The Money Book For The Young, Fabulous & Broke

With more than 6.5 million books in print (nearly three million of The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom alone), an eponymous CNBC show, contributing editorships at O: The Oprah Magazine and Costco Magazine and a biweekly Yahoo! column, Orman commands a great deal of economic bandwidth. This seventh book will be released with a PBS special (her fourth) pitched specifically to 20- and 30-somethings early in their working lives, who are, to put it nicely, having trouble negotiating a challenging economy: Our starting point is that you are broke, by your or any definition. In the bright, clipped, supportive-but-not-mushy affirmative diction that dominates motivational business titles, Orman lays out a plan for maximizing the little that one has, focusing on ways to raise one's FICO score as a means of making more choices available. ( FICO stands for the mysterious Fair Isaac Corporation-with whom Orman has an arrangement for her own FICOkit.) She runs through a plethora of money problems and what to do about them: credit card debt, student loans, mortgages (and advice on real estate), car payments, taxes, IRAs-almost anything one can think of that has to do with financial planning that can seem bewildering when presented by a salesperson, a direct mail solicitation or HR orientation. Copyright 2005 Publishers Weekly. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.