The Soul of Wealth by Daniel Crosby is a thoughtful look at the meaning behind ‘wealth’ and how a normal person can reflect on, and work towards achieving it

This is all done while decoupling the idea of wealth from the pure numerical hoarding of cash and asset.

In his book, Crosby argues that the “shallow pursuit of wealth can strip wealth of its essence.”

However, by engaging in “thoughtful introspection, experimenting with new ways of being and pursuing soulful living, money can serve as the transformative tool it us meant to be,” he believes.

What’s in the book?

The Soul of Wealth is a collection of 50 short essays on what it means to be wealthy and some of the philosophical grounding in our culture that this comes with. It includes sections such as:

• You might be solving the wrong problem
• The Joneses aren’t that happy
• Being rich requires being weird

The essays contain historical and philosophical musings around wealth, including behavioural insights and some practical applications of the ideas.

Crosby writes that the book is designed to help the reader contemplate and implement these ideas.

Who is the author?

Dr Daniel Crosby is an American psychologist and behavioural finance expert with popular previous tomes on money including The Laws of Wealth and The Behavioural Investor.

He considers The Soul of Wealth a companion to these books, thinking more deeply about what it means to be wealthy and how that relates to the accumulation of money.

Aside from writing, Crosby helps organisations understand the intersection of mind and markets. His first book, Personal Benchmark: Integrating Behavioural Finance and Investment Management, was a New York Times bestseller.

His second book, The Laws of Wealth, was named the best investment book of 2017 by the Axiom Business Book Awards and has been translated into 12 languages.

His third book, The Behavioural Investor, was Axiom’s best investment book of 2019 and is a comprehensive look at the neurology, physiology and psychology of sound financial decision-making.

When he’s not decoding market psychology, Daniel is a husband and father of three, a fanatical follower of the St. Louis Cardinals, an explorer of the American South, and an amateur hot sauce chef.

How can I win a free copy?

To win one of FIVE copies of The Soul of Wealth, follow the link below and enter your name, email and home address.

Mouthy Money will draw the winners at the end of November 2024 who will be contacted and sent their free copies.

This competition now is closed

The post WIN one of five copies of The Soul of Wealth by Daniel Crosby appeared first on Mouthy Money.

Readers can win one of 10 copies of Jared Dillian’s No Worries – how to live a stress-free financial life by entering the latest Mouthy Money competition below.

Jared Dillian’s No Worries – how to live a stress-free financial life is an eye-opening look at the way we all think about money. From stockbrokers to hospitality workers – we all have one thing in common: we’re worried about our money.

Dillian isolates the real causes of financial worry – debt and risk – and takes a systematic approach to how to manage these worries.

From developing the right attitude, to balancing your relationship with money and managing stress around money, Dillian offers expert insights into how to have a healthier relationship with our finances.

In his book Jared reveals:

•  how the right kind of abundance mindset works wonders
• how to purge the urge to splurge (without making life a drag)
•  the most effective ways to use credit cards that no one tells you about
•  the smart ways to buy big-ticket items, from houses to cars
•  what’s gone wrong with student loans and how to use them sensibly
•  how to ace investing with the set-and-forget ‘awesome portfolio’

For readers it is however worth keeping in mind that some of the examples and other information in the book may be USA-specific. However, the broader spirit of the book just as well for UK-based readers.

About the author

Jared Dillian is a writer and entrepreneur who has written several books about money, including an excoriating 2011 account of Lehman Brothers during the Great Financial Crisis.

He is based in South Carolina having previously lived for many years in New York, the financial centre of North America.

Dillian has a range of other resources available including newsletter and personal financial courses to help people overcome their money problems.

How to win a copy

Mouthy Money readers can win one of 10 copies of Jared Dillian’s No Worries – how to live a stress-free financial life by clicking the sign up link below and adding their details.

We’ll draw the winners at the beginning of July and get in touch via email to let you know you’ve won.

This competition is now closed.

The post WIN a copy of No worries – how to live a stress-free financial life by Jared Dillian appeared first on Mouthy Money.

The Everything Token takes a whistle-stop tour through the landscape of NFT technology – what they are, how they work and the potential for digital assets.

NFTs haven’t been short of controversy in the past two years as the valuations of digital artworks such as the infamous ‘Bored Apes Yacht Club’ and others reached feverish levels before crashing back down to earth.

