Sheconomics: power to your purse

Have you seen Confessions of a Shopaholic? Did you relate? The sad news is, women in general have a poor relationship with money. This is the premise on which psychologist Karen Pine and financial adviser Simonne Gnessen have based their guide to staying out of debt: Sheconomics.

If you're the sort who would rather die than talk to your boss about the increase you're due, or perhaps the type who takes to the shops at the first hint of feeling blue, or unusually upbeat, then you need financial rehab.

Sheconomics in seven steps

The beauty of it all is that Gnessen and Pine have packaged financial rehab for us in the form of seven easy steps.

Written in the form of "Laws", they take the reader through all the aspects, financial and emotional, that make up good money management. Then they give some real-life examples of women with money issues by introducing you to trainee Sheconomists - real women who have come to them to sort out  their relationship with money.

Women and money: a relationship

This is the essence of the book: women's relationship with money. We are more emotionally engaged when it comes to making financial decisions, the writers say, and so we need to identify and acknowledge our emotions, and then have a look at the behaviour that follows. A good example is getting a new job, then spending a fortune on a new bag because that's what you're going to earn next month!

So, a quick run down of the laws:

Law 1: Take emotional control
Be aware of how emotions affect the way you behave with money

Law 2: Go beyond beliefs
Know that your financial beliefs can become reality

Law 3: Spend with power
Make sure all your spending decisions are for the right reason

Law 4: Have goals
Make your money fit your life plan

Law 5: Look debt in the face
Face up to what you owe and decide how to pay it back

Law 6: Share financial intimacies
Talk openly and honestly about money

Law 7: Know tomorrow comes
Take action now for a secure future

With the world in the financial mess it's in, it's wise to tidy up your own backyard! Make Pine and Gnessen your new best friends and take control of your finances right now. As they so beautifully put it: Add power to your purse with the ultimate money makeover. Nothing wrong with that.

Sheconomics by Karen Pine and Simonne Gnessen (Headline), R144,95 available at bookstores now or buy now at Kalahari.net.

Author info: Cindy Moritz

Cindy Moritz is All4Women's contributing editor based in Cape Town. She spent ten years in magazine publishing, and was editor of fashion business title Pursuit for most of that time. She went on to edit popular parenting title Cape Town's Child, drawing on her own experience as mother of two young children. Deciding to practise what she preached, after a couple of years Cindy gave up the office job to pursue that fine balance of work and life which freelancing offers, and after having features published in a number of local magazines including Elle, Longevity, Femina and Strictly Business, she discovered www.all4women.co.za and online publishing. She's never looked back.