Finance Resources:

Books

• The Millionaire Next Door:

• The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko

• The Wealthy Barber by David Chilton

• The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason

• Making the Most of Your Money by Jane Bryant Quinn

• Personal Finance for Dummies by Eric Tyson

• Money, A Memoir: Women, Emotions, and Cash by Liz Perle

• Prince Charming Isn't Coming: How Women Get Smart About Money by Barbara Stanny

• Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin

• The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn

• People by Jane Bryant Quinn

• Personal Finance for Dummies by Eric Tyson

• The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

Money Attitude and Behavior Books:

• Money Changes Everything by Elissa Schappell and Jenny Offill – An anthology compilation by 22 writers, Tackle the Last Taboo with Tales of Sudden Windfalls, Staggering Debts, and Other Surprising Turns of Fortune. Ours is a culture of confession, yet money remains a distinctly taboo subject for most Americans. A host of celebrated writers explore the complicated role money has played in their lives, whether they’re hiding from creditors or hiding a trust fund. This collection will touch a nerve with anyone who’s ever been afraid to reveal their bank balance. In these wide-ranging personal essays, Daniel Handler, Walter Kirn, Jill McCorkle, Meera Nair, Henry Alford, Susan Choi, and other acclaimed authors write with startling candor about how money has strengthened or undermined their closest relationships. Isabel Rose talks about the trials and tribulations of dating as an heiress. Tony Serra explains what led him to take a forty-year vow of poverty. September 11 widow Marian Fontana illuminates the heartbreak and moral complexities of victim compensation. Jonathan Dee reveals the debt that nearly did him in. And in paired essays, Fred Leebron and his wife Katherine Rhett discuss the way fights over money have shaken their marriage to the core again and again. As a society, we talk openly about our romantic disasters and family dramas, our problems at work and our battles with addiction. But when it comes to what is or is not in our wallets, we remain determinedly mum. This is the first anthology of its kind—an unflinching and on-the-record collection of essays filled with entertaining and enlightening insights into why we spend, save, and steal, ranging from the comic to the harrowing, all revealing the complex, emotionally charged role money plays in our lives by shattering the wall of silence that has long surrounded this topic.

• Green With Envy: Why Keeping Up With the Joneses Is Keeping Us in Debt by Shira Boss. –Financially stressed Americans are the rule, not the exception with more of our nation's families going through bankruptcy than divorce. This book provides a compelling tell-all about what's really going on with the Joneses, offering a whole new perspective on financial well-being and simple, practical steps for how we can stop trying to keep up once and for all. As the silent struggle with our money is raging across America, each of us is harboring secret financial desires and discontents, but few dare confess. No matter how much we refuse to admit it, our contentment is based not on the size of our bank account but on how we measure up to those around us. Everyone, regardless of income, occupation, or net worth, wants to keep up with the Joneses, even when it means making financial messes and covering them up. In this myth-shattering tour of America's mind-set about money, Shira Boss offers a tantalizing mix of hard facts and juicy gossip as she peers into the lives and checkbooks of our neighbors...and exposes the shocking gap between public image and what's really going on behind closed doors.

• Psychology and Consumer Culture Edited by Tim Kasser, PhD, and Allen D. Kanner, PhD. - provides an in-depth psychological analysis of consumerism that draws from a wide range of theoretical, clinical, and methodological approaches. The contributors to this edited volume demonstrate that consumerism and the culture that surrounds it exert profound and often undesirable effects on both people's individual lives and on society as a whole. Far from being distant influences, advertising, consumption, materialism, and the capitalistic economic system affect personal, social, and ecological well being on many levels. Authors address consumerism's effect on everything from culture, ethnicity, and childhood development to consciousness, gender roles, identity, work stress, and psychopathology. Contributors provide a variety of potential interventions for counteracting the negative influence of consumerism on individuals and on society. The book makes a strong case that, despite psychology's past reticence to investigate issues related to consumerism, such topics are crucial to understanding human life in the contemporary age.

Personal Finance Resources: Magazines

• Smart Money www.smartmoney.com

• Money www.money.com

• Kiplinger’s Personal Finance www.kiplinger.com

• Medical Economics www.memag.com

Personal Resources: Web Sites

• www.morningstar.com --Good articles on aspects of mutual-fund investing

• www.vanguard.com --Teaches basics of mutual-fund investing and retirement planning

• www.fidelity.com --Good mix of education about mutual funds, individual stocks and bonds, annuities, and insurance

• www.pbs.org/affluenza/-- Information on how individuals can cut costs, consumption, and waste

• www.finaid.org -- Comprehensive annotated collection of information about student financial aid on the Web

• Yahoo.com – Money Matters

• SmartMoney.com

• MSN.com - http://moneycentral.msn.com/home.asp

Blogs for Young Adults – Online Swapping Tips on Saving, Investing and Avoiding Debt as Well as Commiserating About Financial Difficulties

Blogs have sprung up in recent years taking advantage of Internet anonymity to reveal to strangers fiscal intimacies the authors might not tell their closest friends in the belief that the exposure gives them discipline to reduce their debt.

• Young Professionals Financial Blog – (http://ypfb.blogspot.com/)

• StopBuyinCrap.com (http://www.stopbuyingcrap.com/)

• My 1st Million at 33- (http://www.1stmillionat33.com/2006/06/list-of-high-yield-dividend-stocks)

• Free the Drones- (http://www.freethedrones.com/)

• bloggingawaydebt.com Authored by Tricia, 29, does not talk to her family or friends about her finances, and says she is ashamed of her personal debt. She goes posts intimate details of her financial life, including her net worth (now negative $38,691), the balance and finance charges on her credit cards, and the amount of debt she has paid down since starting a blog about her debt last year ($15,312).

• makelovenotdebt.com Make Love, Not Debt is authored by an engaged couple with a negative $70,787.94 net worth. The feedback from readers has not always been gentle being appalled by spending $500 on a pair of shoes and their wanting a $25,000 wedding.

• (wereindebt.com) “We’re in Debt” was started by the self proclaimed King and Queen of Debt as a way to talk to each other about their debt. They owed $34,155.70 on their credit cards at the time, and an additional $120,000, mostly in student loans. “My wife and I have good communication skills in every avenue of life except finances,” said the King of Debt, insisting on anonymity because, he said, “We don’t want our parents to find out and kill us.” Starting the blog, he said, “was a way to communicate.”

• thedebtdefier.blogspot.com was started by Tricia after reading the online account of another woman, who said she had paid off her credit card debt of $19,794.23 in a little more than a year.

Television/Cable:

• CNN series called “Millionaires in the Making” on CNNmoney.com featuring savers, investors and entrepreneurs, many of whom are 35 or younger.