COMMENT
Discover The Money Secret!

I recently read The Money Secret by Rob Parsons, bestselling author of several self-help books, including The Sixty Minute Father and The Heart of Success. (The recommended retail price is £6.99, but you should be able to find it for around a fiver online or in big supermarkets).

The Money Secret is very different to other financial guides, both in style and content. It tells the story of Amy, a young woman-about-town who has decided to commit suicide because of despair about her overwhelming debts.

However, as Amy starts downing painkillers and brandy, a mysterious stranger arrives. She is Lydia, a spirited and worldly wise pensioner who appoints herself as Amy's fairy godmother or guardian angel. Lydia takes Amy on a sometimes surreal financial journey – one that will help Amy to achieve her heartfelt wish to be free of debt.

Lydia explains the harsh truth behind Amy's free-living and free-spending approach to life. Amy learns a number of crucial financial lessons, including:

• How to conduct a "Reality Check" to figure out where her money goes
• How her "retail therapy" hurts her financially, yet fails to make her happy
• How to cut back on needless spending, in order to strengthen her finances
• How supermarkets, banks, advertisers and other businesses manipulate us to spend more
• How credit cards are Weapons of Money Destruction (the chapter on credit cards, "A House of Cards", makes particularly horrifying reading!)
• How store cards, retail finance, extended warranties, payment protection insurance and other "optional add-ons" are huge rip-offs
• How to pay priority debts to keep her home and other essential services – and freeze the rest
• How to harness the simple power of cash budgeting
• How banks have changed for the worse by becoming reckless moneylenders
• How people on low income pay eye-watering rates of interest to doorstep lenders
• How even high earners can go broke.

However, the crucial lesson that Amy learns is how to get out of debt and stay that way. So, what is the money secret? I won't spoil the ending, but there's a clue in this article!

Note that The Money Secret won't teach you how to "beat the banks" by using 0% credit cards and so on – quite the opposite, in fact. Also, it won't teach you about investments, pensions, savings accounts or anything like that. Indeed, you'll find all the advice in The Money Secret on this website – and more.

However, this book provides excellent no-nonsense advice for people who need to establish a new relationship with their money. If you want to think about your finances differently, this book will enlighten you and provide practical help to assist you in learning a new approach. As with all self-help books, The Money Secret as much about psychology and motivation as facts and figures, which is why it will particularly appeal to women.

If you'd like to take control of your money for the first time in your life, I'd recommend reading The Money Secret. And that's not just because Rob autographed my free copy and quoted me on pages 133 and 202!

To help you to compare prices online, this book's ISBN is 0340862777.

More: Ten Things You Should Know About Money | Seven Steps To Financial Freedom.