LIVING WELL, SPENDING LESS is a well-meaning guide to living beyond the lackluster, complacent lifestyle so many find themselves living in today. Author, Ruth Soukup, presents the texts narrative in a modest, easy-to-follow perspective; this book does not seek to lecturing, but rather presents practical, hard knocks testimony on how to live the type of existence the author refers to as "what the Bible has taught me about the Good Life."

This book does not approach budgeting as a smoke and veils symphony, rags-to-riches type self-help book, which is so often written by many of the authors contemporaries. This book stems from the author's experience as a young girl. Soukup, like so many newlyweds, became enamored with building a dream; a dream home, dream vehicle, dream wardrobe, and ultimately a dream lifestyle. As time went on, this dream became a nightmare, as all of these trappings began to weight heavily on all aspects of her young life.

Over time, Soukup discovered that a life of rustic simplicity, mixed with a few well placed, affordable bells and whistles, translated into both a greater sense of happiness, but also a steadfast, maintainable frame of mind. The author describes this situation as, "The love of things can so easily consume us. The pursuit of it all--more toys, cuter clothes, a prettier house, a nicer car, a newer computer, a fancier phone--makes us forget all the things that actually matter. Not until I observed firsthand the real and immediate changes in my kids after getting rid of their toys did I truly begin to understand. My lesson to them was really their lesson to me: less stuff equals more joy."

As a book reviewer for several online publications, a blogger, and as work from home professional, I am a seasoned reader in the finance sector, which is chock full of books by supposed "experts" professing to have the answer to help others achieve a happier, more fulfilled, less chaotic, joyous, in whatever vision of their higher power sort of life, one can have. While this homespun charm has its place in many of the authors contemporaries, the suggestions in the text are are far from complicated, and actually achieve the desired result of helping the reader create a more well rounded home. This is why I found Ruth Soukup's book, Living Well, Spending Less: 12 Secrets of the Good Life, so surprising and refreshing. Soukup's writing style is straightforward, sincere, and useful.

This book is less advice, and more conversational in nature. Soukup doesn't doesn't pretend to have all the answers, doesn't exclaim to not be an impoverished blogger, or social media messiah, but instead humbly reveals many of her own challenges and failings, in a semi-charmed, cheeky manner that will have the reader grinning from ear to ear. One issue with the text, the author mentions minimizing, and getting rid of the items that clutter our lives. While this may just be a pet peeve of my own, but I find that one can only truly seek inner peace when we are able to not just trash our pains, but to recycle, upcycle, and donate out excesses, in an attempt to truly learn from and more beyond our modern lifestyles hoarding, excessive tendencies.
One word to describe this book is universal.

The text outlines financial, spiritual, and family struggles so many of us face. As you read Soukup's words, you may feel you are one tool closer, one step sooner to realizing the "good life" in an affordable, obtainable, manageable means for yourself.

This book is a keeper!