If you work at staying in shape, you know that it's a multi-pronged strategy-don't eat too much, exercise, and try to stay motivated to do these things while working against your more gluttonous, slothful nature. Strangely enough, personal finance offers similar challenges. I had never made the connection previously, but I just finished Susan Feitelberg's The Net Worth Workout, and it's a good analogy.

Here's the thing: if you're going to get in shape for real, you can't be all haphazard about it. You might go from full-out fat to only chubby by being random, but you won't get the success you want. Instead, you need a plan that starts you off with baby steps, gives you some rewards along the way, requires you to have some self-discipline, and ultimately turns you into the ultimate fighting machine, or whatever.

Personal finance is the same way. You're not going to have money in the bank and/or get a good return on that money and/or be able to retire if you just vaguely think about maybe one day kinda starting to think about getting started on thinking about your financial condition. Nope. You need a strategy, you need to take baby steps, you need to give yourself some rewards along the way, you need to give self-discipline a shot, and ultimately you won't spend your golden years stuck to your chair because you have no money to do anything more than exist.

Feitelberg uses the physical fitness/personal finance analogy throughout the book, and while it wears thin at times, it provides some cohesion and a nice framework for thinking about getting your financial house in order.

As far as the financial advice itself goes, it's solid stuff although unspectacular, nothing you couldn't find in many other personal Finance Books. Assess your current monetary state of affairs, see where you're spending too much, make some plans, follow the plans, etc. You could get this advice in a million places.

So it's the fitness hook that Feitelberg hopes to grab you with. Of course, if you are a fatty fatty two-by-four who sees joggers and wonders why anyone would run around with no particular destination, the fitness metaphor probably isn't going to help you with your finances. On the other hand, if your body's in shape but your money's not so much, this book could be the perfect way for you to start building some financial muscle.

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