Joe DominguezCritiques

good for starters (or should I say FIREstarters?) only or for those who lost the track or sense of meaning to do FIRE.

I first bought this at a used bookstore years ago and moved it around with me before eventually donating it without ever reading it. I finally for some reason picked it up on a Kindle deal, and I guess now was the time to read it during my current money obsession. I had no idea in all the years I had it on my shelves that it essentially is a book about early retirement, so again it’s still difficult for me to think of that as a possibility in my own life. But I did appreciate how she breaks things down, and I loved that she spent the time to update the original version into modern life; of course now I wonder what some of that version’s advice would be in the pre-internet world. I’m glad I have it digitally now though as I definitely plan to revisit it as I work on things.

I came by the recommendation for “Your Money or Your Life” while reading a blog on sustainable living. The author was so taken with this book’s message that she re-reads it annually. Naturally, anything that good to someone is going to interest me as to why that might be. Once a year is a pretty big reading commitment to any book, so I grabbed the Kindle version and dove in.

The book is a reboot of an apparently popular Financial Independence (FI) course from twenty-five or so years ago that has been updated to be more millennial-relevant and to includes current figures like The Minimalists and Mr. Money Moustache. The coursework involves performing key steps toward changing one’s relationship with money and working toward the crossover point where one no longer needs the 9-5 grind to support their standard of living. The thought is, if you didn’t have to work so much, what might you do with your time? Who might you become? What experiences might you have? And how might that positively impact your life?

I’m in the dreaded earnings phase where I work to meet my financial obligations so the concept of FI is more a wish than a reality, but it's worth thinking about even if I don't think this book is getting me much closer to figuring out how to get there. Overall, I find that this program is likely not something I’m willing to undertake. Step one, for example, is to figure out how much money you’ve made over your ENTIRE lifetime, to which I say, “Why?” And, “No thank you.” If I was twenty years old this might not be so intimidating, but I don’t believe in scrutinizing past behaviors to change current ones. It’s impractical at least, and daunting at worst.

There’s a lot of talk about tacking up paper charts, which really shows the book’s age. Even updated, it’s a little outdated in places. There has to be an app for that.

Another step involves tracking every penny in and out of your proverbial wallet and categorizing your spending—right down to categorizing your subcategories of groceries. Pick up a quarter? Add it to your chart. AGGGHHH. No.

BUT the message of self-improvement, of living within one’s means and even well below your means to reach an early retirement you can enjoy, resonates. A worthy read if not a bit overdone and repetitive. If you can sift past some of the proselytizing, there are some important and worthy questions worth asking that are timeless.

A must-read for anyone who wants to change the way they think about money. One of my favorite personal finance books.

nonfiction/finance
skimmed through (lots of anecdotal stories from other retirees and info I already know). this has been updated to include all of the language from Mr. Money Mustache and all those other trendy millennial retirees.
I was hoping for a more fiscally conservative take on the FIRE movement since I think financial independence in your 70s-100s (senior years) may cost significantly more than it does in your 20s-6os, but Vicki Robin, who is now in her 70s, doesn't really go into the cost of elder care at all, aside from mentioning her plan to join a multigenerational community and 'age in place.' She does mention increasing her 'cache' of savings when possible, to allow for unforeseen future expenses.

If you need convincing that you can retire earlier if you decrease your spending and increase your saving, then this is for you. The line graphs were the best part in showing how mathematically feasible it can be.

Your Money or Your Life is very much a financial independence classic. This focuses more your life than your money – showing the strong thread that money has on your time, your relationships and your options in life. One area that stands out to me is the idea of understanding the value of your time as it relates to money. When you buy lunch out, or even grab a latte, how many minutes/hours of your time are you paying for that experience – and is it worth it? Knowing that you're spending on what brings you the most happiness for the buck is how you drive your expenses down while driving your happiness-per-dollar up.

If you want your hand held very tightly and things explained slowly and methodically to you, this is the book for you. Or perhaps you enjoy the mental masturbation of someone telling you how bad it is to buy stuff, subtly congratulating you for not doing so. You also might enjoy it if you like metaphors that are wildly inaccurate, like this one that tries to make you understand money through something more 'tangible':

"Our life energy is more real in our actual experience than money. You could even say money equals our life energy. So, while money has no intrinsic reality, our life energy does--at least to us. It's tangible, and it's finite."

