Honestly, I skimmed a LOT of this book. Not because it was bad, but because a lot of it simply wasn’t for me. I’m not necessarily the target audience. Oh, I’m definitely bad with money, but this book is really better designed for someone much younger. The memoir bits I loved.

There were some very practical tips in this book. It brought up some things I never thought of. I will use this for future reference.

When I first started reading this book, I felt like there was some useful information. It really seemed like the farther into the book I got, the less useful the information became. It really didn't seem to have a lot of financial information in it at all. It seemed more like a memoir than anything else.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Author: Gaby Dunn
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication Date: 01 Jan 2019

I interviewed Gaby for Stacking Benjamins. Her interview was one of our most downloaded shows of 2019 so far. The book is a good look at Gaby's life from the beginning, with great money lessons throughout. She isn't afraid to tell the truth as she sees it, and mixes laughter with serious lessons quickly and effectively.

I’m on a debt free journey so this book was right up my alley!! I plan on purchasing physical copies to give to my siblings and friends. I think everyone should read this one.

This book just did not do it for me. Mostly, I was expecting more info on getting my financial Sh*t together. Instead, I got mostly memoirs that I had to sift through in order to piece together tips. Yes, each chapter ended in tips, and truthfully, that was the most beneficial bit of the book. There were 2 chapters that were helpful, but after that....not helpful.

I am thankful that there was a bibliography made available, but footnotes would have been more helpful, or even end of chapter notes to make fact checking/research easier.

I'm not normally a self-help reader, especially not financial books. But my bank account tells me I should probably start. Bad with Money was a great place to start, and not just because the title so aptly fits my circumstance. This isn't a textbook. You won't have homework or need to highlight passages to later recite. Instead, Gaby Dunn tells you like she saw it, what she lived through. She does give tips and advice and all of her stuff is backed up by the people who do this whole money thing for a living, but it doesn't feel like a crash course in microeconomics as must as a fun memoir that might just help your pocketbook.

*Received a review copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

I'm so sad that I didn't LOVE this, because I do love Gaby Dunn (or at least I thought I did).
Firstly, do not read this if you are actually looking for financial advice. She covers topics so broadly that I found most of the tips to be so superficial that I can only imagine them being helpful if you have literally 0 knowledge of anything financial. Like 0. Maybe even negative knowledge. Even then I feel that their are better books out there to help you learn these things & that go more in depth while still being readable.

This was much more memoir/anecdote than I thought it would be as well, which might not have been a problem except for the fact that I just didn't like a lot of the anecdotes she shared. For example at one point she writes about a discussion she had with her mom about the student loans she was allowed to take so she could go to school out of state. It almost seemed like she was mad at her mom for letting her do that for her mental health? But in the next paragraph she writes about her old journal entries which state that she was seriously considering suicide if she had to stay in state. I don't know, it seems a little bit ridiculous to me that she would be mad at her parents for that when she was in such a state...

Finally there were a decent amount of "social justice-y" (for lack of a better term) thoughts shared. Even though she was technically preaching to the choir I still felt it was pretty heavy handed and not done as well as it could've been. I also think that a book where she's trying to encourage people to take control of their financial problems didn't benefit from constant reminding about how "the system wasn't made for you". While this might be true, unless you are ready to somehow overthrow the government right now you have to learn how to work within it and I would've appreciated a little more focus on that.

Overall this was just not as good as I wanted it to be and that was pretty disappointing to me.

What a delightful book about money: how we use it, how we spend it and how we save it.

This book was extremely interesting to read. Unlike most financial books, it covers topics such as student loans and funeral costs in a way that makes it applicable and not dry. Each chapter consists of a topic, followed by takeaways.

I really liked this book. It helped cover the necessary topic in a friendly yet comprehensive way. The writing style is friendly (I want Gaby to be my best friend!). It is never judgmental even when showing us our actions are simply stupid.

There are positive, common-step ideas that are suggested such as asking everyone you know about a job, going to an in-state college or making a will.
The author talks in a way that a friend or relative would speak to you on a subject such as one of the takeaways for college debt: “Attaching self-worth to material achievement or to things largely out of the [sic] your control is not healthy. Making decisions based on competitiveness/entitlement can bit you in the ass down the line.”

My favorite chapters were “Here Comes the Bill” and “Expenses to Plan for After You Retire”, though they may not have been what I needed most! Her comment at the end of the second is an example of the way the author uses common sense and not just financial theories: “It’s super hard to plan for retirement when you need or want money for things RIGHT NOW. But getting in the habit of putting even a little away regularly, if you’re able, can help avoid bigger, scarier problems when you are older.”

