Cover Image: Attack Your Expenses

Attack Your Expenses

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Member Reviews

This book was an entertaining read and did give me a few practical ideas that I hadn't thought of before for managing money. The impression though is a list of suggestions: some run-of-the-mill, some a little less practical. But really there's a suggestion for everyone, you just have to pick the ones that you, personally, can make work.

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I don't like giving negative reviews; usually if I hated a book, I simply rate it and move on. But as this one is from Netgalley, it seems I'm obliged to leave a review. So I'll try to briefly explain what was wrong with this book, and why I strongly recommend against reading it.

Firstly, Attack Your Expenses is essentially a collection of money-saving tips. That's it. They're presented as isolated tips - think pretty much bullet points, not connected into any larger narrative - and roughly split up into chapters by theme. Personally, I don't think a list of ways to save money really constitutes a publishable book, no matter how many of them you might have. There is no detail or real advice on putting these tips into practice, no matter how drastic they are (see below: all the stuff about moving to a new country); McDowell just tosses them out there and then moves along unceremoniously. This seems more suitable for a blog post/listicle than a book.

The tips themselves fall into a few broad categories: blindingly obvious, out of touch with reality, and just plain ridiculous.

The former category makes up most of the book - the vast majority of tips are very basic things about saving money which you should already know (and if you don't know anything about saving money, start with Moneysavingexpert.com or somewhere else respectable, not this book). For example, we have "Always shop for clearance items," as well as advice to avoid buying bottled water and to look at the per unit price of items like toiler paper. No, really? I'd never have thought of those, thanks Scott!

In the out of touch with reality category, we have the whole extended sections on "Rent a Kill" and "Medical Tourism". Here's a choice quote from the first of those:
"A good example of moving to a city with a higher quality score and saving money is moving from New York City to Dusseldorf Germany. Dusseldorf is 37% cheaper and ranks at number 6 in quality score, whereas New York ranks at number 44."
Just uproot your whole life and move thousands of kilometres to go from NYC to Dusseldorf. It's that simple! Apparently McDowell lives in a world where visas, legal complications, language barriers, and jobs do not exist. The Medical Tourism section also advises you to uproot yourself and move to a new country that has better medical care - because again, it's that easy.

Similarly, he has this to say about my home country, the UK:
"Renting a studio flat in central London costs upwards of $1800. If you drive an hour outside of the city, a studio flat will cost you $900. If you are willing to drive another hour, you will find studio apartments for just $500. The cheapest studio apartments in England rent for $260".
What McDowell neglects to mention is that all of the jobs in the UK are concentrated in London. Personally, I don't want to live in London, let alone pay about £800/month for the privilege (that's for a room in a flatshare, not a studio). But at some point in my life I will have to, because all the jobs in my industry are in London, as they are for every other industry, which is why London house prices are like this. Maybe remote working will fix this, but as things stand, it's extremely condescending of McDowell to just toss this advice out there, as though we all have the luxury of moving wherever we want at a moment's notice. In general, the entire Rent a Kill chapter is McDowell ragging on life in major cities and telling the reader to move out of them. McDowell clearly thinks people only live in cities for frivolous reasons and personal preference; there is no acknowledgement that many people have no choice about living in these metropolitan centres because that is where the jobs are. In fact, McDowell states "The average person in these cities does not have jobs paying any more than they would be able to earn in another cheaper location." I can't speak for everywhere in the world, but in the UK this is factually incorrect: see <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/smallareamodelbasedincomeestimates/financialyearending2018#strengths-and-limitations">here</a> and <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/regionalaccounts/grossdisposablehouseholdincome/bulletins/regionalgrossdisposablehouseholdincomegdhi/1997to2017">here</a>, which are the first two links I could find on the internet concerning the higher average income in London. Even if you're talking about minimum wage employees, the fact is that in a rural area, you might not be able to find any job, minimum wage or not.

We've covered the <s>good</s> boring and the bad, and now on to the ugly. McDowell has some truly mad tips to save money, such as "If you fast just one meal a day, you decrease your monthly spend by a third just using this method. That is at least an extra thousand dollars a year for most people." ...No thanks. He also gives out the standard miserly, ridiculous advice about making your own bread and shampoo to save pennies for hours of labour, but then later in the book, he states that "One of the most common mistakes when it comes to time and money is working on things at home that can be paid for such as gardening, when you can earn more per hour while a gardener works on your garden." So which one is it? There's no acknowledgement of this contradiction e.g. if you're unemployed and can't find a job, perhaps it makes sense to use your spare time to save money, whereas if you're earning lots, maybe hire that gardener - but McDowell doesn't say anything as useful as that, because this book is just a list of disjoined and badly thought out advice.

McDowell clearly thinks you're completely in control of your own destiny, and if you don't want to move halfway across the world for cheaper rent or starve yourself to save on groceries, it's your fault that you're broke. In the afterword, he says "You can walk your way into another situation, another job, another life." Generally, he espouses a very pro-capitalism and individual responsibility-focused narrative. It's exactly this philosophy that frustrates me so much, because it so obviously isn't that simple for most people. And then there's this comment: "The consumer debt of a nation solely relies on the personal responsibility of individuals to take actions that benefit themselves and the wider community. We don't need another recession like in 2008 or depression as we had in the 1930s, and if we don't want to see these types of events happen, we have to change." So McDowell thinks that rather than being due to complex political and economic systems that are largely outside our control, recessions are due to individuals not being thrify enough. I'm sure some people will agree with him, but I'm not on board.

One final point - this book has serious issues with editing and formatting. An entire section is copy-paste repeated in the final few chapters, and there is a spelling, punctuation, or grammar mistake on every single page of my Kindle edition. I try not to be harsh on these things most of the time, but this is just plain unprofessional and exactly the sort of thing that gives self-publishing a bad name. Did the master of thrift himself not have the money to hire a proofreader?

tldr: don't read this, read Moneysavingexpert instead

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I really wanted to like this book, but it fell short of the bar for me. The information wasn't original and I didn't feel like there was anything in the book that was helpful or different from what every other book of this nature contains. It also seemed to contain a lot of information that felt unnecessary.

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Kinda wish the ending of the book was at the beginning of the book. To better explain why you should try to find ways to save money. Something to give me a reason to save money. Some of these suggestions screamed penny pinchers not frugal. What can I do to sacrifice to save a few pennies? Also as well, some of the suggestions did not make sense. Like to save on rent or living in a big city. Move out of the country. To me this book did not provide a practical value of cutting down expenses. A lot of it wasn't explained but just told to do it. With an open mind, there are somethings you can get an idea or two. But other than that, this is a book to be cheap not frugal.

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This book gave me new ideas for better finances, as well as reminding me about things that I should already be doing.

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Read in one sitting, was really easy to digest and full of quick and simple tips to help improve your finances and expenses. Had some really good ideas on investing too. The book was broken down into multiple sections - some didn't apply to me such as the senior discounts section just like the parenting section may not apply to others.

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This book was written well and I read it in one sitting. It is easy to read the sections that are most applicable to your situation without feeling the need to read pages that do not apply.

Thanks to Netgalley for letting me read this book.

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What's great about this book is that it's easy to read and you find yourself moving quickly through the book for insights and practical tips on finances.
Thanks Netgalley for the eARC. This could well be read by a general audience without feeling like someone is bogging them down with too much financial information.

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I do like a good book about money management, and I read this in one sitting. It's well written, professionally presented, and full of good, sensible advice.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read a copy in exchange for an honest review.

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