Your Money or Your Life

[duncan_m]

I read a great book last week, "Your Money, or your Life" by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. You can find it at Amazon.

It's a book, funnily enough, about Money. But interestingly it contained a very neat dovetailing of Money to another strong theme in my life, Simplicity. It's the first book that I've read thats taken the "enough" approach to earning money and owning possessions , its not about budgeting or investing, or earning more. Its about numerically and emotionally demonstrating the insanity of what we've become. As Ellen Goodman so eloquently put it:

"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to the job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car, and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it."
​

The book takes you through 5-6 exercises, the most interesting of which is the calculation of what you're REALLY earning per-hour at work once all of the expenses associated with working have been factored in. This per-hour figure is then used to determine what something is REALLY costing you in "Life Hours". Rather than thinking "hmm, new swanky mobile phone, only $600.. OK" the thought might become "hmm new mobile phone, a massive 60hrs of working, 60hrs when I could be doing things that I want to do.. I think my old phone will last another year"



The book really is well worth a read, I rate it up there with The Richest Man in Babylon..

 

[yadreamin]

duncan_m
Thanks for that dunc
I often look at products this way. time at earning = cost of product.
do you think it would be good for a 21 year old to read.
cheers yadreamin

 

[Scout]

I hope a lot of people read this book and take it to heart. For me life is too precious to spend time on accumulating "wealth" which has no enduring value. Many things in life need to be assessed with questions like: why am I doing this, what is it costing me in terms of my quality and enjoyment of life; when I am at death's door, will I say to myself: gee, I'm really glad I got that mobile phone, or that Porsche etc? Or will I say, I am really happy that I went out into the bush to discover its amazing beauty, or went out of my way to be with a friend who was going through tough times, or enjoyed the company of friends and family etc?

Alas, we live in a society where there are squillions of opportunities for spending money and only very few to make money, and so our society is one that encourages spending and loves the shopaholic. Spend and spend some more until you have lost all including your life which is priceless.

It amazes me however, that there are very few people that I have met who actually think about their actions and why they are going down one path and not another. We question almost nothing in life, and the converse of that is that we go with the flow of the majority. Unfortunately, the majority does not have the wisdom to be leaders.

I'll look for that book in my library. Thanks for the tip

 

[WillG]

David Koch has a book with exactly the same title.

I will get my hands on a copy. Sounds like a great read.

Cheers

 

[the_captain]

Kochie

If I cast my mind back Your money AND your life was a very kitchy tv magazine style program staring Big Dave and his Family...........it went through issues like buying mobile phones for teenages, saving and investing.........all in a family friendly format.

Got axed quite some time ago.

The book does look interesting though. My work would not cost me much in expenses as work pays for everything......transport.......accom........even my food........however this is at the opportunity cost of spending time with my loved ones........I have something to think about