From the shelf · 102 money books
Does Your Money or Your Life hold up?
Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez is one of the 102 money books on The Money Shelf. The shelf links it to 3 of the 22 claims that the book tests against official records from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Each verdict below comes from that test.
Claim 2 · The book makes this claimSmall spending: cut the daily coffee
Weak diagnosisThe arithmetic of small purchases is correct, and a daily 5 is between 2.3 and 5.2 per cent of the average spending in the three sources, while housing and transport take between 31.7 and 50.4 per cent, far larger shares than the coffee in all three sources.
Read the full test →Claim 9 · The book makes this claimFrugality: spending less beats earning more
Weak diagnosisThe arithmetic that saving requires spending less than income is true, and the data tie saving to income: saving rates rise with income in the UK data and the US panel study, and saving in dollars rises steeply with income in the Australian data.
Read the full test →Claim 20 · Linked to the book by the shelf; its publisher’s description does not confirm itThe 4 per cent rule: withdraw about 4 per cent a year in retirement
Holds with conditionsThe 4 per cent rate held for at least 33 years in the American record of 1926 to 1992 that Bengen examined, in charts built on a portfolio with 50 per cent in shares.
Read the full test →Your Money or Your Life raised the question. The records take it further: every figure dated, every source named, and the arithmetic worked through for three countries.
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