Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence: Fully Revised and Updated for 2018

Just finished this book. Have already recommended it to three or four friends. I don’t frequently tell my wife she needs to read something, but this book has so many thought-provoking ideas and questions, and such potential to shape our future financial life that I felt it was was critical reading. I recommend reading through quickly, then deciding how much detail to go into on some of the “assignments.” If you want the short short version, see the appendix, but i gained a lot through the extended, deliberate dive into each topic, the illustrations of real world people, and the time spent with my mind wandering and weaving Vicki’s recommendations into my own mental schema. Some of it is a bit overboard in my opinion—I personally see little value in tracking down old W2’s, for instance. But I did find spending 30 minutes or so estimating what I made each year of my life revealing in multiple ways. The process of methodically accounting for all you income and expenses can require a level of fastidiousness that I don’t have. Fortunately in this tech age online tools can help. I use Mint and love it. I began using Mint about a year ago, so some of the categorization tasks were already done for me. It has its quirks, but if you work past them it is a powerful, free budget analysis tool that pairs nicely with this book. The book left me invigorated, and inspired to live more simply so that I can spend more of my life “ working for a living instead of working for a dying,” financially independent, and content with “enough.”

This book has truly change my views about money and I now better quipped to be a good steward of my wealth. Thank you. P.S. I learned about book from another book, Preparing to Manage Millions. Based on what they had highlighted, I break my reading of Preparing to Manage Millions to reading and completing this book. Thanks again for these wise ideas and instructions. I was thoroughly enlightened.

This is one of the top five classic books in the world of life planning and finance. Hard to believe but if you adhere to the basic principles within this book, you can reach financial freedom with peace of mind. I only wish that I had seen a book such as this when I was in my 20's. One of the key points is investing monthly in worry free Treasury Bonds. I did this by investing a third of our retirement funds in I Bonds. Now they have doubled in value earning a cool 5-6% a year after 12 years. No fuss, no worry, no concerns about inflation. It's the old principle of the hare or the turtle. After 40 years I finally got it...the turtle wins out with the magic of compounding. If you just learn those two principles...compounding and Treasury Bonds and start as early as possible, you will be financially free with no risks. Yes. You can try the stock market. I did. Lost alot of money because I acted like a hare, jumping around from one trade to another. if you must use the market, I recommend you buy an Index Fund from Vanguard. Just put your money in every year over 30-40 years. That also works...but it's not risk free. You'll have lots of ups and downs with the possibility of losing everything when times get bad, real bad and you pull out. To be honest, all of my teaching buddies made their fortunes in real estate by buying one house at a time. But...still not risk free and a lot of worry, work, and frustration. You want an easy way to financial freedom and a great life, read this book every year for the rest of your life. I rated it only four stars because it's too expensive for a kindle book and should be dropped down in price so it is more available to the public. This is a book that all of America needs to read!

When I first read this book back in the 90's, It just didn't sink in. I probably wasn't ready for it. Years later, after reading a really in depth review and glowing commentary from Trent at (...) I decided to read it again, and this time it sunk in. It has done more to help me be at peace with money and finances than any other book I have ever read. This is not a get rich book, in fact I don't think there is a single "do this" statement in the book. There are some things others have done in the back, but they are more inspirational than anything. What it attempts to do is change your mindset, let you step outside of yourself and reexamine your own truths about money and finances. Kind of like a guide book to Paris, we could both take the book to Paris and select the restaurants we wanted to eat in, the sites we wanted to see, and while they may be completely different and we may never cross paths, we both had a wonderful time. It helps you to define your relationship with money, not mine or anyone else's, just yours. Other commenters have reflected negatively on the authors investment choices of treasury bills. I think they are missing the point, if your relationship with money allows more risk, then take it, theirs did not. I will agree that the "save the planet" speechs do tend to be overly done, I chose to skip them instead of missing the larger message of the book. In the last 2 years, I have purchased 20 copies of this book and given them all away except the one I keep to read. I can't say that about any other book I've ever read.

I love that this book really breaks it all DOWN and makes you critically think about your beliefs and feelings around money. The transformation is real with this one because not only does it provide strategies and steps to follow but it also provides enough information to really set you up for success in a complete financial transformation but also LIFE transformation. I feel so much more financially intelligent after reading this. Thank you!

Uno de los más grandes libros para hacer introspectiva de la relación que tenemos con el dinero.

I got a lot of inspiration from this book and will definitely read it again in the future. I also bought it as a gift to my family after reading it.

This is a great book! I first read it many years ago and lost track of it. Both then and now I learned valuable lessons on finances I was not taught previous. I gifted one to each of our kids. A wonderful resource!💥

A very practical, insightful and valuable read, which I recommend to all of my clients. I have also followed the guidance in the book and saved myself lots of money along the way. A huge thanks and thumbs up from me. :)

Points could have been a little more succinct, in my opinion.