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Book Reviews

Financial Serenity: Successful Financial Planning and Investment for Women

by Lori M. Bamber

Take Charge Now: A Woman’s Guide to Personal and Family Finance

by Patricia Lovett-Reid

She Laughed All the Way to the Bank: Financial Empowerment for Canadian Women

by Cindy Skrukwa

I was at lunch recently with single female friends, mostly professionals, when someone joked about being afraid of ending up as a “bag lady.”

My friend’s fear, though not entirely justified, reflects an insecurity I think most women feel at one time or another about their financial future. Who hasn’t turned away with misgivings from elderly women in the supermarket as they count out the pennies for their meagre tins? Who doesn’t feel a small wave of panic at the possibility of ending up poor, or dependent on someone else financially?

Canadian working women earn, on average, just 73 cents for every dollar earned by men. Divorce can be financially devastating, and is a peril that every married woman should consider when addressing her future financial needs. And with the pace at which business is changing these days, women who take time off to raise children may find they need to learn new skills to re-enter the workforce.

Good reason, then, for financial guides targeted to women. So why do the guides available so often dwell on a political message, or provide a touchy-feely “women’s approach” to the subject, rather than covering the basics of life insurance, the stock market, mutual funds, and RRSPs, and the special financial concerns of women?

Lori Bamber’s Financial Serenity does cover some of the basics well – RRSPs, RESPs, mutual funds, and GICs are clearly explained – but had the author concentrated on fewer extraneous topics, she would have been able to cover the most important issues in more than a cursory manner. Her discussion of “bottom up” and “top down” management styles, for example, is not germane to financial planning, and is more suitable to books for financial analysts.

In approach, Bamber borrows heavily from New Age ideas, providing exercises on journal-writing and meditation. She also suggests readers keep a “dream book” of personal desires, using magazine clippings to help visualize the things they’d like to have. Such topics may help some women adjust to change or find new directions in life, but they have no place in a book that purports to be an informative examination of financial planning principles. I am not convinced one can meditate one’s way to a comfortable net worth.

I found Bamber’s writing style and choice of language also problematic. She relies heavily on feminist “speak,” which at times makes her financial advice difficult to follow. In the chapter entitled “Empowerment, Taxation, and RSPs,” for example, Bamber writes: “It is time we stopped being so polite about the inexcusable ways in which our tax dollars are squandered. Yet, like most people, I think, I feel helpless. Whom do I call or write? Whom do I even vote for? But I can speak. I can write. I can e-mail. And when I do, my tax dollars begin to mean something to me again. A source of power rather than a source of disempowering frustration.” What, exactly, is Bamber suggesting her readers do?

She Laughed All the Way to the Bank: Financial Empowerment for Canadian Women, by Cindy Skrukwa, also dabbles in New Age ideas, and recalls books like What Colour is Your Parachute? and Julia Cameron’s book on creativity, The Artist’s Way. At one point, Skrukwa advises her readers to create a “praise list” to keep track of every positive thing a boss, peer, or customer says about them. Then, she suggests, “when your confidence level is low, turn to your list and read…. By counter-balancing the negative with the positive we can stay confident and stay in the game.” This may boost one’s self-esteem, but it won’t make the decision about whether to open a self-directed RRSP any easier.

Skrukwa, a management consultant, emphasizes goal-setting, and the need for women to change what she sees as negative attitudes toward money. Her case studies of individual women are good and relevant to Canada, but there’s little here that’s new, or that anyone with a little common sense wouldn’t already know. Skrukwa’s “Prosperity Equation,” for example, advises readers to “waste less, earn more, invest wisely, and protect what they have.” Her money-saving tips include brown-bagging it to lunch, using the library system rather than buying books, and buying second-hand furniture and refinishing it.

Patricia Lovett-Reid’s Taking Charge Now aims so low that it will be useless to anyone with even a basic knowledge of finances. Again, much of the advice is commonsensical. In the section on choosing a planner, for example, the author writes, “What are her qualifications? How will she deal with you in good times and bad?” References to financial planners are always written as “she,” and I found the suggestion that only women can handle women’s financial needs disturbing and irrelevant. One should choose the best-qualified person one can afford. And since financial planning is a fiduciary matter and necessitates the sharing of deeply personal information, it’s important that one feel comfortable with one’s planner. Gender is no guarantee of this. A reader who follows Lovett-Reid’s suggestions would not consider hiring someone like Rob Kerr, arguably the top planner in Canada, because he’s male.

Ultimately, these books will not serve readers who need help with financial planning. Although all three authors have worked in the financial industry, none covers such investment basics as reading the financial press, options, technical charting, and contrarian thinking. The books may get some readers thinking about their financial future, but the financial-planning pages of a newspaper’s business section provide more in-depth and up-to-date advice and information on the principles of financial planning than any of these three titles do.

 

Reviewer: Susan Hughes

Publisher: Prentice Hall Canada

DETAILS

Price: $28.95

Page Count: 240 pp

Format: Cloth

ISBN: 0-13-011611-4

Issue Date: 2000-1

Categories: Reference

Tags:

Reviewer: Susan Hughes

Publisher: Key Porter Books

DETAILS

Price: $19.95

Page Count: 176 pp

Format: Paper

ISBN: 1-55263-110-9

Released:

Issue Date: January 1, 2000

Categories: Reference

Reviewer: Susan Hughes

Publisher: Raincoast Books

DETAILS

Price: $19.95

Page Count: 228 pp

Format: Paper

ISBN: 1-55192-282-7

Released:

Issue Date: January 1, 2000

Categories: Reference