Your Money Or Your Life

Your Money Or Your Life
9 STEPS To Transforming Your Relationship With Money And Achieving Financial Independence
By Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez

" To have savings is to be free. Savings means freedom from debt. Money in the bank means freedom to leave your job if the boss is intolerable or the benefits have just been yanked. And if you lose your job, having savings is the freedom  to keep your house and car because you can cover payments---if you have any to make in the first place. Having savings means you can start a business or buy land, even if the bank won't lend to you because, ironically, your habit of savings means you don't have a debt trail or a credit record."

--- YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE xvii

          This is probably one of the books that changed my view about money and taught me how to approach money in a practical way. It reinforces my frugal view in life and completely unhooked me in other's belief that you must consume your way through life and it also intensified my belief that there is life than "nine to five till your sixty five".

         I have become less materialistic and less status conscious and I'm trying to achieve a sustainable kind of living. This also led me to a path of voluntary simplicity and switched my thoughts that simple living is a choice and an opportunity and not to be viewed as deprivation or poverty.

          Thanks to this book, I found a way to effectively track my monthly expenses by establishing categories instead of merely writing everything.

May 2013 Daily Money Log and  Monthly Tabulation

          I have also been working on a chart to track if my investment income is equal to or greater than my expenses. 

Say hello to the orange bunny :)

        That's some serious writing, right? Some opt for spreadsheets, but I've always been a pen-and-paper type of person, and this works just fine for me.

         I'll post soon on detailed explanation about the monthly tabulation and charting.

         I'll leave you with some of my favorite quotes from the book :

• Waste lies not in the number of possessions but in the failure to enjoy them.

• Rich exists only in comparison to something or someone else.

• Money is something we choose to trade our life energy for.

• Frugality is enjoying the virtue of getting good value for every minute of your life energy and from everything you have the use of.