The Index Card

November 23, 2015
Olen and Pollack feel that many people are too fearful of money to manage it well, and they attempt to overcome that fear with this lackluster self-help book. After Pollack interviewed Olen about her previous book, Pound Foolish, an exposé of the financial services industry, he decided to jot down nine rules for better financial living on a single index card. He posted a picture of the card online, and it went viral. Those nine rules are replicated in this book, with the intention of helping readers build confidence, understand basic financial truths, and avoid catastrophic mistakes. It’s an admirable mission, but the rules themselves—save 10–20% of your income, avoid debt, max out your tax-advantaged accounts, buy index funds rather than dabbling in day trading, and so on—are too old and readily available in any listicle to be worth building a book around. There’s a fine line between attractively simple and just simplistic; this was a clever, sharable meme when it was nine lines on the Internet, but as a full book, it’s unsatisfying to all but the most unaware consumers.

January 1, 2016

This slim volume emerged from a conversation between author and financial columnist Olen (Pound Foolish) and college professor Pollack (Helen Ross Professor, Sch. of Social Service Administration, Univ. of Chicago). Pollack sought to develop "a new financial regimen" after finding himself stuck, as Olen describes early in the book, because of the "combination of the myriad options and uncertainties of money, the economy, and the financial services industry." His advice list of nine basic steps on savings, retirement, investing, and credit cards, among others--contained on one side of a three-by-five index card--quickly went viral, appealing to many similarly "in search of simplicity." While the book provides only slight modifications to the original list (including the addition of "Remember the Index Card" as a tenth step), it cuts successfully through much of the complex material in the marketplace by expanding upon and explaining each step in concise chapters. VERDICT Young people looking for a place to plant their financial feet and readers of books such as Beth Kobliner's Get a Financial Life will find this a fine starting point.--Doug Diesenhaus, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

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