I learned that what Dominguez and Robin propose in Your Money or Your Life amounts to more than managing one’s money or altering one’s lifestyle. They urge nothing less than a reassessment of priorities through the altering of one’s consciousness and the adoption of a new outlook on life. Money, they contend, has become a self-perpetuating prison, a treadmill of misery that forces people to sacrifice things like family, friendships and even health in the interest of keeping up with the cycle of debt. To do so is to accept the proposition that a person’s financial life is, and should be, segregated from the other parts of life. Consequently, everything becomes subservient to this one, overriding aspect of life, namely, the need to make more and more money with less and less return on investment. The individual is sealed inside the “‘nine to five til you’re sixty-five’” ethos, a bleak prospect that this book has encourage me to try and avoid (Dominguez and Robin, 2008).
I have changed the way I look at consumerism, choosing instead to keep spending carefully in proportion to my means. Perhaps most importantly, I have implemented a mindset in which I will not undermine my own ability to work meaningfully toward financial independence. To that end, I have given up the idea of making a monthly budget, which does nothing to help manage the root causes of debt “imprisonment.” Instead, I have taken stock of my life and determined what I need to live comfortably, but not excessively.
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The next steps I plan to implement include plotting and comparing my monthly income and monthly expenses, over time using it to determine where and how I can make meaningful
changes in my lifestyle. One key change I plan to implement is to follow a lifestyle that allows me to spend more time with my family and those who mean the most to me. Maximizing income and minimizing spending may seem a simplistic approach, but when you see it as a change in life perspective, it takes on much greater significance. Doing so opens up exciting new possibilities.
I liked the emphasis on rethinking life in general, rather than trying to manage one’s debt situation from an inside-out, budgetary standpoint. It is especially helpful to reassess one’s job as a source of waste; a waste of time and energy that does not necessarily guarantee financial independence. Employers are adept at “guaranteeing” an employee can get ahead by working long hours and dedicating one’s energy to the company, but I have found this to be a hollow and deceptive outlook. Your Money or Your Life urges examining such promises critically and honestly. I believe one should work to live, not live to work, and this book empowers that credo. One criticism is that the book sometimes tends to be somewhat vague in how one should go about seeking financial freedom. It is important to see it as an overall life change, as Dominguez and Robin urge, but it can seem a distant jump for people who are deeply mired in debt.
Overall, I would strongly recommend this book to friends and family. Most people I know equate hard work and long hours with the path to happiness and the important psychological feeling of personal independence that the book mentions. It is an important book because its aim is to change the reader’s entire view of life, seeking to integrate work, income, spending and debt in a way that stresses a holistic approach, rather than the traditional, self-defeating, work-and-money-first ethic that encourages one to manage debt, rather than eliminate it and achieve true financial and personal independence.
- Dominguez, Joe and Robin, Vicki. Your Money or Your Life. New York: Penguin Books, 2008.
