Against a drumbeat of hopelessness about too much student debt and too few jobs requiring college degrees, Smart Is the New Rich: Money Guide for Millennials is a realistic and optimistic road map for millennials to save more, navigate their careers, invest in the stock market, and pay their student loans all at the same time.

Time is a four-letter word of the very best kind for millennials. It is the single most important driver of wealth, and young people have it in spades. That’s why the time is now for millennials to address their financial health and start planning their wealth. Just as you’d buy a guidebook before a trip through Central America or Europe, this is a guidebook for young people travelling for the first time in the money world: at work, with friends and significant others, negotiating a raise, renting an apartment or saving to buy a house, and, of course…retirement. Credit, debt, savings, investment, taxes, mortgages – this book is an all-in-one explanation of these topics and more, with checklists and other tools to make the plan clear and easy.

Author Christine Romans is a CNN journalist who has been reporting on the events that have shaped the millennial generation, including the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the financial crisis of 2008, President Barack Obama’s election and reelection, and the wave of protests from Occupy Wall Street to the Arab Spring to #JeSuisCharlie. These events have shaped the millennial generation – a generation that values experiences over materialism and wants more out of their jobs and money than the credit-fueled mirage that came before them.