The Financial Diet by Chelsea Fagan and Lauren Hage

“As I gradually restore Words Like Silver to its archive of reviews written between 2011 and 2024, I'll aim to first and foremost make my reading history explorable by publishing the blurbs and short reflections as books cross my mind, with the goal of eventually transferring and fleshing out the original WLS content. For now, please enjoy this brief spotlight.”

*A Refinery29 Best Book of 2018*
*One of Real Simple's Most Inspiring Books for Graduates*
*Indie Personal Finance Bestseller*

How to get good with money, even if you have no idea where to start.

The Financial Dietis the personal finance book for people who don't care about personal finance. Whether you're in need of an overspending detox, buried under student debt, or just trying to figure out how to live on an entry-level salary,The Financial Dietgives you tools to make a budget, understand investments, and deal with your credit. Chelsea Fagan has tapped a range of experts to help you make the best choices for you, but she also knows that being smarter with money isn't just about what you put in the bank. It's about everything--from the clothes you put in your closet, to your financial relationship habits, to the food you put in your kitchen (instead of ordering in again). SoThe Financial Diet gives you the tools to negotiate a raise and the perfect cocktail recipe to celebrate your new salary.

The Financial Diet will teach you:
- how to get good with money in a year.
- the ingredients everyone needs to have a budget-friendly kitchen.
- how to talk about awkward money stuff with your friends.
- the best way to make (and stick to ) a budget.
- how to take care of your house like a grown-up.
- what the hell it means to invest (and how you can do it).

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I tend to be drawn to accounts like TFD and Wine Folly that distill tough, occasionally esoteric topics into bite-size pieces that the average new 20-something (me) can readily understand. I like wine, and I need to know about money so I know if I’m in a good place for where I am in my life.

One of the biggest challenges of moving to Hawai’i was the financial aspect. When I uprooted, I was leaving behind all aspects of my material culture. I had to save up for a car, mattress, furniture, anything, bringing nothing except for (essentially) clothes and a few books. I did have my coffee machine over here for a bit, because I figured that was a luxury that was worth the cost of shipping.

CON: Rent and groceries are high, while salaries are low. (Solution: Costco.)
PRO: Most activities are free — beach, hiking, surfing, so I rarely spend money on entertainment.

I’d love to do a post at some point about how I broke down the cost of moving, although that’s more of a lifestyle post. It was difficult, especially as I was fresh into freelancing! But especially as I get more settled into adulthood, I’m realizing how much I value transparency and resources that meet you where you are in terms of learning. Ya girl wasn’t a finance major, but I do care about setting up a great foundation.

2024 Update: Over the last few years, I've had to buckle down and learn a lot about my own finances, since I also run my own LLC. From bookkeeping to business credit cards to payroll tax and more. In my books update newsletter, I also talked pretty frankly about the financial considerations of writing a fiction manuscript and pitching based on frontloaded, unpaid hours — how to mitigate any risk.

In seeking helpful money/investing resources, I cared a lot about reads that were informative without being condescending. The more I’ve followed along with The Financial Diet, the more I feel like I can excavate the bits relevant to me right now, which generally gives me more of a sense of control over my money and future. I grabbed their book from the library and let it expire partway through, and recently I bought it for myself to finish the book.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and think it could be a thoughtful base-line resource for many people in my situation, whether new grads, new to adulthood, or hoping to get more clarity about what matters at which stages in life. Honestly, it’s probably best for entering college kids who don’t yet have a personal stance on buying furniture and cooking for themselves (because I think we figure that out earlier than the demographic this book targets.) It feels pretty broad and a little too obvious, perhaps, but I'm sure it's helpful to some folks even if it didn't feel particularly hard-hitting to me.

I don’t think it’s comprehensive enough — and could get a little overly bubbly in terms of lifestyle content — but I liked it enough to recommend as a quick library pick, especially anyone who might feel a little intimidated by their finances and future. This should have been marketed as a book for new adults trying to get a grasp on independence though, instead of a guide to getting good with money.

It’s more about how to feel like you’re good with money, which is a significantly different topic. It doesn’t quite dive deep enough into the gritty, what-the-hell-is-this aspects of investing and accounting that most people picking this up are seeking it for.

My First Impression

In freelancing, I’ve gotten absolutely no help. I don’t have the structure of an employer plan to show me the ropes, so I've largely had to learn it all myself. I’m entrepreneurial at heart and such a self-starter, but that also means that I don’t have anyone else to blame if I mess it up. The bright side of my age is that time is on my side, but I just at least want to make sure I have my ducks in a row going forward.

2024 Update: The mission is perpetual, but I'm on a pretty good path.

I like The Financial Diet on Instagram a lot, so figured the book might deep dive more into the terminology and ideas that it fleshes out on its page. It didn’t quite get there for me, but I still enjoyed it and found it to be a good way of easing myself in to reading about personal budgeting in the same way I do other topics that interest me.

