The Thing About 'The Smart Money Woman'

The Thing About ‘The Smart Money Woman’ – A Review focuses on educating women on money management with a less rigorous approach. The Smart Money Woman was first recommended to me as a good read by an ex in January of 2017.

I resented that he’d recommend a finance book titled ‘The Smart Money Woman’ to me, especially as we used to have a lot of quarrels concerning my finances when we were dating. In my mind, I was like; “How dare he? Is he trying to say I’m not a smart money woman?”

So I shot the messenger and ignored the message. I blocked him on WhatsApp and absolutely refused to read the book even when my bookish buddies recommended it as a good read.

I eventually picked it up last night and I must confess, it is one hell of a good read. Arese Ugwu scored a hit with this one. The book really is well worth all the hype about it.

First off, let me start by saying I love the cover.

Like I already said in the first paragraph, I already had a conscious bias against this book before I even picked it up.

Coupled with the fact that I do not like to read finance books or motivational/inspirational books, I expected to be bored after the first few pages. But after reading the first chapter, I was totally sucked in. Arese really knows her stuff.

The Thing About ‘The Smart Money Woman’ – A Review

If I were to describe the Smart Money Woman in one sentence, it would be ‘Chicklit with financial lessons’.

The book chronicles the story of Zuri, a fictional 28 year old Nigerian female who was living the baby geh life: A senior manager at a real estate firm, earned 600 thousand a month after taxes, living in a fully serviced apartment in Lekki, driving a Mercedes(second hand or not, Mercedes is Mercedes). Zuri was lit!!🔥🔥

And here comes the shocker! (Drumrolls)
Guess what?
Zuri was flat ass broke!! As in, last card, check up broke!

The story begins with her realizing that thanks to her non-chalant attitude towards managing her finances and ensuring her financial security, she is in debt, and her finances are in a mess. The remaining part of the book details the decisions made, the financial principles that brought Zuri out of debt and well.on her way to financial freedom.
It also touches on the lives of her best friends; Tami – the charismatic social butterfly fashion designer
Lara – the oil and gas executive,
Adesuwa – the reserved or should I say Conservative Lawyer (Hell, I think she was pretty dumb in the book. At a point, i literally felt like wringing her neck or slapping her for real) and
Ladun – the fantabulous fulltime housewife (Reminds me of Gabrielle in Desperate Housewives), their personal financial struggles and the decisions they made.
So maybe you’re not a Zuri, maybe you’re Ladun, or Tami or Adesuwa or Lara, whichever character you can relate to, there are lessons to be learnt from this book.

Although the characters are fictional, Arese breaks down all the financial terminologies used at the end of each chapter, and then draws up financial/investment lessons.

The Thing About ‘The Smart Money Woman‘ – A Review

In a section which she tags ‘Smart Money Lessons’, Arese schools her readers and give exercises like a school teacher giving her students assignments.
Step 1: Do this.
Step 2: Do that.

One thing I took away from this book is that you can earn over a million a month and still be broke if you’re not a smart money woman.

You then might ask: Who is a Smart Money Woman?

A Woman who has learnt to make money, keep the money and then grow the money.
Simple as A for Apple, B for Banger, C for Coronavirus. Lol.

I particularly liked the style of writing, and the language. The way she incorporated some slangs and popular lingo, coupled with some native dialects into proper English made the book more relatable and realistic.

Plus, combining fiction with serious financial lessons like she did here was such a brilliant move.

For me, this one is a ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5