Living Rich for Less

Living Rich for Less is an easy-to-grasp handbook of suggestions and proven ways for developing a lifestyle that you desire. In energetic fashion that jumps from the pages, author Ellie Kay relates the motivation she had to work on ridding her family of debt. She uses her personal experience of being a military wife and raising 7 children to persuade the reader that anyone can live a debt-free life.

The chapters are interspersed with websites of various organizations that can be consulted for places to give (time, materials, money), ideas for business, tools for financial calculations, and online sites for comparison shopping. I was impressed with her detailed explanation of the FICO score and how it’s figured and the practices of credit agencies.

Ellie Kay espouses the 10/10/80 rule: give 10 percent, save 10 percent, and be smart in how to spend the other 80 percent. She starts early on with developing an attitude of giving in all areas. She reminds us that the goal is to be out of debt and living contently in order to give more.

Her key principle to remember: R.I.C.H.

• Redemption: Claim financial redemption and admit you have a problem
• Instruction: Submit yourself to wise instruction
• Commitment: Absolutely commit to put any unexpected income toward debt repayment
• Hope: Befriend a companion named Hope

As a Dave Ramsey fan, I was curious as to how Living Rich for Less would compare with his publications. Most of the same principles are presented but in a slightly different fashion. Where he presents a detailed, steady, step by step process for getting out of debt, Ellie Kay gives mostly helpful tips and suggestions.

This is a good primer for someone who may never have looked at practical ways of spending less. Ellie Kay said she had the mindset that saving, spending less, and being out of debt in order to give more away was her “business.” That’s a key principle to making Living Rich for Less work for you.

Ellie Kay is a featured family finance expert in numerous magazines and newspapers.
Published by WaterBrook Press.
I have two copies available to give away if you are interested. Just drop me a note.

It can also be purchased from the following sites:
www.Amazon.com, www.ChristianBook.com, www.FamilyChristian.com

When the Soul Mends

Hannah has been living in an Englischer town, under the care of her aunt Zabeth who previously left the Old Order Amish community years before. She is working toward a degree in the medical field, something she would not have been allowed to do in her community. Close emotionally to Martin, a man raised by her aunt, she is helping him to raise his niece and nephew.

In the opening chapter, we find Hannah driving into Owl’s Perch in the midst of a funeral service for her good friend Matthew’s brother who tragically died in a shop fire. She is unsure of her reception after fleeing home under cloudy circumstances two years before, ostracized by her community. Her sister Sarah’s strange phone call begging her to come concerns her enough to cause her to make the bold trip.

Cindy Woodsmall’s new novel, When the Soul Mends, details Hannah’s struggles for finding help for her sister’s mental illness that will be allowed by the leaders of the community, acceptance, reconnection, and dealing with her conflicting feelings towards Paul, the young man she had been courting two years before. Woodsmall does a great job intertwining the various family and friend relationships. Envisioning Hannah’s assessments of Old Order Amish and Englischer customs, the reader can empathize with her wavering between the two.

Salvation, forgiveness, concern, understanding, love: all these and more are found in When the Soul Mends.

Published by WaterBrook Press, this is the third novel in the "Sisters of the Quilt" series by Cindy Woodsmall.

If you are interested in a very enjoyable book, I have two copies to give away.

My Mother's Wish

Ellee sets out to distinguish herself from everyone else in her small town. She does not want to settle for the proper life her mother envisions for her. She rebels in small ways: the backwards direction she writes in her diary, the way she writes across the lines, and shortening her name to Ellee from Eleanor. All of it fits the best word she knows, “contrariwise.”

In My Mother’s Wish her father accepts her the way she is yet her mother is disappointed in Ellee’s constant need to be different. Strife ensues and we find Ellee taking off for parts unknown. I felt like there were pages missing because in one chapter she is leaving Missouri in July and in the next we find her at a truck stop diner in Nebraska just before Christmas. She misses home. A waitress shows concern, a truck driver offers her a ride which she readily accepts, and lo and behold, drops her off at her home without her revealing any details about herself. She returns to find her mother accepts her at last, as demonstrated by the fact that she has written Ellee instead of Eleanor on the Christmas list tagged to the refrigerator, and her mother’s lone wish is to have her back.

A very quick read, I found this little book too cute. There was no meat to it. Assuming the author is using this short narrative to get across the idea of unconditional love that God gives to each of us, this does not cut it for me. Give me the real Christmas story any day.

Published by WaterBrook Press and written by Jerry Camery-Hoggatt.
If you are curious, I have three books to give away.

Books can also be purchased from:

www.Amazon.com
www.ChristianBook.com
www.FamilyChristian.com

Me, Myself, & I AM

Ever think about what your life was like before Christ? Ever wonder about your current focus? Ever think about where you are headed in the future? Want to understand your relationship with God in a deeper way? Me, Myself, & I AM is a tool you could use to help you as you sort through these questions and myriad others. It’s like a ready made journal, asking pointed questions to get you started thinking and giving you a place to log a concrete record of your journey in life.

Some of the questions assume a cultural literacy on the part of the reader, such as:

If your life before you became a Christian were a movie, its title would be:

Animal House

As Good As It Gets

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

It’s a Wonderful Life

The reader is encouraged to be transparent and answer questions honestly; not as you think they should be answered but your own current assessment of you.

You can go in order or skip around to whatever interests you at the particular time you choose to examine your thoughts and actions. Fun, serious, or thought-provoking, Me, Myself, & I AM can be a springboard for either your own spiritual walk or group discussions.

Co-authored by Matthew Peters and Elisa Stanford.
Published by Multnomah.
Available for purchase at www.Amazon.com, www.ChristianBook.com, or www.FamilyChristian.com.

I have two extra copies if you are interested.