The book Your Money or Your Life, written by Vicki Robin, is not the financial advice book that you would expect. Your Money or Your Life offers very little in the way of practical job search or investment advice. While some of the later chapters of the book do go into how you may choose to invest in government bonds, thus generating a passive income, this book is certainly not going to help you resolve the debate between trading stocks versus  mutual funds. Rather, the book is more of a philosophical exploration of your relationship with money. By focusing on how you relate to money, the book raises certain questions, and proposes certain answers to why you might still be in debt, or not earning to your full potential, or addicted to buying needless material goods.

Your Money or Your Life also goes into your job history. Many times, the book concludes that you may be better off actually not working, or at least not working as much as you are. This seems counter-intuitive to a book that proposes financial freedom and lack of debt. However, because the book also proposes that you try to trim down your spending and live more frugally, the focus here is not so much the making of more and more money, but rather the freedom from constant financial need. Once such freedom is achieved, you can better focus on finding your true life purpose.

Vicki Robins provides a 9-step plan for achieving financial freedom, with the steps being as follows:

Step 1. Look back at every job you have ever held and how much money you earned over your lifetime. Total all that money, what assets you purchased with that money, and how much you still owe on your assets.

Step 2. Determine how much money you make at your current job. This includes determining not just your pay per hour, but also how much money and time you spend commuting, buying work clothes, buying meals at work, entertaining coworkers at home, etc. There is also the wear and tear on your car to consider, the fact that you may have to live in a more expensive house or apartment in order to be closer or more available for work (as opposed to living in a rural area), and the additional commute time you may need if you want to visit your friends and relatives. These costs should be subtracted from your hourly or yearly pay in order to provide you with your real income and pay per hour.

Step 3. Place all of your expenses into categories and total them. Then, determine how many hours you are spending in order to support all of your expenses.

Step 4. Determine whether your expenses are a need or a want, if they are helping you achieve your life’s purpose, and if these expenses would still exist if you no longer had to work for a living. This is a good exercise for just about anyone, even if that person is not saddled with excess debt. For example, consider the idea of owning a $40,000 Lexus RX350 just to go back and forth to work. Even if you are earning $60,000/year, is it worthwhile to spend two-thirds of your working year to acquire such a vehicle? Also, don’t forget that you must buy that Lexus on post-taxed earnings. So, it will take nearly an entire year of your life to earn enough money to buy that Lexus. What would you rather have: a year of life to do whatever you want, or a new vehicle that you can drive back and forth to work? Furthermore, if the goal of buying a vehicle is simply to commute to work, then why not just spend $10,000 on a used vehicle, save the remaining $30,000, and use that money to travel, to invest in your life’s true purpose, or simply to not work that additional time?

Step 5. Keep a chart of your income and expenses from month to month. Place that chart in a visible area of your home or office and update it regularly. Keep tabs on where your major expenditures are located.

Step 6. Start living below your means. Save money where you can and emphasize frugality over extravagance. Instead of going out to eat, make your meals at home. Instead of buying new, buy used. Instead of buying household items when the need arises, buy ahead of time and on sale. The book provides many useful tips for saving money, buying things on sale or through rebate programs, and "doing it yourself" versus paying someone else to do something.

Step 7. Find ways to increase your work income by wasting less time at work, constructively asking for a raise, and increasing your overall value on the job. If you can, take on additional side jobs and work at home jobs.

Step 8. Start investing your additional income so that it can generate a passive income. Do this until you reach the point where your passive income is enough to cover your monthly bills. At that point, you can choose to quit your job or at least reduce your working hours. Use your newly found spare time to do things like volunteer, which not only helps someone else, but also contributes to your life’s purpose.

Step 9. Become a long-term investor. Take your passive income that is being generated by your current investments and re-invest it. Look into the effect of stock dividends and compounded interest. This topic definitely requires further development, since certain investments are risky, and can actually result in you losing some, if not all, of your money.

So, should you buy the book Your Money or Your Life? The book asks these very same questions in its first few pages. You SHOULD buy the book if you have trouble saving money once you earn it, if you find yourself constantly behind on bills, or if you’ve put off your dreams due to a lack of funds. To these ends, Your Money or Your Life does a great job in terms of helping you rethink your relationship with money. 

There are some drawbacks to the book as well. For starters, its investment advice (buying U.S. government bonds) is rather weak (see why here). Unless you already have several million dollars in the bank, the interest rate on government bonds is quite low, and will hardly allow you to retire early. Also, the book recommends that one shop at discount stores like Wal-Mart and other such supermarkets. This is hardly helpful for the U.S. economy, for the environment, or for the long-term sustainability of local area merchants. Although local and organic products are often more expensive, they improve quality of life for both the buyer and the merchant.