The Psychology of Money

The Psychology of Money

🚀The book in three sentences

Our behaviour in relation to money is the biggest driver of our happiness and financial success. 20 short essays that explain why we think the way we do about money, how’s it affects us and what we should do about it. It’s a mixture of things we all know to be true but still need to be told and revelations that have the potential to completely upend the way we think about money. 

🎨Impressions 

I would call this a must read for everyone. Everyone has a relationship with money. Unless we understand ourselves and why we interact with money in the way that we do, it is impossible to improve that relationship. Wealth isn’t the same for everyone. It’s certainly not all about money. Controlling your behaviour when it comes to finance use the number one contributing factor, not knowledge, whether you can get wealthy and stay wealthy. 

How I discovered it

It seems like all the finance folk were banging on about it for most of 2020. I bought it as part of an Amazon book order from my YouTube video How to invest £100💰10 ways from beginner to expert. 

Who should read it?

Everyone. Understanding more about money and our relationship with it is transforming. 

☘️ How the book has changed me

I’m more inclined to look for the tails in life. 

✍️ My Top 3 Quotes

No one’s crazy. 

John Bogle, the Vanguard founder who passed away in 2019, once told a story about money that highlights something we don’t think about enough:

At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his widely popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds, “Yes, but I have something he will never have… enough.”

Enough. I was stunned by the simple eloquence of that word – stunned for two reasons: first because I have been given so much in my own life and, second, because Joseph Heller could not have been more accurate. 

You can be wrong half the time and still make a fortune.