Review – Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez, Vicki Robin (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Non-Fiction/Self-Help
Length:368 pages
Publisher: Penguin Books
Release Date: December 10, 2008
ISBN-13: 978-0143115762
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 4/5 stars
“For more than twenty-five years, Your Money or Your Life has been considered the go-to book for taking back your life by changing your relationship with money. Hundreds of thousands of people have followed this nine-step program, learning to live more deliberately and meaningfully with Vicki Robin’s guidance. This fully revised and updated edition with a foreword by “the Frugal Guru” (New Yorker) Mr. Money Mustache is the ultimate makeover of this bestselling classic, ensuring that its time-tested wisdom applies to people of all ages and covers modern topics like investing in index funds, managing revenue streams like side hustles and freelancing, tracking your finances online, and having difficult conversations about money.
Whether you’re just beginning your financial life or heading towards retirement, this book will show you how to:
• Get out of debt and develop savings
• Save money through mindfulness and good habits, rather than strict budgeting
• Declutter your life and live well for less
• Invest your savings and begin creating wealth
• Save the planet while saving money
• …and so much more!”
This was recommended as a good “money lifestyle” read on one of the YouTube channels I follow (The Financial Diet). It feels a bit dated at times but overall did offer up some interesting financial food for thought.
The main premise of the book is the idea of looking at money that you spend as life energy. Any time you work to make money is part of your life energy you are giving to that process. As you purchase things in your life you should be cognizant of this.
The book presents a ten step process for being FI (financially independent). This process involves doing a lot of things that I already do as part of my finances, but might be eye opening to those who like to turn a blind eye or ignore their finances. It involves things like calculating your net worth and figuring how much dollars->life energy you are actually spending on day to day items.
I really like this idea and it did make me reconsider the way I spend money. I was able to look at our personal finances more closely and target trouble areas (like the amount we spend on eating out). I also really enjoyed some of the stats and historical discussion about American life and economy and the innate problems American society has.
I did think their final step of being able to live off of interest from bonds to become completely FI was a bit unrealistic. The book is updated to mention that in more current times it may be more practical to diversify that strategy. It is also mentioned that any investing comes with risk and adopting this style of life can be risky.
In the end I think I pulled enough useful information from this book to impact my life and finances in a positive way. Will I adopt this type of lifestyle completely? Probably not, I will take a more moderate approach and modify trouble areas of my life.
Overall I would definitely recommend to those who are interested in becoming financially independent and really want to take a look at how money affects their lives. This is also a good book for those who want to get a head start on ridding themselves of debt and planning a solid retirement.
