Geneen Roth is known for her books about food; mainly about how to stop compulsive eating. She holds workshops and retreats about eating habits and food, but turns her attention to money after she loses her life savings in the Bernie Madoff scandal. She discovers that her behaviors behind the way she handles money are similar to how she used to behave with food. This is quite a revelation for her.

She writes, “Do we really have to keep repeating the same patterns over and over?
Is money so impossible to understand?” (p.168)

In this book, Roth explores her relationship with money. She determines that the way her mother and father treated money as she was growing up has much to with the way she treats money. Money is a mysterious thing to her; it is as if she acknowledges that she has plenty of money that she is not the wholesome and spiritual person she wants to be. So she ignores money. She shoves it into the account that Madoff has control over, and then loses it all.

To be honest, as I was reading this book I felt like Roth comes from a very different place than I do. She writes about her grandfather “who had his silk underwear embroidered with his initials at Sulka, despite the fact that they were barely scraping by.” (p. 35) This is a far cry from my own modest upbringing. I don’t even know what Sulka is, but I assume it was an upscale store.

Some of Roth’s revelations about money are valuable lessons, and we can all learn to be more aware of where our money goes and how to pay attention to our spending habits.

Join the Lost and Found Discussion at BlogHer Book Club! Disclosure: I was compensated for this BlogHer Book Club review but all opinions expressed are my own.