About D.L. King

D.L. King writes plain-English personal finance for people who do not have a finance background, a spare hour, or a spreadsheet habit. The Everyday Money Upgrade is a collection of 100 small, specific money moves — each one short enough to finish in an afternoon and concrete enough to measure.

Why these books exist

Most money advice fails for a boring reason: it assumes time and slack that ordinary people do not have. Tell someone stretched thin to build a 30-category budget and track it monthly, and they will quit in week two — not because they lack discipline, but because the advice was never designed for their life.

So these hacks are built the other way around. Each one is small enough to start today, specific enough that you know when it is done, and honest about what it actually returns. Some save a few dollars a month. Some save a few hundred a year. None of them require you to become a different person first.

How the writing works

Every hack names the tool it needs, the steps in order, and a realistic savings range rather than a best case. Where a tool is genuinely optional, the book says so. Where a hack only pays off for certain people, the book says that too — a hack that saves you nothing is worse than no hack at all, because it costs you the trust you needed for the next one.

Other books

Alongside The Everyday Money Upgrade, D.L. King is also the author of The Credit Repair Protocol, on rebuilding a credit score and disputing report errors, and The Smart Driver's Paycheck, on the driving habits that quietly return money every year.

Get in touch

Questions, corrections, and "this worked for me" notes are all welcome — the contact page is the fastest route.

Start with the 5 Quick Wins

Five hacks you can run this week, in one short PDF. Free.