The Structure

As with most overview-style reads, it’s a little light in some areas and in-depth in others. It starts out being financial, mostly, in that it talks about and defines funds and accounts you should be aware of.

Then it goes more into a lifestyle perspective in ways that can feel either useful or fluffy depending on the section. Mostly, it had an interesting question or point in almost every chapter, which is why I found it to be a worthwhile read. For example, one chapter talks exclusively about food. It argues that one of our insecurities as a generation is not cooking enough from home, and not being fully aware of where our grocery costs go.

2024 Update: It's perhaps not as helpful in 2024 when cost-of-living is so high anyway, because inflation means none of those strategies really save you enough to make a significant dent in your costs.

It goes in depth on which kitchen items you’ll first need when moving into a new house, where to save, when to splurge, etc,. and lists/helpful tips to ensure that you’re able to cook for yourself. For some, that might feel overly basic. Included recipes could feel superfluous, but they’re fun.

My note on the lifestyle piece is that some of it does feel opinionated and tailored to Fagan’s own life and budgeting. It’s a good perspective to have, but different people have different financial priorities, so advice of where to invest in your wardrobe, etc,. could feel a little too pointed. Luckily, those tended to come in small features and vignettes, highlighting various successful women’s strategies and opinions about how money has impacted their lives.

I felt like the first half of the book and the second half were two entirely different reads. It went pretty quickly from “okay, here’s what a retirement account should look like” to “here’s the workwear you should buy when you’re starting out” which to me felt entirely like a matter of opinion. Although I’m only 20-something, I do know roughly what furniture I want in my home and what to prioritize when I first move; most people do, so that really wasn’t worth the few pages devoted.

The Voice

This book excels mostly in its tone, which is probably hit or miss. As mentioned, it’s helpful without being overly condescending, and light without feeling overly flippant. A lot of the stories made me feel a little more confident about being confused post-grad, because Chelsea Fagan has clearly built an empire while starting out in a frat-house style apartment, drifting from job to job with no thought to how it would affect her professional reputation. In that sense, it’s an inspiring read for those starting out as well as those who might feel as if they’re scrambling for a more secure life.

The “I need to get my shit together” emphasis and style got old after a while, but that was a relatively minor flaw. Okay, yeah, established a few chapters ago — you feel messy. Let’s roll past it. In general, I think most people who strive to read this will at least have the desire to feel more together, so the persona doesn’t need to be constantly established throughout the book.

The Cons

Although it’s pitched as “A Total Beginner’s Guide to Getting Good with Money”, it’s more so about how to live on a budget and how to feel emotionally better about not being good at budgeting yet. Granted, it has a section on saving for a house, opening a retirement account, etc,. but it wasn’t quite detailed enough in those areas to make a difference. In that sense, it’s probably a good introductory book to warm yourself up to the idea of reading about finance, while it doesn’t quite have enough heft to be a standalone guide or reference.

I checked out the reviews for this book, and some of the one-stars are by women who are in financial industries who warn readers that some of the advice is bad or glossed over. I’m sure some of that has to do with compressing such a volume of information into a small, millennial-friendly read, but I would caution readers to (obviously) do their own research afterwards and not take everything discussed in this book at face value. I didn’t necessarily see it as a bad thing — financial advice generally isn’t one-size-fits-all — because I do view it as an intro-level book as opposed to being a guide. It’s more of a read for calibration.

Overall

The Financial Diet was a nice, albeit general look at our attitudes towards money. There were some concrete tidbits in there that are helpful, but didn’t quite go deep enough into them, and they’re definitely individualized. I’m glad Chelsea Fagan’s system works for herself, but it may not be the same path for everyone.

It operates more on a habitual level than an informative one, making recommendations for how to structure your life and relationship to money rather than how to handle money itself. For some, that may be a turnoff, or not concrete enough. Some people may not feel awkward talking with their friends about money, so the chapter might not apply. Others might not ever have an issue with money and relationships, or insecurity around others who make more.

Financial advisors on Goodreads note that although she covers many options in her chapters for certain choices like down payments on homes, some of the options included are generally bad ideas. So with that being said, do your research! It’s more so a book about a personal financial perspective.

The overall formatting reminds me of their Instagram, which means I love to see have the reminders, but I generally shy away from listicle formats as a place to get solid and in-depth info. I personally enjoyed reading the profiles and advice of other women, but they tended to be repetitive and roughly limited to one page or paragraph.

Anyone who wants to feel a little more together by instituting a few relatively easy changes might want to read it for some friendly advice; anyone wanting genuine financial strategy and structure should probably not (or snag it from the library.) It’s a discussion more so than a guide.