAs are.

Thanks Suze :) I just never understood *why* anyone would want one until I opened your book! It's like seeing a Magic Eye drawing, it all clicked and I see the sailboat now!

So I borrowed this book from my sister and found it very useful...if just a little bit too late for me. I think I would have really benefited from it right out of college. I've kind of been there done that on a lot of the things she was warning against and advocating for and all that, but still good to hear. It was really easy to read, and I skimmed through a lot of the "Duh" stuff and finished it in two nights. Particularly, she cleared up the fuzziness in my brain about Roth IRAs... money stuff has never been crystal clear to me and I guess I'd always just hoped someone else would figure it out for me and I'd have lots of money when I retired and everything would be grand. Well, of course it's not that easy and it feels really good actually to take control!

And her thing is "People first, then money, then things"...which when you think about it is true, but isn't always how we live and spend money...

Oh, and a hilarious SNL mockery of Suze ... it's seriously dead on.



Another awesome money book that Scott and I are reading together, one chapter at a time is Smart Couples Finish Rich by David Bach. I can't recommend this book highly enough... for us it's been absolutely invaluable. We feel smarter bc we're learning stuff about money, and also it's opening up conversation on some stuff we might have disagreed on before. The book is helpful because it's not written specifically for the dual income high earner couples - his thing is that ANYONE can finish rich, no matter what your income level. I am just thankful we found this book when we did. :)

Plus, that guy trademarks EVERYTHING! It's kind of funny you read along and you just see random TM's everywhere. So obv Scott and I make fun of that. One concept he TM's is the "Couple's Latte Factor"... which is essentially the nickels & dimes that you spend w/out realizing it (on stuff like lattes.) So yeah... again, he hits home with spending and saving money with purposes in mind - and not just letting your money spend you (I made that one up... should I TM it??)