After my initial interest in Personal Finance, i felt i needed something like a starting point or a roadmap. Not some odd online 10-steps-list, but something both giving insight and guidance. I read quite a number of book reviews and kept coming across a number of sites recommending Your Money Or Your Life, by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, as a good PF starter.

In a nutshell, Your Money Or Your Life is not about getting loads and loads of money, but about how your money should help you to live your life the way you want to, in focus with your own values and your purpose of life:

Rather than focusing on being rich, the book instead looks deeply at finding the central values in one’s life and realigning your life and money to follow these values. The Simple Dollar review of Your money or your life

During our Mexico trip, we both read the book, chapter by chapter and discussed whatever the chapter covered. The way Dominguez and Robin regard money in relation to life explained a lot about my own way of looking at money, especially my lack of interest in it. It also finally explained to me what i've been thinking for a long time: getting rich never interested me, i always felt having enough would be, well, just that: enough.

YMOYL is a nine step programme starting with creating awareness, getting control over your money in alignment with your values and finally gaining financial independence. Although admittedly, i am skeptic about that. Nonetheless, we think the programme is a good way for us to change how we look at and deal with money, so we are trying to follow the programme:

1. Making peace with the past
   a. How much have you earned in your life?
   b. What have you got to show for it?
2. Being in the present - tracking your life energy
   a. How much are you trading your life energy for?
   b. Keep track of every cent that comes into or goes out of your life
3. Monthly tabulation
4. Three questions that will transform your life
   1. Did i receive fulfillment, satisfaction and value in proportion to life energy spent?
   2. Is this expenditure of life energy in alignment with my values and life purpose?
   3. How might this expenditure change if i didn't have to work for a living?
5. Making life energy visible
6. Valuing your life energy - minimize spending
7. Valuing your life energy - maximize income
8. Capital and the cross over point
9. Managing your finances

In upcoming entries, i'll try to go into depth for each of the steps and give insight in how we're dealing with these steps and come to a for us workable system/result.

So far we've made a start 1 march with tracking every cent which comes in and goes out (step 2, b). We've also set up a spreadsheet to tabulate this (step 3). And, as we have a nice sum in a high-yield savings account, we also have interest income on capital (step 8). Finally, after the first month, we managed to plot those income and expenditure figures into a chart; a spreadsheet for now, but i'll make a real paper wall chart too, soon.

I'm aware Your Money Or Your Life is not the only book covering PF, but it's a good starting point. We'll most likely read other books too, blogs and talk to other people about PF, and probably will adjust aspects of this programme accordingly. Or not, it doesn't matter at this point. For now actually doing something with regard to personal finance is already a big step towards at least getting insight and understanding about our personal finances.