The Smartest Guys in the Room: - Bethany McLean, Peter Elkind

 Sub-title: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron 

I'd taken a while to finish this, reading a bit at night for several weeks.  It's a hard story to take.  The greed, arrogance, bravado of smart people without a conscience or concern what whether what they were doing was right, only that it could be done.  

Published: 2013  Read: November 2022  Genre: Business, History

Money, A Memoir - Liz Perle

Sub-title: Women, Emotions, and Cash

Liz got divorced suddenly, becoming a single Mom without an income overnight.  The shock forced her to re-examine her relationship with money.  She realized that she'd been in denial about being financially responsible for herself, hoping to let someone else take care of her and her finances.

She worked in publishing and began interviewing women about the relationship with finances and discovered that many baby boomers had the same expectations and had cobbled their emotional needs together with the financial responsibilities.  Over time she was able to separate the two, and let money just be money, finding her fulfillment in family and friends.

I was saddened to learn that the author died of breast cancer at only 59 years old in 2015.  It was a good read for the interviews with other women and a flashback 12 years to just prior to the 2008 crash.

Published:  2006  Read: July 2018  Genre: non-fiction

Your Money or Your Life - Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin

I think I first read this life changing book back in 1996; it may have been even earlier.  It was written in 1992 at the height of the "greed" decade, those years when it was all about making more, getting more, having more.  It influenced my thinking ever since.

Joe Dominguez was a wall street financial analyst who retired at 31 years of age.  He and Vicki championed the idea of financial independence or "FI".  They have a detailed step by step plan from starting out with understanding how much you *really* are earning and what you are selling your life energy for to suggestions for investing in treasury bonds (not so lucrative these days, but still secure and paying).  Their steps to FI are succinctly:
1) reduce and keep your expenses to what you need
2) save the rest of what you earn
3) invest your savings in income producing assets

When the income from your savings cover your expenses you will have reached FI. Basically, you end up paying yourself.

Their approach was more than just about money.  It was about living sustainably and looking inside of yourself for fulfillment, rather than consuming and buying to soothe yourself.

Some notes I made back when I first read the book:

p 26    Beyond enough is clutter
p 28    Clutter is also meaningless activities, like TV, that add nothing to your life
p 35    Once you're above the survival level the difference between prosperity and poverty is simply in our degree of gratitude.
           *Money is what we trade for our life energy.
p 232  Breaking the link between wages and work - I'm paid to work as a manager, but I am a ____(fill in the blank)?  What do I love?
Your worth comes from who you are and what you give.  The real sign of success is the inner knowing that you achieved what you set out to do.

I felt so strongly about these principles that I made a practice of giving the book as a gift at graduations and weddings, much to the chagrin of my family, I suppose.  Money seems to be the last taboo subject, when it should be something we educate our children on early and often and discuss with friends and family what works and what doesn't in getting to financial independence because who wants to work their whole life?

I still pick up copies when I find them in used bookstores.  Read it and see if it doesn't put you on a different path too.

Published: 1992  Read: 1996, 2000, 2015  Genre: Non-fiction, finance