Maybe I'm stupid, but how is 'life energy' more tangible than money? You can literally touch money; can you do that with life energy?

Obviously, I didn't enjoy the book's tone or pacing, but even the ideas contained within it are dubious. One of the first things that the book tells you to do is to make an inventory of every little thing in your house, only leaving out things that might be worth less than $1. Talk about a high investment of time for questionable value. Irrespective of this example, though, the book has a very low signal-to-noise ratio; you have to read through 5-10 pages of the same idea regurgitated 100 different ways before another one comes along.

I'd recommend Early Retirement Extreme instead, which has a much higher proclivity to present novel ideas. The reason I gave this book more than 1 star is because I think that for someone who isn't as sold on the concept of financial independence, it could be useful to have information be relayed at a more leisurely pace.

This is a fantastic book. It illustrates what is important in life.

I would describe many books as life-changing. Whether or not they are, they felt like it at the time. Few of those end in meaningful day to day changes in my behavior or actions. This book is different. It goes far deeper than what I thought were the foundations of financial planning and one's relationship with money.

I'm in the process of re-reading while following the steps in full depth. As a very clear picture emerges of how much life I have to trade for simple pleasures, the desire to chase these pleasures is dissolving. This book leads to a massive amount of soul-searching. I haven't evaluated my life this much since I exited high school and was thrown head first into a university before knowing what I wanted to do or why to do it.

Perhaps I can make a more coherent review when my head stops spinning. I do know that I'll be recommending this book to anyone open to a shakedown of their life. This is so much more than a book about money. It's a huge upgrade for your life's operating system.

The investment strategy (earn double-digit returns on government bonds) is dated, but the core message is still au currant.½

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.

I found this book to be quite informative, especially for those who are beginning to handle their own finances. I have been tracking my finances for some time and recently watching those expenses so that I can reach financial independence sooner. Still, those book was helpful in rethinking some things and reinforcing others. Yes, it is not the perfect book on financial independence but it is a very good book in assisting one in rethinking how they handle money.

I am a frugal person by nature, but have changed my perspective and approaches to reach my goals sooner. Not everything may work for everyone. Each has to find their own path and figure what works for them, but this book is a good start and should be a recommended read.

I think a good alternate title for this book would be Money Mindfulness or Meditation for Money. It's primarily aimed at changing one's psychological relationship with money and encouraging everyone to become more aware of purpose and meaning in life, with the limited amount of time we have left.

I'd give it 5 stars, if not for some of the writing being a little cliche, with repetition of the importance of "the program." Still, I appreciate the "try it and decide for yourself" attitude throughout most of the book, and I got a few great book recommendations, as well. I'm currently halfway through Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, and I'm riveted.

Philosophy about and practical steps you can make to change the way you relate to money in order to live more deliberately and meaningfully.

Robin, Vicki, and Joe Dominguez. Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence: Revised and Updated for the 21st Century. 2008.

This classic work lays out steps to first become more aware of your financial position and spending habits, and then use that knowledge to work toward financial independence. If you know how much money you are spending on your job (commuting, work lunches, etc.), for instance, you might find it possible to spend LESS.

Not all of the advice struck me as particularly helpful, and the investment section is extremely cautious. However, the authors specify that you can do the steps out of order, which is a little unusual for this kind of book--they so often tell you that you MUST go in order. Calculating your real hourly wage struck me as particularly helpful for making spending decisions.In general, even this update seems out of date; their suggestions for tracking spending and net worth are very pencil-and-paper oriented, for instance. Still, the basic concept that knowledge of your financial reality is empowering (and the ways they suggest gaining that knowledge) is well-conveyed.

If you're looking for an approach to personal finance that's genuinely personal and not the usual banal instruction that treats money management like homework (i.e. necessary, boring and to be completed as quickly as possible in order to move on to better things), then Your Money or Your Life is a refreshing place to start.

Earning and spending are forever interwoven with our actions, and I appreciate this book's healthy attitude toward thinking conscientiously about the function of money in our everyday lives. There's lots of filler here too, mostly in the form of real-life examples and moralizing, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing if you're seeking a narrative context.

The most useful advice for me is the section on assigning values to spending (relevant self-assessment is good practice no matter what your situation), but this presumes a good handle on the basics of budgeting, which is fundamentally the most important. The section on investing seems dated and carelessly limiting even though I understand the author's intention to want to simplify the process. The goal should be to pursue the smartest option, and that doesn't always mean the simplest.

