One bad review and the Money Diet plummets down the Bestsellers' list Blog Discussion

Andy_Davies

carl310166 wrote:

Can i ask?,why did you not find the book usefull,was it because,

1.You were already doing all the tips.

2.You didn't follow the suggestions in the book.

I am just curious that's all.

Interesting question, there are probably various reasons including:

- Was unemployed for a year (company shutdown in the dot com crash) and then did a masters degree for a year - when you've got no money you learn to live on much less and clear out the unnecessary stuff . Then when you return to work your more cautious with what you spend, save more etc.

- Already pretty financially aware, find money and finances interesting (!!!) and have done from a early age.

- Get a lot of my information from the web, still read books, newspapers, magazines but not as much as I used to.

- Some of the tips just aren't suitable for me e.g. I could get cheaper broadband than I do at the moment but choose to pay for a quality provider as some of the extra services they deliver are important to me. I guess there are probably other examples like this, some of the money saving stuff is about making trade offs and whether those trade offs are worthwhile is an individual decision.

Having said that I think there's plenty of fun to be had seeing how much less you can spend / much more you can save without compromising your lifestyle too much.

I can see how some of the people in the forums enjoy getting a £10 phone from Orange, getting cashback from QuidCo, GreasyPalm etc., spending the credit and then sending the phone off to Environphone or Tesco's, but to me that's just too much hassle for the sake of the amount of money involved - if I can save a tenner easlily I'll do it but if it's lots of hassle I probably won't.

Not sure whether this helps answer your question...

Andy

mike_paterson

His review will be well down the ratings by now. I too have added my review (which I should have done months ago) I also clicked the box that the morgan trading review was not helpful !

carl310166

Andy_Davies wrote:

Interesting question, there are probably various reasons including:

- Was unemployed for a year (company shutdown in the dot com crash) and then did a masters degree for a year - when you've got no money you learn to live on much less and clear out the unnecessary stuff . Then when you return to work your more cautious with what you spend, save more etc.

- Already pretty financially aware, find money and finances interesting (!!!) and have done from a early age.

- Get a lot of my information from the web, still read books, newspapers, magazines but not as much as I used to.

- Some of the tips just aren't suitable for me e.g. I could get cheaper broadband than I do at the moment but choose to pay for a quality provider as some of the extra services they deliver are important to me. I guess there are probably other examples like this, some of the money saving stuff is about making trade offs and whether those trade offs are worthwhile is an individual decision.

Having said that I think there's plenty of fun to be had seeing how much less you can spend / much more you can save without compromising your lifestyle too much.

I can see how some of the people in the forums enjoy getting a £10 phone from Orange, getting cashback from QuidCo, GreasyPalm etc., spending the credit and then sending the phone off to Environphone or Tesco's, but to me that's just too much hassle for the sake of the amount of money involved - if I can save a tenner easlily I'll do it but if it's lots of hassle I probably won't.

Not sure whether this helps answer your question...

Andy

Thanks,it does.

Well done for being financially savvy already,i wish we had been.


Personally,we live in a double income household,yet,like a lot of cases,we didn't really know where our money went every month (unbelieveable isn't it),so i started to pick up most of our Money Saving tips from the forums,but when i found out about the book,i bought one copy of the 1st edition,and later on,4 copies of the 2nd edition to give to family and friends,mainly because i wanted to pass on the info i had found.

As a conservative quess,it saved us about £7000 as least,that's without the mortgage as we are tied in for a while,but i felt that buying the book was a small way of showing our thanks to Martin for setting up the site in the first place.

If i had found the book first,i am sure that would have been our lightbulb moment!

Patr100

I do think the review in quesion is unfair but having read the book, I must admit I was slightly disappointed. Why? Because apart from the metaphor of the "diet" which I found distracting rather than helpful, eg in the headings, most of the crucial information is available (albeit compressed) on this site in the main articles - and more importantly is updated -

MSE_Martin

Hi Pat,

I do understand the point. Actually only the second and some of the third section have similar info to the site, the first section isn't duplicated at all. Though this i hope was something i made clear in my description of the book.

Yet the duplication is deliberate its designed to work with the site, many people prefer to read a book and find it easier than long text on a site- also I wanted to write it for those without web access or skills. They are often the most financially deprived. It's one of the reasons I pushed the publisher to keep the price down - if you compare the number of words and info in it to the other money books and the price you'll see its a much cheaper - to my joy and my publishers dismay.

martin

Cats_pajamas

There are so many resourses, available on the web and as books, that serve only to part us from our hard earned. :eek: It has been an absolute delight for me to find this whole concept (the book and the web). I have profited from many different aspects of it and am learning more lessons as I go.

I understand that not all aspects of the book suit everyone, but the 'pick and chose' aspect of the book is an attractive feature. I enjoyed the short crash-diet bits alot more than the rest of the book but this alone has helped me save £730. :beer:

If Martin wants to subtly elicit a few favourable reviews from the very people he is educating not to be manipulated by clever subtle marketing - the I say GO FOR IT!!!! WITH BELLS ON. :rotfl:
Thank you as ever,
C

Cats_pajamas

By the way - have posted an amazon review should have done so earlier.
I'd like to point out that the book is written by Martin :money: - the web site (I hope I wont cause offence) is a living breathing community - It isn't really fair to compare the 2 so closely.

Patr100

Thanks for the reply Martin, Yes, for those who prefer to read , or are unable to access the site , it's a very readable intro to the principles of moneysaving - Personally though I found the first part of the book a bit of a chore to go through - I wanted to get to the nitty gritty - - which the site and the forums provide though I appreciate you obviously have to write aware that the book must not date too quickly from the time it's printed.
I think the Painless/painful savings approach for the Tv series is perhaps a simpler one to understand though the word "painful" might put some off - sometimes they aren't so painful when you get used to them .

Mind you since I paid 99p for it with a £5 voucher from Play.com I can hardly complain about the cost!

-

tomstickland

One bad review is not going to cause a book to drop down the ratings.

drsims

Just sent in my review. Nothing but praise, naturally!! Take that MT!!