Psych Yourself Rich - A Review
By Eric Hammer
Psych Yourself Rich: Get the Mindset and Discipline
You Need to Build Your Financial Life, by Farnoosh Torabi
- FT Press 2010
You would think with that with a name like "Psych Yourself
Rich," there would be quite a little bit of psychological
advice – mind tricks that one could play on one self to
put yourself into a rich frame of mind. Indeed, that’s largely
what the wealthy in our country do – those who are self
made anyway. They psych themselves rich by deciding that they
were going to work hard and do what they have to do to make it
in this world.
However, while Farnoosh Torabi does go into some psychological
discussion about money, discussing how we have different ideas
about money and about what a financial crisis constitutes, for
the most part, Ms. Torabi instead offers practical advice on
how to plan a budget and stick to it.
Mind you, the advice she offers is extremely helpful –
you’ll learn about some of the investing mistakes that amateurs
make and she points out to you some of the fallacies of following
traditional views regarding money. In fact, this book could easily
be described as "Personal Finance 101."
For those of us who have read a few books on the subject of
personal finance however (not to mention those of us who write
about personal finance for a living), the information, while
interesting, doesn’t seem to be all that earth shattering.
In essence, the advice Ms. Torabi offers here readers is that
you need to treat money with respect and understand that it is
after all a finite resource. She recommends, as most financial
writers do, paying off your bills in full, saving money where
you can, not spending money on things you don’t need.
To be fair, I am oversimplifying what Ms. Torabi has to offer.
Yes, the information here is all basic common sense about finance,
but it’s common sense which happens to be sound financial
advice and which all too often, we tend to forget or may not
even know about in the kind of society we’ve grown up in
(spending all the time – rarely bothering to save, always
looking to acquire more things, etc.).
Ms. Torabi’s best points however (and here at least,
it feels like the title is a bit more justified), seem to come
out in the personal stories she shares of real people who were
in real financial trouble and how they managed to move beyond
those difficulties. The stories will help to inspire those for
whom money is a difficult and taboo subject.
However, for those who need a book on psychology – how
to think like someone who is rich and how to get over our mental
blocks to doing the things that will make us rich (as opposed
to simply being told, this is what you should do), other books
may be more helpful.
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