"And what HAVE you been reading?," you may ask. Glad you asked (even if you didn't)! Powered through my first reading of Zombie Economics - A Guide to Personal Finance: How to Slay Your Bills, Decapitate Debt, and Fight the Apocalypse of Financial Doom, by CNN's Lisa Desjardins and Portland broadcasting's Rick Emerson.
The book's idea is stripped down and simple: we've had decades of stories of people surviving the rise of zombies, trying and sometimes failing to keep from getting bitten and/or eaten by ravening hordes, and so the thesis statement Desjardins and Emerson came up with says
In other words, survive and get the chance to do better than survive later. Which I want to do.
A lot of the advice is stuff I already knew, but it's good to reinforce all of it, to be reminded of it. I already live a pretty stripped-down life, financially speaking -- have since at least 2008 when I intentionally, and in a calculated way, left my OHSU job, because my sanity was more important than that paycheck -- but I'm getting reminded of what my financial weak spots are, and adjusting. Always important to do so. And my inner (and often not-so-inner) sicko chuckled at some of the imagery in the fiction section of the book. Zombie Economics alternates between a narrative about someone surviving their zombie-overrun city and straightforward, though still smart-assed, advice sections (like the advice to, if you're ever fired, wallow in the "this sucks" feelings for a bit...BUT ONLY FOR A BIT). Desjardins and Emerson are, after all, smartasses. I've happily dealt with them both. As well as their contributor Todd Werkhoven, who coincidentally? Is nicknamed Todd the Corpse. (He played a corpse in a movie.)
The book will be worth revisiting. It came out last May; within a month, people were already giving it as graduation gifts, which I'm sure delighted the authors.
Anyway. Zombie Economics. Recommended. Would you like to know more? Go to ZombieEconomics.com.
The book's idea is stripped down and simple: we've had decades of stories of people surviving the rise of zombies, trying and sometimes failing to keep from getting bitten and/or eaten by ravening hordes, and so the thesis statement Desjardins and Emerson came up with says
...every skill needed to survive a financial downturn mirrors a skill needed to survive the zombie apocalypse.
In other words, survive and get the chance to do better than survive later. Which I want to do.
A lot of the advice is stuff I already knew, but it's good to reinforce all of it, to be reminded of it. I already live a pretty stripped-down life, financially speaking -- have since at least 2008 when I intentionally, and in a calculated way, left my OHSU job, because my sanity was more important than that paycheck -- but I'm getting reminded of what my financial weak spots are, and adjusting. Always important to do so. And my inner (and often not-so-inner) sicko chuckled at some of the imagery in the fiction section of the book. Zombie Economics alternates between a narrative about someone surviving their zombie-overrun city and straightforward, though still smart-assed, advice sections (like the advice to, if you're ever fired, wallow in the "this sucks" feelings for a bit...BUT ONLY FOR A BIT). Desjardins and Emerson are, after all, smartasses. I've happily dealt with them both. As well as their contributor Todd Werkhoven, who coincidentally? Is nicknamed Todd the Corpse. (He played a corpse in a movie.)
The book will be worth revisiting. It came out last May; within a month, people were already giving it as graduation gifts, which I'm sure delighted the authors.
Anyway. Zombie Economics. Recommended. Would you like to know more? Go to ZombieEconomics.com.
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chris_walsh- Chris Walsh
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hi.
i.
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(No kidding, I considered having the only text be "I"...)