Overall, a helpful book that I found less helpful with each successive re-read.½

Den här boken är en klassiker vad gäller privat ekonomi. Målet med boken sägs vara att läsaren skall bli FI - financially intelligent. Genom att läsa den här boken och arbeta igenom uppgifterna är tanken att man ska skapa sig ett liv utifrån andra värden än att bara leva för att arbeta. Redan i prologen ställer författarna en rad svåra/tänkvärda frågor för att få läsaren att ifrågasätta sitt förhållande till pengar.

Rather than offer a complete review, I will offer a few general thoughts and I will focus on criticizing one aspect of one of the first steps: the calculation of the real hourly wage.
First, I should mention that I opted to read this cover-to-cover with the intention of doing the exercises afterwards, rather than doing the exercises as I went.
Overall, I really liked this book and found it gave real hope for designing a life of one's choosing rather than having to fit into the mold of paid employment. I especially like the anecdotes about various individuals sprinkled throughout the book. I also really liked some of the tips, like to track your expenses, you just adopt a 2-step process: 1. start doing it; 2. keep doing it (ha ha!).
As for my criticism of the "real hourly wage" process, it's not that I object to it on principle. I actually think it's rather a good idea. And while I also don't object to the instruction to be honest about it, what I do object to is the one-sided approach to honesty that is proposed. For example, while the authors suggest that if you spend extra time in line at coffee shops during breaks, you add that to the time you spend on work. That makes sense, as long as you actually are spending extra time on it, in addition to your scheduled time at work, as opposed to taking longer breaks that just get subsumed into your workday. So the authors assume if you work an 8-hr day, you start with 8-hrs and then add to that all the extra time and money you spend on your job, like commuting and even decompressing from work, whether it be with a cocktail after every work day or with a two-week vacation to a sun destination in the winter. But what about the amount of time you spend at work not working (i.e. taking breaks, surfing the internet, talking to your spouse, talking to your kid's child-care provider, socializing by the water cooler, etc.)? The authors don't postulate that you might actually need to subtract some time from the initial 8-hr work day you start from. And are those cocktails and vacations really expenses you would not incur (and would not want to incur) if you didn't have that job? Or do you enjoy the cocktails and want to get away from a cold climate, regardless of your job? As for calculating your wage, the authors do not remind readers of all the possible benefits readers might be able to throw in as part of the real earnings related to their work, in addition to actual wage (pension, employers' contributions to retirement plans, use of a company car, stock options, discount on public transportation, etc.). All to say, the way it's written is very one-sided and entices readers to under-estimate their "real hourly wage" by omitting economic benefits linked to jobs and by exaggerating expenses linked to their jobs. If readers simply follow the instruction to be totally honest, this may have no impact but it's difficult not to be influenced by the suggestions made by the author with regard to all possible job costs, like "costuming" for work, decompressing, unwinding and vacationing.

“Your Money or Your Life” was one of the first books in the new wave of personal finance books and is significantly more concerned with the “personal” than the “finance”. The point of personal finance, according to authors Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, is not to accumulate wealth for the sake of accumulating wealth, but rather to accumulate wealth in order to exchange it for time. Dominguez (whose financial philosophy is at the core of the book) has a strongly anti-consumerist message, arguing that, in economic terms, there is a point at which collecting stuff gives decreasing marginal benefit. The purpose of money, according to Dominguez, is not to collect stuff, but to, at some point, exchange your money for freedom, freeing you from your job and your obligations in order to live your life however you please.

The financial principles of “Your Money or Your Life” are relatively simple. Dominguez is not a budgeter. Rather, he emphasizes tracking earnings and spending and calculating how much of your life is spent earning money and how much of your life is spent on everything you buy. This is the key to the book. Once you begin seeing your purchases in terms of the amount of life energy you’ve spent acquiring the money to make those purchases, your spending habits are bound to change.

There are a lot of subjects covered here and it would be impossible to do justice to them all, but there are two that seem particularly worthy of discussion. First, there is a list of 101 frugality tips which focus on saving both time and money. Some are obvious (don’t bounce checks), some not so obvious (eat a proper diet and get proper exercise), and none are as banal as the ultra-frugal tips you usually see today (make sure your tires are inflated and use less laundry detergent). It is a list worth perusing mostly because the tips are meant to save time as well as money.

