Book: Pocket Your Dollars

Pocket Your Dollars by Carrie Rocha is a book about finances, but more than that, this is a book about the attitudes that underlie our financial behaviors. Apart from this book, I have no exposure to the Pocket Your Dollars website or to any of Rocha’s financial advice. So, while some liked her prior to snagging this title, I’d never even heard of her.

Of the bat, Pocket Your Dollars addresses Rocha’s qualifications to write a book on finance. Some people write on finance who have never been in debt or set a foot wrong, others who got into trouble and bankruptcied out of trouble, and these folks want to tell the reader how to manage money with advice the author has never used. Rocha is not in that situation, as she and her family did get into debt and then worked out of it.

The bulk of Pocket Your Dollars is broken into three sections. The first addresses attitudes that need changed, the second how to change them, and the third speaks to what comes next: an actual budget.

Rocha’s approach in Pocket Your Dollars is a good one. She recognizes that mindset tends to cause recurring problems more than anything else. While some people are in debt because they overran their insurance and lost their job in the same month, many of us struggle with debt and finances because of our attitudes and opinions of self-worth and value. If we do not address that, Rocha professes, we will never fix our monetary issues.

Her conclusions in Pocket Your Dollars are spot on. The advice on practical matters is, certainly, negotiable: some things work better in differing situations than others. However, work though the attitudes first, and see whether or not you need those specific practical ideas. You’re likely going to find plenty of your own.

I would heartily recommend Pocket Your Dollars for anyone learning personal stewardship and finance. Partner it with a good budgeting tool, and you have a worthwhile basic lesson in getting out of debt---or, if you catch it soon enough, not going there in the first place. I was pleasantly surprised how useful this text was.

A brief word on the nature of Pocket Your Dollars: it is published by BethanyHouse, a Christian book publisher. It is not, however, a primarily Christian text. That means you, non-Christian reader, can find value here. That also means that you, Christian reader, will need to add your study of the Bible to this text. That’s fine—it avoids becoming overly preachy in this manner.

Note: This book was provided to me by the publisher for a review. I was only required to submit the review, not to find the book favorable.