World, Writing, Wealth discussion

This month's open book read is Get Out of Debt Hell: I did it, and so can you.

Our first open book group read of 2018 is nonfiction personal finance.

Please join us in reading Jen Pattison's Get Out of Debt Hell: I did it, and so can you

“How could I have been so stupid?”

That was Jen Pattison’s overwhelming thought when reflecting on too many years of living on the edge with overspending and juggling credit payments. It all collapsed when an unexpected crisis happened in her life. This is a familiar story for many people, and she will help to guide you out of the debt problems that have blighted your life with practical solutions and ways to save money. She will help you to think more deeply about what led you into overspending, by casting a critical eye on the insecurities in modern British life and the subtle and insidious forces that seduce customers into spending on things that they don’t need - aspects that are common in other countries too.

This is a call to everyone struggling with debt to break free of this hell – becoming debt-free will liberate you, improve your life and you will never look back. No matter how much you owe, you can do it!

Reading Schedule
Because this is a nonfiction book, we can immediately start discussing the entire book. Do not need to use spoiler tags at all.

Where to buy and special discounts
Kindle Countdown discount, 99p, 5 - 12 Jan on UK Amazon, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Get-Out-Debt...

For non-UK Kindle customers, use this trick to temporarily change your country to the UK:

https://www.howtogeek.com/328197/how-...

(Info provided by Jen.)

Great book :)

Marie Silk wrote: "Great book :)"

Thanks Marie!

I bought my copy. I won't get into debt hell for $1.34.

For non-UK Kindle customers, use this trick to temporarily change your country to the UK:

https://www.howtogeek.com/328197/how-...

(Info provided by Jen.)

Just finished Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the rich teach their kids...

Now on to Get out of Debt Hell.

It's been a while since I read the book, but if I remember correctly, I thought Jen's idea of housesitting professionally to reduce one's own expenses was brilliant.

I recall Jen saying that in a post here. That falls on line with Kiyosaki’s admonition that your house is an expense—not an asset.

Yes, it was so liberating not to pay any household bills whilst we were housesitting. We're now back in England and we are now better off financially as we have a far bigger income. It is a drag not to have a lot more free time though! With a smaller income, it did teach us a lot more about 'living on fresh air'. Mr P has also started matched betting, which is NOT gambling as you win every time, as betting online is illegal in many European countries but not in Britain. Emma Drew has an excellent post about this here, https://emmadrew.info/make-1000-month... , it's possible to make £1000 a month from it and earnings from betting are tax-free.

It was such an adventure, though. Without the expense of paying for a holiday we got the chance to see parts of Italy and France that we hadn't visited before, and to visit Germany, Austria and Hungary for the first time.

Housesitting (and often petsitting) is also brilliant for a free holiday, it's possible to do that for just a week or two also.

Nice :) I haven't heard of matched betting before.

But I always appreciate outside-the-box thinking for saving a buck--and traveling for free, of course!

I know that marketing is based on appealing to the emotions, but I didn't know this:

"Modern marketing began with Edward Bernays (a nephew of psychologist Sigmund Freud), an American who had worked on propaganda for the government in World War One... For a more detailed analysis of marketing I would recommend that you watch Adam Curtis' documentary Century of the Self,..." (@33%)

The DVD wasn't available on Amazon, so I requested it through interlibrary loan.

This reference alone is worth more than the price of the book.

We can still continue to discuss this book, but I wanted to take a moment to thank Jen Pattison for allowing us the privilege of hosting your novel as our book of the month read.

For those of you who read his book, I encourage you to leave a review.

Thanks Alex, I'm glad that you found something that really interested you in the book. I think you can find Century of the Self on YouTube, it's a brilliant documentary. Curtis's documentary The Power of Nightmares is also an excellent one (probably also on YT).

Advertising = Propaganda!

I thought this quote quite telling:

"Benefit fraud is largely overestimated by the general public: in 2011/12 only 0.7 per cent of the benefit bill (equivalent to £1 billion) was overpaid due to fraud. Compare this to the £70 billion lost through illegal tax evasion and an entirely different story emerges. In fact, a recent IPSOS Mori survey found that the public tend to overestimate the extent of fraudulent claiming by a factor of 34 (only 70p of every £100 spent on welfare is claimed fraudulently, not the figure of £24 generally believed by the public)."

Done!

What an effective rule!

"Remember the golden rule of shopping at all times--do you need it?"

This is a very practical book because fully 8% of the book is an annotated reference. By annotated, I mean that it's not merely a laundry list, but the author actually took the time to make incisive notes on each reference.

Thanks for your comments Alex. I could have just written about my experiences and views, but I wanted to produce a book that was also factually based. I put in a lot of research whilst writing, and nothing annoys me more than facts stated without acknowledging the source.

I was also surprised by the survey on benefit fraud, though I have to say that Inland Revenue in this country tends to go after the small fry rather than the big fish.