Your Money or Your Life

One of the best books I've ever read on finances and living is called Your Money or Your Life

I only recently read it, salivating with the turn at every page, screaming in my head oh my god this is like the book on money I would like to write.

It's the best of all worlds: it's about taking control of your life, not being a mindless consumer, and making a plan to have an automatic income that meets your expenses so that you no longer have to work for a living, unless you want to.

These three ideas basically sum up all my goals related to money and what I personally mean by the term financial independence - it's not about a big-ass house and a sports car, it's about severing the tie between work and survival and making life what you want it. What makes that possible? Not having to spend 40+ hours a week in an office to survive!

The book is broken down into 9 specific steps on the path to Financial Independence.

These 9 steps are fun to do, and can be quite an eye-opener.

You can view a great summary of the book, for free, including all the steps, at this website:

Your Money or Your Life: Detailed Summary


I am personally doing all the steps, and I will document some of this online on this blog.

Since May 1st, I started tracking ALL my expenses, which is actually fun once you get in the habit of it!

Now that the month has passed, I was able to sit down and add up everything into little categories, and then, rate it based on the whole + / - / zero scale described in the book. (I still need to calculate the "life energy" consumed for each category though.)

Starting to do this, I can see how the steps really do have a profound effect on peoples relationship to money. It makes all our purchased to money seem so much more relevant to what we do 40 hours a week at our jobs.

I've also got the Expenses/Income/Capital chart up on my closet door (hand made too - took me forever!). I'm all psyched up to map out June's numbers so I can connect the dots from May to June... heh.. :)

The line at the bottom, the "how much money my capital (savings) will make invested in a bond at current rates" is a whopping $7 or $8 dollars.

Now just to multiple that by a 1,000 and I'll be in pretty good shape.

Anyhow, this is the first post of many that will document my steps in the Your Money or Your Life book.

I would love to hear of any elses experiences with this book, and especially so if you are doing the steps described - we can support each other. Get in touch or leave a comment.