Pay no attention to the fact that it is mainly directed at women, you can definitely learn so many things from the book regardless of your gender. Written by Nigerian financial analyst, Arese Ugwu, The Smart Money Woman is a book that you need to add to your library. It is a totally relatable book that borders around spending habits, financial decisions, fears and misconceptions surrounding money, cultural and societal pressures when it comes to wealth and success, particularly on the part of the African woman.
In this book, we explore the life of Zuri and her four friends; Tami, Lara, Adesuwa and Ladun. We journey through their corporate and personal lives, how their financial decisions affected various aspects of their lives, and how they were able to get back up and make smarter decisions.
Published in 2016, this book was (and still is) highly sought after, because of its realness and practical nature. Knowing that the subject of money and everything about it is a very delicate one, Arese wrote a very interesting fictional book that deals with real life situations, you can be rest assured that you will definitely be glued to the book. The author did an amazing job of providing what she titled ‘Smart Money Lessons’ at the end of every chapter where she explained and broke down certain financial terms that will help in making better decisions when it comes to money. Asides the lessons, there are also exercises that have been provided to gauge where exactly you are in your finance and the next step from there.
The other themes that were explored in this book are the themes of love, marriage and family. We saw those who were born with the silver spoon and thought they didn’t have to work again, those who thought that all they needed was a man who was well to do and their money problems will disappear, those who made it look like their husbands were in charge, when in fact, they were the ones bringing in all the goodies and still getting dumped in the process (things we do for love right?) those whose families were still dependent on them, and so many other things that are very peculiar to the African society at large. This book literally addresses them all in just a few pages.
Brought to light in this day and age where youths especially are all about impressing other people with things they can’t even afford all in the name of being seen as someone with class, instead of taking a smart step and cultivating a simple spending diet, this book couldn’t have come at a better time. It is written in such a way that after every chapter, you mentally prepare yourself to do better, amazingly, there are already steps provided in the book!
Now you might be thinking it is just a book for financial guidance, but we think of it as a book filled with life lessons because that is what it is in actual fact. This book gives us the boldness to confront one of our greatest fears, money and it also gives us the courage to go forward and conquer it. It teaches us that in every crisis, there is an opportunity; you only need to look at it from another perspective.
What we love about this book is mainly the fact that these five friends were able to retrace their steps from their numerous issues and became committed to doing better together, now if this isn’t goals, then we don’t know what is. It makes you really wonder who you are spending time with because whether you like it or not, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
So hurry up, get your own copy and become a smart money person.
