I recently got my hands on a copy of this old classic, and read it in detail, expecting a nice refresher course. Absolutely none of it was even remotely familiar. Most of it aligned perfectly with my own philosophy, but surprisingly, not all of it. Many things have changed in the 20 years since that book was written (including the birth of the Internet, the death of Interest rates, and great changes in consumer products and housing). And on top of that, the authors had different tastes in lifestyle and investment, allowing us to come up with the same basic idea from different directions.
So I came out of it more convinced than ever that we’re on to something great here, and with a few new tricks scooped from authors Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. Today I’d like to share them with you, in case you too are unfamiliar with the book.
Thus, I figured that not everyone has read the book in detail, and many of us could benefit from a quick look at the Nine Step Program it presents, contrasting it where appropriate to what we’ve been learning:
Step 1: Make Peace with your Past
Add up all the money you’ve earned in your life, then add up your net worth today. How much have you managed to hold onto? How much did you spend? For most people, this yields an unpleasant surprise.. but it’s okay, for there is no sense beating yourself up over past mistakes.
Step 2: Figure out your Real Earnings and Spending
The idea here is that your real hourly wage is much lower than you think. You can figure it out as follows, and I’ll even put in some plausible figures for a person with a $50,000 annual salary:
Take your total monthly income after federal and state taxes: ($3500)
Then subtract all work-related expenses (commuting, clothes, restaurant lunches, housekeepers, daycare,de-stressing activities etc) ($1500)
Divide this by your total work time (including commuting, dressing up, clothes cleaning, unwinding time, etc.) (248 hours)
The net result is that you take home a lot less than you think, and spend a lot more time doing it. In the example above, the $50k earner ends up bringing home only $8.06 for each hour spent in activities directly related to the job. Thus, when you decide to buy yourself an 8 dollar treat at Starbucks or at the pub, you’ve really just burned off an entire hour of “life energy” which you’ll never get back – you have to add that hour to the end of your work career to achieve financial independence.
Tracking your spending is the easy part – the book recommends you use a notebook to handle everything, whereas I just do all of my spending by credit card, allowing it to be tracked automatically. The key, however, is you should know exactly what you buy each day, and why you decide to buy it. No more unconscious impulse shopping.
Step 3: Create Monthly Reports for Yourself
Keep a table of all income and all spending for each month, break it into categories, and convert the figures into “hours of life energy spent”. Restaurant meals: 20 hours., etc. I find that the “Mint” financial tool does an acceptable job of this for me, but the book recommends you do it in more detail.
Step 4: Three Questions that will Supposedly Transform your Life:
For each of the categories above, ask yourself:
- Did I receive fulfillment in proportion to the hours of life energy spent?
- Is this expenditure in alignment with my goals and life purpose?
- How might this expenditure change if I didn’t have to work for a living? (more, less, same)
Step 5: Keep a prominent (i.e. right on your kitchen wall) graph of income and expenses
You keep doing this for multiple months which will grow into multiple years. The authors report that most people start to see their income grow even as their expenses shrink, since they are now learning to spend more consciously. Although I don’t have anything on my kitchen wall, we do maintain a history of spreadsheet versions and graphs of savings that dates back several years. But if you are a beginner who still wrangles with optional luxury purchases while still in debt, the kitchen wall is a good idea.
Step 6: Learn to Value your Life Energy by Minimizing Spending
This is the meat of anyone’s financial independence – learning to spend your money efficiently on the things you do get true fulfillment from, and not spend it all on the things you don’t.
Step 7: Maximize your Earnings
Adopt a positive attitude about your work and appreciate the earnings as a tool which gets you to financial independence.. rather than feeling like a victim of outside forces like the economy or a recession. Seek to earn more, and don’t be limited to work only in your current field – after all, you’ll be retiring soon anyway, meaning every activity will soon be open to you whether paid or unpaid.
Step 8: Watch for the Crossover Point
This is when your passive income from investments equals your expenses. When you reach that point – DingDing! – you are Financially Independent.
Step 9: Managing your Money
Become knowledgeable and invest your capital in such a way as to provide an absolutely safe income sufficient to meet your basic needs for life.
Your Money or Your Life is a wise book, and the authors were clearly motivated by what they saw was a pointless death march of society. Workworkwork, Buybuybuy, TrashDestroyWaste, Die. Even 20 years ago, when the first clunky SUVs were coming to market and trailblazing a path to widespread stupidity, this pattern was already obvious. And Joe and Vicki were wise to it, trying to guide society away from its wasteful ways and vividly aware that our consumption is an ongoing trainwreck of environmental destruction.