Author Topic: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??  (Read 3096 times)

michiko

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Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« on: May 17, 2020, 12:03:10 PM »
Hey Mustacians,

I just finished YMOYL by Vicki Robin and I feel the way I did when I first found MMM: I should have read this sooner! This is gonna change my life! Every person I know should read this!

BUT, the program is LONG and requires so much time and energy. I've been happily bopping along towards FI in the MMM style--don't budget, but don't get any facepunches either.

So I'd love to hear from folks who did the entire YMOYL program from Making Peace with the Past to indexing their whole homes. Was it worth it? Do you recommend it? How did you just get started? (Seems so overwhelming). Thank you so much in advance.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #1 on: May 17, 2020, 12:12:28 PM »
Hey Mustacians,

I just finished YMOYL by Vicki Robin and I feel the way I did when I first found MMM: I should have read this sooner! This is gonna change my life! Every person I know should read this!

BUT, the program is LONG and requires so much time and energy. I've been happily bopping along towards FI in the MMM style--don't budget, but don't get any facepunches either.

So I'd love to hear from folks who did the entire YMOYL program from Making Peace with the Past to indexing their whole homes. Was it worth it? Do you recommend it? How did you just get started? (Seems so overwhelming). Thank you so much in advance.

I've heard of this book but I'm not familiar with the program. Can you provide a quick summary of what it entails?

michiko

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #2 on: May 17, 2020, 12:39:04 PM »
It's the most hollistic book on money I've ever read. MMM does the forward. Basically, you trade your life's energy and time for money, so looking at the way you spend your time and your money gives you a handle on finding your purpose and your "enoughness" in life. The program starts with calculating all the money you've ever earned in your lifetime (!!) and then tallying up your networth (everything you own) to see what you have to show for all the hard work you've done your entire life. Sounds both liberating and terrifying but her motto is No Blame, No Shame. It continues from there. Amazing stuff.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #3 on: May 17, 2020, 01:11:27 PM »
Rough math shows I've made about $700k in my working lifetime (about 15 years) and my net worth is about $100k.

shadowmoss

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2020, 01:31:57 PM »
I read the book when it first came out and Joe Dominguez was still alive.  What I took from it that was life changing for me was the step to inventory all of my possessions.  I figured I'd start in the bathroom as it was the smallest room in my house.  I couldn't complete even that room.  I was just overwhelmed with the number of items I owned in just that room.  I've managed to live with a feeling of abundance ever since.  Still not a minimalist but I realize how I have an abundance of items, not scarcity.  I recommend the exercise to anyone.  It is eye opening.

BNgarden

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #5 on: May 17, 2020, 02:06:48 PM »
I did the exercises when I was much younger, thankfully.  Less to itemize.  Most interesting to me was the real hourly wage.  And the notion of really choosing the (purchase) trade-offs for my time.

Now I occasionally review items I've bought and note those I did not gain long-term value from (emotionally, aesthetically or practically).  I sometimes tote up the dollars spent on such items, just to keep in mind that I'm not great at evaluating in advance what I need / want.  Helps keep a lid on future purchases...

projekt

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #6 on: May 17, 2020, 07:40:26 PM »
I did it a while back and it was really eye-opening. But I think the MMM philosophy is a little more actionable, possibly because there are more examples.

nessa

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #7 on: May 18, 2020, 07:28:46 AM »
I got the book in ...2008?... and it was my first foray into value-based budgeting. I tried it 'in my former life' and my partner just couldn't get on board - in my Now Life its working well, coupled with MMM focus on badassity and living well below my means.

The commonalities for me are MMM's "spend extravagantly on what you love, and scrimp everywhere else" (YMOYL's fulfillment, satisfaction, and value in proportion to my life energy), aligning spending with personal values and purpose, the reality check of how much 'stuff' I need, use, and have (Konmari also helped me in this area), not being a wage slave, and investing as passive income to live the life I want.

I actually found MMM while searching for an alternative to YMOYL's investment plan (at the time, US Bonds was their go-to).

I'm currently living Steps 1-5, and working to build my savings so I can start to invest and reach my 'crossover point' where my passive income will meet my living expenses.

I also grabbed a copy of "Getting a Life" on Amazon (used), which is a compilation of anecdotes of how people have lived YMOYL successfully.

iris lily

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #8 on: May 18, 2020, 08:21:17 AM »
It's the most hollistic book on money I've ever read. MMM does the forward. Basically, you trade your life's energy and time for money, so looking at the way you spend your time and your money gives you a handle on finding your purpose and your "enoughness" in life. The program starts with calculating all the money you've ever earned in your lifetime (!!) and then tallying up your networth (everything you own) to see what you have to show for all the hard work you've done your entire life. Sounds both liberating and terrifying but her motto is No Blame, No Shame. It continues from there. Amazing stuff.

It is a brilliantly codified approach to money for the modern middle-class person.

