Making Work Optional Book Review
September 19, 2008 – 6:02 am
Making Work Optional (MWO) was written by three authors, all three of whom have worked as financial advisers in their career. The back of the book tells us that two of the three authors have used the concepts in MWO to pursue their dream jobs after reaching financial freedom.
The book is written in a conversational tone and is extremely straight forward. It essential reviews all of the topics you would expect in a book with this title, including:
- people, and especially Americans, spend more than they should
- we are slaves to our job in order to maintain our lifestyle
- in order to break free from the rat race you must live well below your means and save and invest the difference
- create a vision and goal for what you want
- get aligned with your spouse
- budget
Overall this book is worth reading but is by no means exceptional. There are a few things that I liked though, including:
- that living below your means is a lifestyle choice, not a financial fad diet.
- making work optional will take approximately 15 years for most people
- fixed expenses are the real culprit for most people. Buy too much house or too much car and it doesn’t matter if you’re willing to give up cable and telephone services
- don’t forget the x-factor, meaning things cost more than you expect. Moving into a house, for example, will cost a lot more than the mortgage payment. Although this should be obvious, I like the authors’ idea of adding 10-20% to the anticipated cost of a decision before proceeding.
Making Work Optional is by no means on par with Your Money or Your Life, but it may worth a read if you’re hearing yet another perspective in easy to understand language on how to retire early. Perhaps I’ll give my copy away when it’s time for spring cleaning. 
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One Response to “Making Work Optional Book Review”
At least they said it would take 15 years. However, this is not all to original subject but a worthwhile goal.
By Rick Vaughn on Sep 19, 2008