Mindful Money: Simple Practices for Reaching Your Financial Goals and Increasing Your Happiness Dividend

This mindfulness-themed finance book from DeYoe, a practicing Buddhist, claims to offer the path not only to material wealth, but to something even more elusive: happiness. He says that’s the only financial goal that really matters. Part one addresses “illusions” about money; part two, the eight “pillars of happiness”; and part three, concrete steps towards a financial plan. DeYoe’s financial advice, absent the Buddhist spin, is quite basic: plan and save. One virtue of DeYoe as an author, however, is that he, unlike some purported financial gurus, actually holds a day job as a financial adviser. Accordingly, his advice is more grounded in reality than most and the book is refreshingly devoid of silly savings schemes wherein one forgoes 20 years of lattes in order to retire at age 55. DeYoe doesn’t say anything about financial planning that hasn’t been written before, but his advice is solid, his delivery is assured, and his claim of discovering the key to happiness is surprisingly plausible. Alice Walker contributes a foreword, a rapturous ode to penny pinching entitled “Counting My Eggs,” that alone is worth the price of the book. (Feb.)