Friday, January 16, 2009

Your Life or Your Money

So, I'm reading this book about finances. It's a good book and I decided to read it after reading 2 MSNMoney articles about people who read the book and then retired about 10 years later. You can read the articles here and here.

The steps to Financial Independence (a key phrase in the book), as outlined in the book, are solid. Though a couple of the steps seem odd--like the "Calculate, to the best of your ability, the amount of money you've made in your entire life" You are supposed to include all monetary gifts and jobs you were paid for that weren't reported on a W2 (like all those babysitting jobs you did in high school). It almost seems odd that you should calculate everything you've made up until this point, but the purpose is to prove to you that you ARE worth something (and it's just very likely you have happened to spend it all). This is probably done to shut up those people who always whine that there's no way they'd ever make a million dollars, the people may have not made a million dollars, but they've probably made way more than they think they did.

Other steps are perfectly normal--Keep track of every cent that comes to you and keep track of every cent that leaves your possesion. Oh sure the book gives you ideas on how to cut spending, but it seems (and I'm not done with the book yet, but up until this point) that the authors are much more of the mentality of once you start keeping track of what you're buying and how much you're making on a daily and monthly basis, you start to notice ares that you're wasting money on things you don't need--some people always have to buy a candy bar at the checkout line, some people always need to buy a shirt when they go out window shopping, etc.

There is a chapter about how to save money (or cut expenses), but most of them are the ones we already know about--pay off your credit cards as fast as possible, pay with cash as much as possible, make extra payments on your house, try to use your car less, etc.

If anything the book is getting me motivated to clean out the closets and get rid of stuff we don't need nor want. Because really, we've got more than enough.

2 comments:

The Spiteful Chef said...

Katina. I'm dying. I left you a message on your e-vite, but in case you don't check it, I have to take a rain check for tonight. I did all the medicine all day, even showered and got dressed, but in the end I'm still a bucket of coughing, sniffling germs and you don't want me around your food and guests. I am SO disappointed. We will have to do something in the next few weeks. I'll drive up and take you to dinner or something. We'll have French Onion soup.

Anonymous said...

I am trying to spring clean too. It is funny how for me cleaning out closets, drawers, under the bed, etc makes me not want to buy anything new. Once it is clean I don't want to clutter it up! But that is counterbalanced by the irresitable desire to buy lots of plants for the yard and that costs more for me than when I go clothes shopping.