I can’t speak to your question because I’ve never worked the program, I only read the book probably 20 years after I began my frugal adult life. But it was well known in the world a personal finance, and I respect it very much. I just didn’t need it because I was already kind of sorta doing that.

shadowmoss

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #9 on: May 18, 2020, 09:06:51 AM »
Iris Lily!  You were a regular on SLN and didn't read YMOYL????  I'm afraid I'm going to have to report you.

slappy

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #10 on: May 18, 2020, 06:05:27 PM »
Maybe I read the book too late in the game, but it didn't really resonate with me. It was like, "duh! This is all common sense".

nirodha

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #11 on: May 18, 2020, 07:28:47 PM »
The author approaches spending from a poor person's mindset. If you are early in the journey, it could be beneficial.

Strategically, I think you can do much better. There are times to relax spending, to focus your energy on bigger rewards.

If you are enjoying the book, the later version of the audio book is pretty fun too. I just finished that. I enjoyed it.

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #12 on: May 19, 2020, 11:21:40 AM »
I first read YMOYL at age 17 and it was hugely influential for me.  I just wish I'd paid more attention to the part about how it works best if you make a lot of money.  I glossed over that for too many years and focused on the frugality part.  The investment advice was good for the time, but would be useless today.  30+ years ago, a person really could retire nicely on the income from treasury bonds.  Now?  Not so much.  I had it all planned out as a high school senior how I was going to be socking money away into no-risk treasury bonds.  As soon as I was old enough to start working and saving, treasury bond rate took a nose dive, so there went my plans.

Plina

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #13 on: May 21, 2020, 08:41:50 AM »
I haven’t done the whole program. I prefer to take things that work for me. I like the comparison of how many hours you have to work when you buy things. I use it when I think about making bigger purchases. It is ok to work a day to buy a cellphone but not a week.

nirodha

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #14 on: May 21, 2020, 07:28:48 PM »
The investment advice was good for the time, but would be useless today.  30+ years ago, a person really could retire nicely on the income from treasury bonds.  Now?  Not so much.

The latest edition of the book is revised with advice matching what you find here. MMM even wrote a forward.

iris lily

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #15 on: May 22, 2020, 10:06:36 AM »
Iris Lily!  You were a regular on SLN and didn't read YMOYL????  I'm afraid I'm going to have to report you.
haha noooooooooo!

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #16 on: May 22, 2020, 11:20:47 AM »
The investment advice was good for the time, but would be useless today.  30+ years ago, a person really could retire nicely on the income from treasury bonds.  Now?  Not so much.

The latest edition of the book is revised with advice matching what you find here. MMM even wrote a forward.

Yeah, I read the newer book and I appreciated how Vicki Robin admits to now having to diversify her investment and how sad it was for her when the last of the treasury bonds ran out of its 30 year span.  As a teenager first reading the book, I didn't have the perspective to realize that the economy and investments could change drastically and that I would need to reformat my plans.  During my 20's, it was like "when are treasury bond rates going to come back up?  I guess I'll just go ahead and pay off my house while I wait."  I wish I hadn't gotten it stuck in my head that treasury bonds were the one way to go.

Not Sure

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #17 on: May 22, 2020, 12:36:21 PM »
I enjoyed the 2010 edition and have mentally done some of the exercises.  The book could really benefit from a corresponding spreadsheet, IMHO.

I am about as biased toward stocks as Vicki is toward bonds.

HenryDavid

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #18 on: May 26, 2020, 08:47:09 AM »
Yes, I did most of the full program--it's really onerous and takes ages, as people say--but was lucky enough to still be young and broke at the time. Not much to total up! Still at the stage where the whole household inventory fit in a hatchback. And I still had every pay stub I'd ever received in a box.

For me the benefit of the whole "making peace" stage was not in proportion to the effort. You spend a bit of time reconstructing your past life in money, and OK already, you "get it." The best part is really training yourself to see just how true it is that "your money" = how you spend your time = your life. That stuck with me. Everyone once in a while I'll translate, say, the price of a car into time, as in "nice car but I don't feel like working for ten months to pay for that." Makes people jump!

Or better: I don't have a car anymore because I found I was spending three months a year making enough take-home pay to cover car costs. That's a quarter of my life! (And this is very common.)

(Next step: your thoughts are your life. That really freaks people out. How much time do you spend inside your head thinking about stuff . . . you don't really care about, or can't do anything about. Yikes.)

projekt

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #19 on: June 01, 2020, 07:47:51 AM »
Still at the stage where the whole household inventory fit in a hatchback.
Oh, how I'd like to get back to that!

Kem

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #20 on: June 01, 2020, 12:57:12 PM »
I ran a very similar analysis before I'd come across FIRE literature such as this in my early 30s.   

Had I purchased even 1/2 of the crap that I didn't really care about, and ended up not really using on a regular basis, and instead invested it into an S&P 500 fund I'd have already been FI at the time of analysis.   In addition, much of this crap was bought with money I didn't even yet have - so its cost impact was STEEP. 
 
I started selling (nearly) anything that hadn't been used in the last year, viewing my before tax cost comparison, and seeing what buying item x now would take away from me vs investing over 10, 20, & 30 years (of slightly below average returns).   

LibrarianFuzz

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Re: Your Money or Your Life: Full Program??
« Reply #21 on: June 01, 2020, 02:12:54 PM »
I remember reading this book years ago, doing a lot of the exercises in the book, and being horrified about all the wasteful spending I had done in my life.

I think I've gotten far enough along in my FIRE journey since then that I could be kinder to myself during a rereading. I'll order a used copy, maybe post back after rereading.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!