Financial Literacy Book Club

This month we will be reading a fiction book!

Brooke Orr is on a mission to change her life and the world. Assisting an octogenarian billionaire in the quest to give away his vast fortune turns out to be deeply satisfying work, a noble life path. All you need to make the world a better place, it turns out, is the right ideals with the right amount of money. She and her billionaire make an uncommon pair: Brooke, 33, is a Black woman raised by a single mother in New York City; Asher Jaffee, 83, is a white business tycoon with an elaborate lifestyle. Each is exhilarated by the new friendship. Asher loves Brooke's willingness to spar with him, and Brooke finds her proximity to Asher's power intoxicating, even mind altering. As limits are increasingly pushed and unusual boundaries crossed, the line between need and want blurs dramatically.

An elder justice expert uncovers the failures in the systems that are supposed to protect us as we age, and provides a battle plan for families and policy-makers to counter the greed and incompetence. Between 1900 and 2000, Americans gained, on average, thirty years of life. That dazzling feat allowed tens of millions of Americans to reach the once-rare age of 85, now the fastest-growing age group. The bad news: For millions of Americans, the Golden Years are appallingly tarnished, leaving them and those who love them at a loss for what to do. More than 34 million family members care for an older relative for "free," but with costs to them in time, money, jobs, and health. Countless seniors are targeted by scammers and make riskier decisions about care, housing, money, and driving due to cognitive decline. And epidemics of isolation and loneliness make older people unnecessarily vulnerable to all sorts of harm. These problems touch millions of families regardless of class, race or gender. Today, one in ten older Americans is neglected or exploited with devastating results. And the systems supposed to safeguard them--like nursing homes, guardianship, Adult Protective Services, and criminal prosecution--often make problems worse. Weaving first- person accounts, her own unrivaled experience, and shocking investigative reporting across the worlds of medicine, law, finance, social services, caregiving, and policy, MT Connolly exposes a reality that has been long hidden--and sometimes actively covered up. But things are not hopeless. Along with diagnosing the ailments, she gives readers better tools to navigate the many challenges of aging--whether adult children caring for aging parents, policy-makers trying to do the right thing, or, should we be so lucky to live to old age, all of us.

Glauber Contessoto gambles his life savings on a joke cryptocurrency. Two months later, he becomes “The Dogecoin Millionaire” and an internet legend. While it might seem easy to get rich online, it’s even easier to lose it all.

Available on Kanopy.

A direct, incisive guide for consumers to know how to protect and handle their money in the face of a financial crisis There are always going to be unexpected financial crises in our lives. Whether we're facing an economic recession, a pandemic, a bear market, or energy worries, we have to immediately know what to do with our money. We start to ask: What bills need to be paid first? Should we dip into our savings? Are there better methods to protect a nest egg? Michelle Singletary provides a hands-on guide to all of your debt concerns, credit card issues, cash- flow problems, medical coverage questions, and the dozens of other common financial issues that crop up with all of us when money suddenly becomes tight.

A big-hearted, no-bullshit memoir from TikTok superstar Madeline Pendleton about her journey from living paycheck to paycheck to creating a multi-million-dollar business that offers a compassionate alternative to capitalism. Imagine a job where you work four days a week and earn as much as the CEO. You also get full benefits, a gym membership, free lunch, and unlimited time off, including mental health days, no questions asked. Hard-won profits don't just end up in the CEO's pocket-they're distributed equally among all employees. The company even buys you your very own car. It sounds too good to be true, but this is the reality at Tunnel Vision, the clothing company that Madeline Pendleton Hansen built from the ground up. Like so many Americans, Madeline used to struggle to make ends meet. Raised by a punk dad and a goth mom in Fresno, California, she spent her teens on the brink of homelessness, relying on the kindness and spare couches of the local punk community to get by. By her twenties, she was drowning in student loans and credit card debt, with no relief in sight. Madeline felt the intense toll that financial stress was taking on her and her loved ones, and she was sick of her bosses treating her as disposable-she knew there must be a better way. After years of living broke, Madeline decided to study the rules of capitalism, the game everyone is forced to play. She used what she learned to build a new kind of business, one rooted in an ethos of community care. Now, Madeline is paying it forward by sharing her path to success on her terms, plus no-nonsense life and money advice: How do you build credit? How do you negotiate higher pay? How do you build a better world? Millennials and Gen Zers like Madeline are facing an unprecedented financial reality: Stagnant wages, skyrocketing housing costs, a student debt crisis. I Survived Capitalism is essential reading for anyone searching for hope and stability in an unjust world.

When the author first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world's youngest billionaire and crypto's Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side? This book sets out to answer this question, taking readers into the mind of Bankman-Fried, whose rise and fall offers an education in high-frequency trading, cryptocurrencies, philanthropy, bankruptcy, and the justice system. Both psychological portrait and financial roller-coaster ride, this book finds the author at the top of his game, tracing the mind-bending trajectory of a character who never liked the rules and was allowed to live by his own - until it all came undone.

This month we will be discussing our favorite financial podcasts! We will comply a list for the members of the book club to be sent out after our discussion. Come ready to talk about which episodes or podcasts you've found particularly helpful.

If you haven't found a podcast that you like or you'd like to try one more, check out Net Worth and Chill by Vivian Tu a.k.a Your Rich BFF.

There's no getting around it. You need to know how to manage money to know how to manage life - but most of us don't! This illustrated guidebook from New York Times bestselling author and financial expert Jean Chatzky, Kathryn Tuggle, and their team at HerMoney breaks down the basics of money-how to earn it, manage it, and use it- giving you all the tools you need to take charge and be fearless with personal finance. How to Money will teach you the basics of: -creating a budget (and sticking to it) -scoring that first job (and what that paystub means) - navigating student loans (and avoiding student debt) - getting that first credit card (and what "credit" is) - investing like a pro (and why it's important!) All so you can earn more, save smart, invest wisely, borrow only when you have to, and enjoy everything you've got!

Introducing the powerful idea of striving for financial wholeness instead of early retirement or millionaire status: learn the ten short-term steps that lead to long-term security. From the simple (best practices for budgeting and saving) to the more sophisticated (investing, taking charge of your credit score, and calculating your insurance needs), use memorable stories, actionable lists and worksheets, and a you-got-this attitude, to build a solid foundation for a life that's rich in every way.

It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper--and cousin by marriage--of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years. Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also skeptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems. Andrew Bogle, meanwhile, grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. He knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realize. When Bogle finds himself in London, star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows his future depends on telling the right story. The "Tichborne Trial"--wherein a lower-class butcher from Australia claimed he was in fact the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title--captivates Mrs. Touchet and all of England. Is Sir Roger Tichborne really who he says he is? Or is he a fraud? Mrs. Touchet is a woman of the world. Mr. Bogle is no fool. But in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what is real proves a complicated task.