Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” —George Bernard Shaw
Your money or your life is a classic among finance books and with good reason. It still serves as a great base for anyone looking to make a start on reigning in their finances.
It pivots around the main idea of discussing trading your hours each day for dollars.
The idea that we aren’t in fact paid our salaried hourly wage when you factor in the time taken to get ready each morning and commute to and from work. These few situations alone often add an hour or two, to most peoples schedules and they are completely unpaid.
Couple this with the expenses that you would not normally incur if you were not working, such as parking or public transport costs, work specific clothing, petrol and motor vehicle wear and tear. You begin to build a picture of the extra time and money that working brings to your life.
This is also one of the first books to popularise the idea of Financial Independence.
It’s been written about a lot since and i won’t labour on about it here to much, but safe to say this is one of the places where it started. While its not quite as fleshed out as it becomes in some of the books written after this, its always interesting to see where a movement began.
For these notes and highlights I’ve selected some sections about:
• Calculating your true hourly wage
• Making your financial situation visible
• Valuing your purchases differently
As always these are taken from my highlights as I read the book, if you have a suggestion for what to read next or something I should look at in the future please leave a comment below. Thanks.
Your True Hourly Wage
• Deduct from your gross weekly income the costs of commuting and job costuming; the extra cost of at-work meals; amounts spent for decompressing, recreating, escaping and vacating from work stress; job-related illness; and all other expenses associated with maintaining you on the job.
• Add to your workweek the hours spent in preparing yourself for work, commuting, decompressing, recreating, escaping, vacating, shopping to make you feel better since your job feels lousy, and all other hours that are linked to maintaining your job. Divide the new, reduced weekly dollar figure by the new, increased weekly hour figure; this is your real hourly wage.
Make Your Finances Visible
• Make your Life Energy Visible Create a large Wall Chart plotting the total monthly income and total monthly expenses from your Monthly Tabulation. Put it where you will see it every day.
• Get a large sheet of graph paper, 18-by-22 inches to 24-by-36 inches with 10 squares to the centimeter or 10 squares to the inch. Choose a scale that allows plenty of room above your highest projected monthly expenses or monthly income. Use different-colored lines for monthly expenses and monthly income.
• It will show you the trend in your financial situation and will give you a sense of progress over time, and the transformation of your relationship with money will be obvious.
• This Wall Chart will become the picture of your progress toward full Financial Independence. It will provide inspiration, stimulus, support and gentle chiding.
Value Your Purchases Differently
“We are kept from our goal, not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal.” —Robert Brault
• Did I receive fulfillment, satisfaction and value in proportion to life energy spent? (In Relation to the purchase I made)
• Is this expenditure of life energy in alignment with my values and life purpose? (Does buying this thing move me closer towards my goals or further away?)
• Learn to define your true needs.
• Be conscious in your spending.
• Master the techniques of wise purchasing. Research value, quality and durability.
• You are spending your most precious commodity—your life energy. You have only a finite amount left.
• “ Quality of life” often goes down as “standard of living” goes up.
