On: The Art of Spending Money

This weekend, I finished reading “The Art of Spending Money” by Morgan Housel.

If that name rings a bell, it’s probably because of his mega-bestseller “The Psychology of Money” from a few years back. He also writes a blog well worth reading.

I never read “The Psychology of Money” because, from skimming the table of contents and reading a couple of summaries, I felt it was more geared towards people who are starting their personal finance journey¹.

But his new book sounded intriguing to me.

I’m at a place where I’d say that I follow most of the common knowledge from the personal finance community: Saving a reasonable percentage of my monthly income, investing into a distributed ETF with a savings plan, not trying to “outsmart the market” – things like that.

If you’re in the same place as me, “The Art of Spending Money” is a phenomenal book. Maybe if you're not, too. I would not even classify it as a finance book but more as a philosophical one. A huge portion of the book revolves around the pursuit of a simple life and how that looks different for everyone.

Most insights from the book didn’t feel completely new to me, but they were put together in such a nice way that made me eager to continue reading. The anecdotes that the author tells are also well chosen and integrated.

I won't go into too much depth about the content of the book in this post, as I plan to write further posts about topics the book touches upon.

I just wanted to tell you that I really enjoyed this book. It's the best finance book I've ever read – and it isn’t even one.

5/5, a book that came at the right time for me.