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Description of The New Spend Less Revolution

A year's worth of money-saving, life-improving tips!

This book is about how you can live on less, spend less, and yet be far richer and happier for it. That is not to say that this is a book about going without, living the life of an ascetic monk or never succumbing to the desire to buy a Paul Smith shirt or a plasma TV. In fact, this book is about how you can actually have and enjoy more in your life than you have today while dramatically reducing the financial expenditure it takes to achieve it. By spending less you really can have more.

Right now you may be feeling weighed down by the endless expenses and financial worries that can dominate our lives. We enjoy a larger abundance of material goods and wealth than we have ever had before. Yet worrying about money is still the single biggest causes of stress - a condition that affects over a million people in the UK and accounts for 1 in 4 visits to a doctor's surgery.

The good news, however, is that you can choose to resist the imperative to grow richer and richer, heavier and heavier, yet increasingly hassled and dissatisfied. You do not have to succumb to the pressure to forever earn more, spend more and pay more for everything. You can substitute the clutter of excessive possessions and expenses with a new and elegant simplicity that allows you to appreciate the power of less.

By taking on a new attitude to money and possessions, you can go from feeling as if you are leaking money every time you leave the house to feeling immensely wealthy, from feeling unsure about whether you can make ends meet to having the pleasure of always having spare money and savings in the bank.

In some ways this is calling for only a small shift in the way you live, yet it is a small shift that can have an enormous impact on your life. Most of the 365 tips in this book can help save you the odd £20, £50 or £200 a year. Some could help make you £50,000 richer right away. Others could serve as a complete breakthrough in helping you rethink, reorder or re-prioritise your life.

Join the spend less revolution!

Title Information

ISBN:

9781897597859

Pages:

250 pages

Format:

Paperback

Product Code:

23008

Publisher:

Harriman House

Published:

14/07/2006

Edition:

1st Edition

Reviews

• As many of you know, Robbie [Burns, www,nakedtrader.co.uk] likes to joke that I spend too much money (so unfair!) so I shouldn’t have been surprised when, the first time he asked me to write something for the site, it should be to review this book on spending less! My first reaction was 'I read lots of these kind of books in the 90s as a young teacher struggling to pay a mortgage and buy new clothes for all the interesting dates I was having. It will tell me to save the pennies, cut out take away coffees and take my lunch into work'. This book, I assumed, wouldn't be for me, at this point in my life. But I was wrong. (By the way, that's Robbie's favourite sentence when spoken by me). Rebecca Ash makes a lot of interesting points about why we buy things we don't need; how shops trick us into parting with our cash and how even though we know 'stuff' doesn't make us happy we keep accumulating it anyway. She gives lots of examples of truly pleasurable alternatives to spending money as well as '365 ways to spend less'. Ash assumes her reader is intelligent and, refreshingly for this type of book, not broke. She uses interesting examples and thought-provoking quotations. This week, since reading the book, I have cut right back on my spending (though Robbie won't believe it) as I agree with the author that simple things like a bike ride with the baby or making something actually gives more pleasure than endlessly shopping for things I don't really need. When I checked my email earlier and saw the usual special offer-type emails that are sent to willing consumers (mugs) like me, I just smiled and deleted them. After all, Ash has made me realise, who is really benefiting from all this spending.
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About Rebecca Ash

Rebecca Ash studied philosophy, french and psychology then spent the first years of her working life in China living on £80 a month. She moved back to London where she became a copywriter and spent the next ten years trying to persuade other people to buy, buy, buy... spend, spend, spend - and herself that she liked it. Rebecca has now quit that job, quit London and quit spending and is now a freelance writer who is raising her two children away from the city.

Contents of The New Spend Less Revolution

Preface
Introduction

PART 1. The Problem - Or why, despite earning a not unconsiderable amount of cash, most of it disappears on just paying for the basics

1. So why does life cost so darn much these days?
2. The myth of low inflation: Our hyper-inflated, hyper-bloated lives
3. Deranged consumerism. The pressure to spend, Spend, SPEND
4. So is all this extra money making us any happier?
5. We're all going nowhere - But we're going there fast...
6. How selfishness and ceaseless consumerism are destroying life


PART 2. The Solution - 7 Rules to help you live better, spend less and never let money ruin your life again

So where has this book managed to get us so far

Rule No. 1: Who said you need lots of money anyway?
Rule No. 2: Don't let the power of the 'oh but it's only £20' excuse ruin, bankrupt or leave you poor forever
Rule No. 3: "Rescue the essential from the clutches of the irrelevant"
Rule No. 4: Don't buy new if you can beg, borrow, steal or go without
Rule No. 5: Cultivate an enjoyment of elegant frugality
Rule No. 6: Find your own personal financial black holes and weaknesses
Rule No. 7: Always remember that it is about having more rather than less


PART 3. The Tactics - 365 ways to spend less while improving the quality of your life

1. Shopping
2. Your house and your home
3. More ways of saving or making money whenever you buy or sell property
4. Your personal finances and savings
5. Cut the cost of necessary household expenses
6. Food and drink
7. Cutting out unnecessary, excessive expenditure
8. Kids, schools and universities
9. Cars and travel
10. Leisure, pleasure and going on holiday
11. The kind of happiness that money just can't buy
12. Creating more time in your life
13. Your 'job' or your 'work'
14. Moving overseas

Conclusion