The one aspect of real criticism comes simply from the datedness of the book, first published in 1992. Dominguez’s only means of investment is long-term US treasuries which, twenty years ago were averaging a better than seven percent return and were completely risk-free investments. In 2010, US treasuries are only yielding three to four percent and are not adequate investment vehicles as their yield is unlikely to greatly outpace inflation. This one criticism aside, “Your Money or Your Life” is a fantastic book and is worth reading if only for its unique take on the way earning and spending money affects our lives.½

Really didn't like this book. A very innocent look at what money does to us and some simple ideas to modify your life to change that. I found the ideas to be way to basic and also i can't picture anyone following the steps

Many books about money implicitly assume that money is everything, but this book downplays money, buying and consuming, thoughtfully placing these things in a larger life context. The practical advice for saving and spending is excellent. Their method of forcing you to confront the individual life choices you are making by means of day-to-day spending decisions will likely be an eye-opener.

Some very solid personal finance advice, despite being 15 years old. I particularly liked the idea of calculating your actual hourly wage -- after determining how much of your time and money goes to work-related things. And the observation that although most people realize there is no Prince Charming out there to provide meaning and worth to their personal lives, they still think there is a Job Charming. The assorted charts and graphs would be helpful to most people, although I wasn't inspired to do the initial steps of calculating everything I've ever earned and all my current assets. The book does go completely off the rails when it gets into volunteerism. Show up whenever you feel like it and only do the parts of the work that you want to -- it doesn't (and can't) work that way at all. Also, I certainly agree with not pampering your kids, so it was bizarre after all the other frugal advice to see him list private tutors, summer camps, and a teen's first car under standard necessities.

Something made me pick up this book, maybe it was because a frugal friend asked how much was my monthly housing cost, I gave her what I thought was a pretty low number, esp for the expensive city I lived in. She tallied up the total over 20 years and it was a huge sum. I shrugged it off, said there was no way to get around spending that much, as long as we lived in the city, or was there? The book breaks down a lot of assumptions and lies we tell ourselves about how much we need to spend, and how much we need to make to have money to spend, and of course we needed a job to sustain all this, even if the job itself created little fulfillment for us and made us spend more money simply to "decompress" and "get away" from the stress. Amazon has some detailed and thorough reviews from other enlightened readers, check them out and get the book -- from the library.

For those who are struggling to save or just get a better understanding of how to handle money, YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE may seem like more than you need to know.

The book was actually written with debt-saddled people in mind--seriously debt-saddled, that is. The nine-step program within it (developed by the late Joe Dominguez) provides what I would describe as a holistic approach to financial planning.

Dominguez and Vicki Robin co-authored this book (which has just been updated with an assist from Monique Tilford) based on the program originally offered in seminars. Without going through all the nine steps (three fewer than twelve!), I think the message essentially boils down to this: your money has value, but it represents more than the value placed on it by the marketplace. When you consider what you make at your job, then subtract out how much it costs to do your job (your commute, dry cleaning, lunch, etc.), you may end up with net pay of much less than your official salary. Then add in the fact that you're not only expending money to keep a job, you're also expending time. Therefore, the money you're making not only represents a net value of earnings minus job-related costs--it also represents the life you've sacrificed to maintain that job.

Once you understand that money actually represents time in your life, you can start to view spending differently. You find yourself asking, "Is this sweater (or car or vacation) really worth the two hours (or four hours or forty hours) it's costing my life?"

The entire review can be accessed at http://thebookgrrl.blogspot.com/2009/03/your-money-or-your-life-title-says-it.ht...

I will wait to rate this book until after I've taken the time to do some of the steps to see how well they work for me and my family. The book takes a very interesting approach to the subject of managing money and aligning it to your life goals and values. I am going to try to implement steps 1-8 in earnest (I agree with previous reviewers that the steps on investing are too conservative and more a matter of personal choice).

I found the "preachiness" of the book very irritating. I am all in favor of examining how to live a more value-driven life, but the authors spend too much time proselytizing THEIR values and THEIR definition of how to live a financially independent life. I found myself skimming whole sections that had nothing to do with the steps and everything to do with their personal views. I should note, too, that I am a committed environmentalist, so if I found it went overboard, I can only imagine how off-putting it would be to someone less focused on those issues.

In spite of the preachy tone, I am glad I read the book and will edit my review after I am able to assess the effectiveness of the steps.