Time per week of meals and breaks at work, 5 hours.

You are ready to become a conscientious, loving and knowledgeable steward of your life energy. They increase the amount of their ‘free time’ by reducing expenses and the amount of time on the job.

It is precious because it is limited and irretrievable and because our choices about how we use it express the meaning and purpose of our time here on earth. According to the dictionary, to consume is to ‘destroy, squander, use up.’ We consider shopping to be recreation, so we ‘shop till we drop.’ We want a good future for our kids, so we work harder or become a two income family and delegate raising the kids to day care centres or nannies. If you’re satisfied with your finances, ask yourself how much more you would spend without a budget in place. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. Set up a financial plan using the three pillars. When possible, try to look ahead and prepare for expenses you know are coming your way. And if we don’t have the money … heck, what are credit cards for?

Step 4: Three Questions That Will Transform Your Life. Read the world’s #1 book summary of Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin here. Perhaps we cling to our affluence — even though it isn’t working for us or the planet — because of the very nature of our relationship with money. With Step 8 the possibility of Financial Independence opens up. Want to get the main points of Your Money or Your Life in 20 minutes or less?

This chart shows how a 40 hour working week can actually take up 70 hours of one’s time.

This way of life is debilitating, stressful and hard on your health, relationships and family. You may love your paid employment or you may hate it; it doesn’t matter.

That’s when I really started looking at America’s […], […] to yourmoneyoryourlife.com, If you answered, ‘no’ to even one of these questions, this is a must […], […] Your Money or Your Life Summary | Your Money or Your Life […], […] Robin, an author of “Your Money or Your Life,” has been financially independent since the 1970s, when she was in her 20s. * Pursue the lifestyle that you can afford; get rid of credit card debt so that your spending is in line with what you actually have available to spend on necessities and fun stuff like going out with friends or buying books to read at home (which is also fun). Is your job ‘consuming’ (using up, destroying, wasting) your life? Your capital must not be diminished at the time of investment by unnecessary commissions, or other expenses. Do you love your life, using each hour — on and off the job — with care?

It is knowing what is enough money and material goods to keep you at the peak of fulfillment — and what is just excess and clutter.