Kominers himself is a professor and economist at Harvard Business School in the USA, but the book is written in an accessible way that us normies can still grapple.

Kaczynski and Kominer’s book take an unapologetically positive spin on NFTs. When it comes to any sort of investing, Mouthy Money thinks its readers should view everything through a critical lens – but if you want to understand how the tech works, this book should do the job.

Mouthy Money is giving away three copies of The Everything Token by Steve Kaczynski and Scott Duke Kominers to help you get your head around ‘non-fungible tokens’ or NFTs.

What are NFTs?

Non-fungible tokens or NFTs are a form of digital token that confers ownership of an asset and confirms it digitally using a blockchain to record said ownership.

NFTs gained widespread attention during an investment bubble of 2021 before crashing back to earth in the past two years.

Beyond digital artwork that saw much of the hype, Kaczynski and Kominers see much potential for the technology to be used as a marketing tool – fans of products of major global brands will buy digital collectibles in order to show off their digital association with those brands, for example.

Elsewhere NFT technology could replace essential ownership documents for assets that aren’t easily transactable such as property, jewellery, watches, real-world artwork (think Van Gogh or Picasso) or basically anything else that might need a proof of ownership.

THE COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED AND WINNERS WILL BE DRAWN AND CONTACTED

NFT ownership, trading and purchase carries risk. You can lose all your money just like with any other kind of investment. Make informed choices and don’t use money you can’t afford to lose.

The post WIN a copy of The Everything Token by Steve Kaczynski and Scott Duke Kominers appeared first on Mouthy Money.

PLUS: find out how you can have a chance to win one of five copies of the book on how to achieve financial freedom

Thanks for joining us Robert. Tells us a bit about yourself and your background.

I’m an author, entrepreneur, and investor. Having spent the last 20 years in an investment consultancy called Redington, I founded a pensions business called Mallow Street and also RedSTART, a charity to teach young people about money, how it works and how to make it work for them.

I’ve also written two books: a children’s book called Save Your Acorns in 2016, which is a short animated book, and then my lockdown project, Freedom: Earn It, Keep It, Grow It, which covered three kind of core money moves and was aimed at young professionals or self-employed, earning between £30k – £150k and getting them to think about money.

Talking about Freedom:  Earn It, Keep It, Grow It, along with the three core aspects to it, what’s the main takeaway that you want people to get from it?

The big takeaway is that it’s not how much you earn, but how much you keep and grow and the magic of compound interest: how much work investing can do for you when saving for a pension or other things over a 40 – 50-year time frame, but in order to do that you need to keep hold of your money. At the same time, clearly if you’re earning £60k, it’s easier to do this than if you’re earning £30k.

I also wanted to dispel the myth around earning more money that people can create financial freedom by building this discipline of saving. It’s about having a plan and building the habit of saving 20% and thirdly if you’re saving for a pension or investing, then you need to think ahead.

What is the incentive for somebody who’s looking to make more with their money to put it into investments when they could just be earning 5% in a savings account?

Even if you look at a time when inflation was quite benign and running at 3%, your money would still be halving every 20 years. Unless you’re owning real assets, if you’re just putting all your money in the bank account, you’ll really struggle to grow it faster than inflation and that’s why you need to invest.

However, it’s hard to do, managing the tension between what feels the right thing to do over the next two years rather than over the next 20 years.

One of the key things I talk about in the book is ‘weatherproofing’ your finances – paying off your debts and having an emergency buffer of between three to 12 months of your living expenses which will enable you to weather the bumps in the road.

Your background is in investing and pensions consultancy. How can you take your experience and translate that into a book for the general public / average consumer?

The challenge is the same whether it’s an institution, pension fund or an individual. The trick is the language and the engagement.

I wrote Save Your Acorns, I founded RedSTART and I’ve delivered 1,000s of hours of financial training to primary-age children right the way through to adulthood. Through the work I’ve done around financial education – including RedSTART, teaching Girl Guides about entrepreneurship, sitting on the World Economic Forum and being chair of the Financial Education Council.

I’m aware of the importance of how you demystify the technical aspects of financial products such as pensions and make them relatable in a way that encourages people to take action

That brings me to my next question, tell me a bit more about RedSTART and what your involvement is in the charity. How did it get started and where it where it’s at now.