I laughed throughout the book, especially at the will games she played with her sister when they were children. I simply cannot express how much I enjoyed this book. I will be first in line for anything else written by this author.


I received an ebook ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affects my opinion or rating of this book.

Wow. So, Gaby is Bad with Money. This book is more memoir than how to so if you're looking for a straightforward how to get out of debt or how to handle money book, this isn't the best choice. There are financial tips throughout, but they are connected to lessons she's learned and not set up as a straight how to. If, on the other hand, you're looking for a funny, honest memoir about money troubles and learning how to not be bad with money, this is your book. Gaby writes with honesty and humor about her past monetary foibles and complete lack of financial knowledge and I know there are those who will greatly identify with her. My first roommate would simply stop writing down the checks she wrote in her checking account ledger when she was getting close to $0. Not stop spending... just stopped writing it down. Yeah, sure, that's how that works. I made plenty of my own mistakes with money over the years. At this point, in my mid-40s, I've learned to budget and my only debt is my mortgage which I've happily gotten paid down by nearly half over the past 5 years (I'm so looking forward to the day I make that last payment!). But it's been a journey rewriting the money scripts I learned growing up. Throughout the book, she tells not only her own story, but inserts what she's learned from interviewing experts and talking to friends and family along the way. Don't keep waiting, hoping for some windfall to save the day and fix all your money problems, get on a budget.

This book would be especially useful to a younger person - teens and 20s - as a warning what not to do and how to get a good start on handling money. I would also recommend checking out her podcast, also titled Bad with Money. I've started from the beginning and am really enjoying the interviews she does with experts and people in her life talking about money.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

Gaby Dunn serves up a dose of real life in this memoir cum financial advice manual in a personal, well written package that is packed full of stats. She uses her life as spring board and with her perspective as someone bad with money, she puts finances in context with issues of LGBTQ , gender, macroeconomic forces, social pressures and much more. I also really liked that she summarized each chapter with smart, succinct takeaways to create little bites of knowledge from her experience and research. Disclaimer: I received a copy of the book from Netgalley in exchange for a honest review.

Podcaster Gaby Dunn is not perfect, and is the first person to own up to her financial woes. Her popular podcast, Bad With Money, is part self exploration and part great advice. Her book of the same name takes it a step further.

Bad With Money, unlike many books on the subject of finance, is easily accessible. It doesn't make the reader feel bad about finances, but instead offers advice like a friend and makes you think. Dunn's initial podcast asked people two questions: What is your favorite sex position and what is the amount in your bank account?  Not surprisingly, many people answered the first and were too embarrassed to answer the second.

An entire generation is coming to terms with the fact that there might not be a safety net when we're older or an illness could wipe away all we have and leave us with nothing. Many of us have lived through stock market crashes that wiped away our parents' savings in a couple of days. Student loans are more expensive than ever. Dunn does an amazing job of getting readers to move past the difficult emotion and actually discuss what can be done to try to turn it around. 

Gaby Dunn's Bad With Money is a fantastic book and enjoyable to read. It is also full of really important information to try and help our generation turn it around with finances.

Bad With Money is now available from Atria Books.

Eventually gets into sections that is more information based. there is a series of lessons with information interwined in it. Goes into topics like post secondary, debt, unpaid interships, freelance, wedding and more. It is okay, for me I am not totally on with heavy personal stories. There is good topics talked about.

This book was part memoir and part very basic financial advice. It is an honest story of what she has learned about money...from her childhood, from her experiences in her career and from being a millennial. I appreciated the parts where she talked about how important it is to recognize that early experiences you had with money (how it was discussed in your home as a child) can have a big impact on how you were formed as an adult today.

I liked the basic recap at the end of each chapter and found many of her ideas to be very helpful to someone who was just starting out in their financial education journey. She has a relatable voice and she is able to share what she has learned without sounding sanctimonious which I think will help other millennials connect with this book. There were some chapters that were more helpful than others but all in all, I appreciate that there is a book that shares an underrepresented voice in the financial education field.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria for gifting me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Part memoir, part advice book, Bad With Money explores Gaby Dunn's experiences with money, both through her personal life and what she's picked up while hosting her podcast of the same name. Most of it is extremely readable and easy to follow even if you skip irrelevant chapters. I think it'd be a good book for parents to read for guiding their children of all ages, and will do well with its New Year's release date as people make their resolutions for 2019.

Overall this book has a good perspective, but I think Dunn doesn't have a firm grasp of who she wants her intended audience to be (high schoolers and college kids? people her age? older adults?) which makes some sections of the book overly specific to different groups. I'd recommend this above a lot of other books about money, but it isn't perfect.