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Whistle Stopper - Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence
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List Price: $15.00
Our Price: $5.99
Your Save: $ 9.01 ( 60% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.02401
EAN: 9780140286786
ISBN: 0140286780
Label: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: 1999-09-01
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Studio: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Spoke Truth to a Disgruntled Compulsive Shopper. . .
Comment: Like many people, I've spent far too much of my life energy in the pursuit of an abundance (over-abundance) of material things in an effort to try to make myself "happy," only to very slowly wake up to the fact that somehow I wasn't fulfilled, even with an overflowing closet of rarely worn (but very stylish!) clothes, books I intended to read "someday," more DVDs than I could watch in a month, etc. This book is not the only source of insight that's helped me to finally peer through the charade that "more is better" (I credit Yoga mainly for that, and also Buddhist philosophy) but it is a one-stop compendium of much of the enlightenment that I needed. It goes beyond practical tips and information about understanding money, by integrating spiritual and psychological concepts (inlcluding why advertising works) to help you to see why we are all driven to pursue more all the time, without appreciating that we don't have time to enjoy all the things we've already stockpiled, or the tremendous impact all this "consuming" has on the finite resources of our precious planet.
I give it four stars only because, as others have mentioned, the planning and investment advice is now a bit outdated (for example, the authors don't seem to have trusted computer based account management like Quicken). And while I'm sure it would be tremendously informative and reinforcing, I'm not sure it's really necessary to plot income, expenses, etc. on a huge wall chart or do the other tedious recording of every penny spent that the book reccomends. That's just a bit too far toward the other extreme (from spending money completely unconsciously, to focusing too much on money) for my tastes.
Of course, no book, however insightful, will change your relationship to money overnight or magically evaporate the years of conditioning as instinctive shoppers and consumers that we've all been subjected to. As the book acknowledges, that takes time and continually renewing your commitment to your own values. But, again, the book is full of real wisdom and courage to find out what you really want and then bring your actions in line with that (put your money where your mouth is, so to speak).
I highly recommend it if you really want to open your eyes to what's wrong with our consumer culture and find the means within your own life to redefine yourself out of it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Principles... Compromised by Off-topic Fluff
Comment: "Your Money..." has some excellent concepts. The buying hook for the book is the approach of calculating your REAL pay per hour and the emphasis on how you are trading your life for money. This portion of the book is valuable and important to anyone with personal finance responsibilities. However, the book has a glut of pseudo-environmental preaching that has little to do with personal finance and a lot to do with a political or lifestyle agenda. The writing comes across as a loosely written hippy lifestyle book cobbled together with a brilliant personal finance book. The life-for-money concept is dramatically valuable, but other references are more consistently valuable and entertaining. Try the Total Money Makeover by Ramsey, The Millionaire Next Door, or The Simple Dollar blog for more focused and entertaining material.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great eye-opener
Comment: I first bought the original book in 1998 and quickly put it on my shelf to sit when I discovered how much work you actually had to do. It was very tedious to add up all of my assets and expenses and follow all of the exercises. I did eventually get through all of the work and I was blown away with what I discovered. I literally had thousands of dollars in assets sitting in my home, most of which I used very little. When I think about all the hours of my life I had to spent making the money to purchase those things, my buying habits changed dramatically. Great addition to your frugal library.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but ends up in the wrong place
Comment: I read this book on the recommendation of my insurance company, USAA, which also offers a series of financial products. The thesis of this book is that you should live well below your means and save the difference. So far, so good. It has lots of ideas that are well worth trying--you'll save money and have the same lifestyle as you do now. But then its advice is to use your savings to purchase 30-year Treasury Bonds and work toward being able to live off the interest. T-Bonds right now are earning less than 4%. That means if you held $1M of T-bonds, you'd get interest of less than $40K/year, and it wouldn't be protected from inflation, either. The stock market has historically provided far greater returns, even with a conservative investment program. So, yes, do the things the book suggests to save your money. But get competent financial advice on what to do with the savings! Yes, T-Bills are safe--the safest investment around--but you pay for that safety in much lower total returns.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Life Changing
Comment: If a book has such a profound impact on me as to change my life for the better, it gets 5 stars. This is such a book.
I read this book at the recommendation of a friend back in 1993. At the time I was going through a divorce, had just started a new job and had taken a big pay cut to get it. I was 40 years old and, although I had a house and a whole bunch of stuff, my life was empty and all the debt I had completely offset the value of my assets, leaving me with a net worth of zero.
Enter YMOYL. After reading the first page I knew I was going to connect with this book. It made such perfect sense to me, because I'd always hated the notion of working a 9 to 5 job for 40 or 45 years before being able to be truly free. This book showed me how to free myself from wage slavery in much less time. I hung on every page, and contrary to what some other reviewers have said, I did not find it a bit too long. I needed the detail it provided, as well as the examples it presented. It was all so refreshing to me.
And although some have found it to be preachy, I found it to be exactly opposite of that. The step regarding evaluating purchases via your own internal life energy scale made so much sense to me. It doesn't say, for example, "Don't buy a new car because it isn't worth it." It says, consider the cost of your life energy to get the new car and decide if it's worth it to you. The answer may be yes, or it may be no, but it's your own personal choice that you've made in a very deliberate and methodical fashion. Now, how can that be preachy?
Someone else said all the advice in this book is just common sense. If that is true, then based on the statistics in the U.S. for consumer debt, personal savings rates, as well as the current sub-prime mortgage crisis, common sense isn't very common. You might just as easily say it is common sense where stocks are concerned to buy low and sell high. No need for all these investment advice books to elaborate further on the subject.
The investment advice presented in this book made sense when it was written. It doesn't now, in my opinion, and it didn't when I read it, so I did not invest in bonds. I also question the notion that inflation can be ignored if you simply adjust your lifestyle. That may work in some extreme examples, but I knew it wouldn't work for me. Regardless, discounting the value of this book based on those two criticisms would be a huge mistake.
I can't overstate the effect this book has had on my life. In the fifteen years since reading it, I've gone from a net worth of zero, to never having to work again if I don't choose to. I am 100% free of wage slavery and am no longer "making a dying." I attribute that 100% to having read this book.
It is not a fairy tale and it is not impossible. I am living proof of that. And I have never been happier. The only regret I have is not having had the opportunity to read it twenty years earlier.
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Editorial Reviews:
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There's a big difference between "making a living" and making a life. Do you spend more than you earn? Does making a living feel more like making a dying? Do you dislike your job but can't afford to leave it? Is money fragmenting your time, your relationships with family and friends? If so, Your Money or Your Life is for you. From this inspiring book, learn how to - get out of debt and develop savings
- reorder material priorities and live well for less
- resolve inner conflicts between values and lifestyles
- convert problems into opportunities to learn new skills
- attain a wholeness of livelihood and lifestyle
- save the planet while saving money
- and much more
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