Comments on: Your Money or Your Life: Money Ain’t What It Used To Be – And Never Was

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 19:09:47 +0000

Such a fascinating concept that money equals our life energy. And very scary how few (relatively) hours of life I have left (at age 40)!

Definitely makes me want to be more careful about what I spend my life energy on!

By: Betty Ann

Betty Ann — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:57:42 +0000

I Love my work; but would I do it FREE??

No…..

My work is fun; but would I still do it for fun??

No…

Because instead I would do Volunteer work for organizations that would make a difference.

I had three children to raise, now 23, 21 and 11. And divorced and building up work the last 6 weeks after being a SAHM.. (before I always had a child under 5 at work. MY ex could not stop spending.

I have about 1200 emergency money only; but I do have almost 200,000 to survive if I was to sell my house; I had to buy my ex out of that house so the mortgage zoomed up from 1880 a month to 2660 a month.. YIKEZS..

I’m blessed I freelance around my 11 year old schedule and he is gone each week with his dad…but my mortgage takes up most of my money each month; and I won’t work full time.

I wish I was F.I. so i could stop working at my Fun job and do gratifying volunteer work.

By: Nadine

Nadine — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 20:36:22 +0000

Although I enjoy my work, I have to admit that my primary motivator is to earn a living. I think that the purpose of this section of the book is to clarify what our money really represents. It does represent our life’s energy, and therefore, we need to give more consideration to how we spend it. The reason that I have worked so hard to get out of debt is due to my aversion for paying interest. I like “things” as much as anyone, but not to the point where I have to pay interest in addition to the price of the commodity that I am buying.

By: Empress Juju

Empress Juju — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 14:24:52 +0000

Just this week I figured out why the concept of “trading my life energy for money” hasn’t been ringing true for me: My work is deeply fulfilling.

I do meaningful work that I excel at, am appreciated for, with people whose company I enjoy. The time I spend at work generally enriches me, rather than depleting me. Sure, I have hard days, and deal with difficult people and situations fairly regularly, but I choose to enjoy and appreciate my work, rather than resent it, which has made an incredible difference in the timbre of my days.

I am committed to a junk-free, debt-free, financially stable life, and I have also come to realize that my happiness depends more on my own attitude than it does on my bank balance!

By: rhbee

rhbee — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 14:05:19 +0000

The power of money in money in the idea of money
The tradeoff, the stock trade, the oil business
The fact that even the worst BIG business makes money
The way the things we do for it obscure what it does to us
The way money funds politics
The way politicians pursue the purse strings
The way we are caught in the web of interest rates and daily averages
The way the math of lowering the interest rate makes the stock market go crazy
The way we can rationalize the cost of making war against the cost of the collateral damage
The way it almost seems right that Indian casinos provide billion in tax revenue
The way gambling is okayed but steriods aren’t
The constant competition to raise ad revenue
The way we personalize our finances so that we don’t have to take responsibility
The way we can’t work out even the simplest of solutions to world wide hunger, health, war
The way we can easily say “money isn’t evil, it’s the things we do with it that are.”

By: Minimum Wage

Minimum Wage — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 05:29:52 +0000

I find looking at it this way to be disturbing. I neither invest my money now spend it on more clutter. I spend it to subsist. Thinking at it this way, I feel like a hopeless hamster.

By: Mrs. Micah

Mrs. Micah — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 03:34:07 +0000

I’ve thought about that when considering Dave Ramsey’s recommendations. Would it be wise to take a second, part-time job? I don’t think so, for me, because I’m not willing to trade my sanity, even for financial freedom. After all, the point of being financially free is to be…happy seems like a lame word, but contented in one’s situation? at peace? Something like that.

By: lorax

lorax — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 01:21:35 +0000

I agree with everyone. The big takeaway from this chapter, and also that of the book, is that money is something we choose to trade our life energy for. And thanks Andre for that Thoreau quote!

Another pet peeve: Jason didn’t triple his debt, he quadrupled it. Or he added triple his debt to his current debt. Either way, it drives me nuts that the math details aren’t perfect.

By: sunny

sunny — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 01:07:43 +0000

I used to measure my wants vs. needs by how many hours do I have to work to buy this? This worked great for years until I had a substantial pay increase. Now I put it on a wish list and then revisit the list in a few weeks. More often than not I end up deleting the bright shiny thing I thought I really needed.

By: Andre

Andre — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 00:01:37 +0000

Thoreau: “The cost of something is the amount of life that must be given in exchange for it.”

By: FinanceAndFat

FinanceAndFat — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 23:19:14 +0000

I agree. The life energy for money exchange is a really profound insight. It changed my outlook quite a bit the first time I read it, though I did start to stray off track again after a while. It’s a good reminder and it really helps me when looking at something I may want to purchase. Instead of just seeing the shiny new product I wish to buy, I try to look at it as a number of hours worth of work.