Review: Unautomate Your Finances

Today is a big day for Baker at Man vs. Debt. He is releasing his first premium guide called Unautomate Your Finances. I had the privilege of taking a sneak peek before the big launch today. I was impressed.

Unautomate Your Finances Synopsis

Unauatomate Your Finances is divided into three parts. In Section 1 Baker tells his story: his experience with debt and climbing out and the adventures that followed. If you’ve never read Man vs. Debt, you’re missing out. Baker has a very interesting story that’s worth reading.

He goes on to share why over-automating your finances is bad and what unautomating your finances actually is. Along the way he provides Core Action Steps, designed to help readers begin to take control of their financial situations. Though I didn’t have the time to actually perform the core action steps before writing this review, I can definitely see how they would help simplify finances.

Section 2 is entitled The Science of Unautomation. In it, Baker takes you through a couple of exercises to narrow down what you really want in life and what in your budget you can cut to get there. I really loved the probing questions he asks to get his readers to really examine their priorities in life.

The final section of Unautomate Your Finances gets into the nuts and bolts of how to actively manage your money to achieve your goals. While some of the concepts are standard personal finance concepts, Baker has his own unique style of applying them. I like his fresh approach.

The Verdict

I really, really liked Unautomate Your Finances! Baker and his wife don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk. They paid off their consumer debt and traveled the world in a way most people wouldn’t dare. That gives him a great deal of credibility in authoring a book about finances.

Unautomate Your Finances is one part inspiration, one part goal setting, and one part practical application. It will appeal to people who are longing to gain control of their finances, but not confident they can actually do it.

Readers of Being Frugal.net might want to be aware that Baker can be very direct in his language, with a few h-e-double hockey sticks thrown into the text. However, I don’t think that took away from the value of the guide.

Kudos to Baker for a great job on his first financial guide!