This is a guest post written by Stephen Douglas, a student of MakeMoneyFromWriting.com.  Stephen is learning how to find freelance writing jobs and turn writing into a profitable career.
In these times of job loss and huge corporate bankruptcies, issues around money– primarily earning it and spending less of it-are on top of a growing list of worries for many people in the US. After years of credit card abuses, buying a plethora of new gadgets in big box stores, a 20-year old book still provides a a simple and effective way to not only live within one’s means, but to become totally self-sufficient within a matter of years.

That’s self-sufficient as in don’t have to work for a living. Hard to believe, especially in these times, but “Your Money or Your Life” by Vicki Robin and the late Joe Dominguez, which started what is known as the Frugality Movement, offers a method that works, slowly but surely. Joe & Vicki’s philosophy is completely counter to the credit/spend policies put forth by our leaders and advocated by our neighbors, making it doubly hard to implement frugality in one’s life. But the rewards are a lifetime of freedom from the bonds of debt and much more.

“Your Money or Your Life” asks its readers to do some self-examination to get to the root of their spending habits, then teaches them how to question and analyze until they can reduce spending down to only what is absolutely necessary. Sounds like good advice for current times, doesn’t it? Yet the book is based on seminars developed in the early 1980s!

After spending is under control, the authors get to the point: methodical purchase of bonds until it becomes possible to live solely off the interest. Their book shows in detail how this is possible: how to measure the time it will take and how to monitor and adjust the level of investment needed to get there.

Going against the strong social trends that cause us to want to keep up with our neighbors is the biggest obstacle to becoming debt free and self sufficient. After this book and others related to it (like “Frugal Living for Dummies” or “Complete Idiot’s Guide to Simple Living”) came out, those who adopted a frugal lifestyle were derided as being out of step during a decade and a half of easy credit. Now, investigating a frugal way of life may not just be an option but the top choice on a list of choices growing smaller every week.

It’s all about “Transforming Your Relationship with Money,” the title of an audio CD by Joe Dominguez issued in 2005, and finding financial stability and freedom!



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