Every other Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal development, personal productivity, career, or entrepreneurship book. Since starting The Simple Dollar, I’ve gradually developed the belief that the reason many people get into financial trouble is that their lives become overwhelmingly complicated. Attempting to balance a career, a marriage, a family, relationships with friends, hobbies, community responsibilities, and so forth can pretty much drain a person, making them more susceptible to peer pressure and advertising’s influence. The end result is that they spend more than they should for a mix of reasons: emotional support, escapism, a desire to live the quality of life they think they deserve because of all of their hard work. In truth, though, people in that type of high-pressure situation who seek some sort of quality improvement in their life are best served not by charging themselves into debt, but by dialing things back a little. Letting go of the little, unimportant things opens up the time and the emotional room for things that are really important – time with family, time with hobbies and personal passions, and time with loved ones and friends. I know this from experience. My reaction to my early professional life – particularly immediately following the birth of my first child – was to spend with reckless abandon. I thought I should have a better life than I had because of my hard work and because of the lifestyle of my friends, so I spent money to chase that mirage. Along the way, though, I just became unhappier and eventually I found myself trapped in a ridiculously complicated life with more debt than I could handle.

Read more here - Review: The Simple Living Guide