07.04.14 Book Review: Money or Your Life

I recently re-read Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez.

My husband and I read it in the mid 90’s and it changed the trajectory of our lives. Sometimes it is easy to get sucked into buying the newest, best, and biggest, but for the most part we aim to live frugally, We don’t need a big fancy house. We don’t need new cars. We don’t need to be a dual income household. We don’t want consumer debt. We mainstreamed our kids even though private school was tempting. We can eat at home, make our own veggie broth, and cancel the newspaper subscription every six months to get a better deal. We do spend money, sometimes lavishly, but we spend it on the things we get the most enjoyment out of - travel, adventures, coffee dates, technology.

So it’s becoming more and more apparent to me that there are at least five addictions that are really bad for us, but they are socially acceptable, and even encouraged:

• High fat diet
• High sugar diet
• Coffee (GUILTY!)
• Purchasing more than we could even use or need
• Living beyond our means

The themes of the book is that we can step away from the thought that more is better, that we don’t have to keep up with the Jones’, and we can be content with enough. We have the freedom to choose a simpler lifestyle. The book encourages us to align our spending to our values, get involved with community and spirituality to counteract materialism, and to pay attention to our joy to stuff ratio; some spending gives us more joy than other, and that is different for all of us.

What I plan to change or do after re-reading this book:

• Focus on buying higher quality items that are more durable. We did this early in our marriage but they are getting harder to find. Environmentally and overall cost, quality is worth it.
• Make a simple wall chart graphing budget and actual spending each month, as a frequent visual reminder.
• Try to get my teens to read this book.