Assalamualaikum
Let me put it out there, I don't normally pick up money related books. Why? Maybe because of all those time spend thinking about money on my 8-5 (I work as a statutory/financial analyst), I don't think I want to spend my time outside of work thinking more about money. Interestingly, this may be one of the reason why I was so bad at managing my personal finances. :P I simply don't care.
Then pandemic came, with so much uncertainty on the future, even the laziest of them all, me, was force to think about my own future survival. So I picked up this book and oh myyy, the experience is very far from what I have expected. I'd expected a budgetting book, book outlining practical ways on how I can earn more money or how I could save more etc etc. After all, aren't all financial books like that? Boy was I wrong. Well, although the later chapters did give some example on how you can do all that, the main theme of the book is not budgetting, but to transform your relationship with money.
Who should read it?
I wanted to say all, Everyone who earns and spend money need to read this.....but, I think it's a bit insensitive to think that everyone has the luxury to do all the steps in the book. The book discussed about money and financial independent as if everyone has a choice. While I am a big believer in "everyone has a choice,", I also understand, that sometimes, our choices are limited, and in those limited choices that we have, financial freedom is a bit far from reality.
So who do I think could benefit from the book? Everyone, who's not fighting for survival, who earns and spend money.
What I got from the book
Top quotes from the book
- Money is something you trade your life energy for. You sell your time for money.
- It is easier to tell our therapist about our sex life than it is to tell our accountant about our finances.
- We think we work to pay the bills - but we spend more than we make on more than we need, which send us back to work to get the money to spend to get more stuff- that sends us back to work again!
- Strategies you come up with for yourself in your own life often will be much more powerful than the advice of others.
The money trap
You know how we always asked someone "What do you do for a living?" whenever we want to know someone's job right? But are we really, making a living? at the end of our workday, are we more alive than we were at the beginning? How many of us clocked out thinking, "wow, what a day well spent. I can't wait to do this again tomorrow!" We aren't making a living, we're making a dying! Exhausted bodies and empty soul. Working more but enjoying life less.
Plus, these wrong terms that we use:
- Consumers - we are expected to buy everything from hope to happiness, we no longer live life, we consume it
- Disposable income - what else would we do with disposable income besides dispose of it?
What is money?
Money = life energy. We sell our time for money.
and what is life energy? Basically how much your real hourly wage.
and what is your real hourly wage? It's your basic salary minus cost associated to the job (commuting, costuming, meals, daily decompression, escape entertainment, vacations, job related illness)
What is work?
Have you wonder what is work? Why do you need to work? I know a lot will say to get paid but do you know that there is a study on work satisfaction and surprise surprise, growth potential, communication channels, interest in work and recognition make a job satisfying - not pay.
So with this, now we know that work has two function:
1. Material, financial function - getting paid
2. Personal function - emotional, intellectual, psychological and even spiritual
This is where everything go haywire. A lot of us mix function 1 with function 2. While paid employment is exclusive to work, personal function is not. You can get the same emotional, intellectual, psychological and even spiritual outside of work.
A lot of us now put more important to the time spend at work. We think we are our job. We identify our self worth from our job. Jobism (like racism but towards people job) is real. We judge people by how much money they are making. Value of leisure has dropped. Leisure now leads more often to loneliness and boredom, how can it not, life outside the workplace has lost vitality and meaning. Even the word time off is wrong, it's as thought leisure were just a few minutes of recuperation before we're back "on" a once again productive human being.
What the writer tried to preach now is that, all moments in your life matter. We need to reclaim control so that we have more moments to spend as we will, not as we must. The writer wants us to break the link between work and wages. We need to acknowledge who we really are.
Eg. Let's say you are a natural born teacher but you took a job as computer programmer because you can make more money, instead of saying "I'm a programmer" say "I'm a teacher but currently writing computer programs to make money". This way, our inner self matches our outer self too.
How this concept has help me?
If we are being real, I am still me guys, no book on productivity has manage to turn me into a do-er rather than a procrastinator, so no surprise, I still am shamefully wasting my time, but to the very least, the book helps me to realised that each purchase equals to a certain amount of my time. At least now, before I impulse purchase anything, I would convert that into hours and think is it worth my 2 days (example) of my time?
In a completely different note, the book managed to make me think hard on my retirement plan. Do I really have to wait till 50 to retire? Am I okay with deferring my life for the sake of extra money? That, I need to rethink.
And in term of breaking the link between work and wage, I have no problem with that. I have always define my job as it is, a mean to support my various hobbies. Work is just a small portion of my life, and now I know how to define myself.
"I'm a writer but currently analyse financial data to make money," gittew.
***
What is enough?
Enough is when we have:
- Everything we need
- Nothing extra to weigh us down, distract or distress us
- Nothing we've bought on credit
- Nothing we never used and are slaving to pay off.
I love how the book ask ourselves to define what is enough for us. It's not some budgeting tool that tell us saving has to be 30% bla bla bla. But the book help us to be aware of our enough point. The writer wants us to get clear about money without cutting off individuality. It is not less is more, but what we ourselves consider enough.
How this concept has help me?
For the first few months, of course, I still shop like there is no tomorrow. zzzzzzz.... but as I became more and more aware of my enough point, as I keep asking myself do I receive fulfillment and satisfaction from this item I just purchase? Am I chasing over cheap thrill instead of deep thrill (the purchase leaves me satisfied, content, and at peace)? Over time, I somehow stop spending. It's fascinating, really, for me to stop spending lol, but suddenly, I don't feel like I need that limited edition tudung anymore, or that newly restocked shirt, or the newly release gadget, this is what the book calls as accidental saving, I accidentally save some money without even trying! I wasn't depriving myself of anything, really, I still buy things that I love, but as I become more and more aware of my enough points, there is just simply not much thing I want to buy anymore. In January alone, I manage to save around RM2k plus. Seriously that is huge for me, someone who used to zero out her bank account just few months back!
***
What doesn't work for me?
Towards the end of the book, they were some steps on how to maximise your saving through investment and more. Again, I am not fond of any "how to" steps to earn money so I skipped the whole chapter.
***
All in all, this book is a life changing book for me. It has shift my relationship with money 360 degrees. <3