I’m the co-founder of RedSTART, and I’m still a trustee and very actively involved in the charity.

The genesis of it was having co-founded the pensions consultancy Redington, I wanted to do something that related or linked to our business but went beyond that. We started out by working with a local secondary school and teaching teenagers about money matters such as, tax, saving and investing.

However, in 2013, research came out from Cambridge University which revealed that our money-saving habits are formed by the age of seven and so we decided to focus our support on primary schools.

Our aim is to teach them through experiential learning and games about how to earn, keep and grow money, which inspired the title of my book. Having delivered financial education to about 45,000 children, our new CEO Sarah Marks joined the charity a couple of years ago and refreshed the strategy.

The charity is working with The Policy Institute at King’s College London on a seven-year longitudinal research study called ‘Change the Game’ working with over 45 schools in areas of greater disadvantage and tracking how they’re doing, to hopefully demonstrate that teaching them financial education at an early age has a beneficial future impact, helping them to make the right financial choices and decision when they become older.

I’m hugely passionate about RedSTART and that’s why all proceeds from my book are going directly to support the fantastic work it’s doing.

We’ve given copies of my book to the teachers and children that we’re working with at RedSTART – and actually some of the book’s characters are used in RedSTART’s educational materials!

Do you think financial education should be separate from maths? What do you see in terms of who should be responsible ultimately?

What RedSTART is trying to do is teach the concepts of money and the habits they’ll need in later life.

That doesn’t mean teaching them about underlying complex financial things, but about getting them to a point that when they start work, they’re engaged with their money, thinking about their pension and understanding if they get a pay rise, the   trade-offs between saving and paying off debt, for example.

Not everyone’s going to get excited about the detail of financial or financial products, but it’s about giving them a base level of awareness and understanding around making good money decisions in our everyday life, as getting them right or wrong can have a profound impact on our lives and our mental health.

How realistic do you think achieving financial freedom is for people, ultimately? And can people take hope in that?

For most people, there’s an opportunity to take out about 10% of their expenses and divert that for long-term investing and actually over 10-20 years it makes a massive difference. I do believe if you kind of follow the examples in the stories you can create financial freedom.

Would you like a chance to win one of five copies of Freedom: Earn It, Keep It, Grow It by Robert Gardner?

The competition is now CLOSED. Winners will be announced shortly.

The post WIN a copy of Freedom: Earn It, Keep It, Grow It by Robert Gardner appeared first on Mouthy Money.

Mouthy Money is giving away three copies of ‘Dare to be different and grow rich’ by Dr Rainer Zitelmann

Find out below about the book and how to win.

ENTER THE COMPETITION HERE

Dare to be different and grow rich’ by Dr Rainer Zitelmann

Have you ever wanted to be successful? Then ‘Dare to be different and grow rich’ by Dr Rainer Zitelmann should be the next book on your reading list.

In his new book, the author studies the lives of 50 extraordinarily successful women and men – most of them entrepreneurs, but also top managers, athletes, entertainers, and others – to find out what distinguishes them and the lessons that we can all learn.

An insightful and thought-provoking read filled with lessons, the book examines success based on the secret lives of successful people, by also showcasing the struggles on their journeys.

‘Dare to be different and grow rich’ presents every-day people tackling life difficulties, taking risks and becoming successful – at its core it illustrates that we are all humans on a journey, and that determination is a key factor to your success.

From Steve Jobs to Madonna, the book is packed with stories, principles, and examples of people who had the courage to make a change in their lives and ‘dared to be different’.

Take a peek into the lives of successful people and get inspired by their stories by winning this book as part of Mouthy Money’s competition.

Find out more: If you’re 18 – 29, we want to hear from you! By taking our quick survey, you’ll be in with a chance of winning a £100 shopping voucher from your choice of Amazon, John Lewis or M&S – plus four £20 vouchers up for grabs too.

How to win

We’re giving away one of three copies. Enter here and fill in your details. We’ll pick three winners randomly after the competition closes on 31 December.

ENTER THE COMPETITION HERE

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

The post Book competition: WIN a copy of ‘Dare to be different and grow rich’ by Dr Rainer Zitelmann appeared first on Mouthy Money.