NEW-our Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence: Fully Revised and Updated for 2018

by Vicki Robin

Genres: Finance, Nonfiction, Money

368 pages, Paperback

About the author

Vicki Robin has lectured widely and appeared on hundreds of radio and television shows, including "The Oprah Winfrey Show," "Good Morning America" and National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition" and "Morning Edition." She has also been featured in People Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Woman's Day, Newsweek, Utne Magazine and the New York Times. Vicki has helped launch many sustainability initiatives including: The New Road Map Foundation, The Simplicity Forum, The Turning Tide Coalition, Sustainable Seattle, The Center for a New American Dream, Transition Whidbey and more. In the 1990s she served on the President's Council on Sustainable Development's Task Force on Population and Consumption. Born in Oklahoma in 1945, Vicki grew up on Long Island and graduated cum laude from Brown University in 1967.

Reviews

[Mari Sim · Rating 4 out of 5]

It wasn’t as mind blowing as the author promised, I mostly use the same principles my whole life, but some reminders were actually nice and right in time.

This book will be perfect for people who’s in hate-love relationship with money and need more structure in their lives

If it’s your first self-help finance book, you’re gonna love it

[Zemmiphobe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I this is the financial advice book I have been looking for my whole life. It is extremely targeted at at an American audience, but it still has a lot of practical information and it spans from saving every penny to stay afloat all the way to investing for early retirement and financial freedom.

I feel like a lot of financial books tend to assume you have a degree of excess money and your goal is to make as much out of it as possible. This book assumes you have none and feel chained to a life you don't enjoy because of it. It gets you consider all the ways you spend money to make money and how you can creativly cut those costs so you actually get more out of your paycheck. It goes through the basics of making a financial plan and how tracking your spending can make a big difference in money leakage. It gets you to think about money goals and how you could/should be starting to save towards them. And how can you get that saved money to work for you so eventually you can live off of it and be free from the neccesity to work. This book runs the gamut from bartering to stocks and makes financial literacy accessible to any average person.

This book maybe isn't for every one. If you are already money savvy, then this is probably not new information and you might find it boring. I think a good deal of the book were things I already knew and am practicing, but I still found some small new insights throughout that I think reframed my view on some things. My only criticism on the book is it is extremely American and a lot of the financial pitfalls discussed are unheard of in a lot of other places.

[D. Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book up thinking it’d give me some practical budgeting tips—nothing too deep. But halfway through, it flipped the script and hit me with something way more profound: the connection between money and life. Not just how we spend it, but how it shapes us, drives us, and reflects what we truly value. And honestly? That realization changed everything.

It’s not a quick-read type of book, and it definitely moves slow in parts, but it peels back the layers of your mindset—especially the unhelpful beliefs we carry about money. What really stuck with me was the idea that money is just energy: your time, your effort, your life force in dollar form. Once I saw it that way, I started valuing my time and money differently.

This book isn’t about getting rich fast. It’s about slowing down and rethinking what really matters. It’s a guide to building financial independence in a way that feels personal, grounded, and freeing. I'd recommend it if you’re ready to get real about how money is running your life—or how it could be serving it instead.

Looking for new energy for the Spring? This is it!

[AMC · Rating 3 out of 5]

This probably would have been better to read versus listen to, but we are where we are at this point. Her suggestions/recommendations were valid in theory, but I’m probably much too lazy to do the very hard work involved to benefit fully from any of them. First of all, I simply have way more shit than I have time to go to through—and if time is life’s true currency that’s not how I plan to spend mine…for now. Perhaps ever! 🤷🏽‍♀️

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent entry into personal money management and taking a hard look at your relationship with money. It's a little preachy in parts, and doesn't have anything new to say, but for someone just starting to look into the topic, it's a solid read.

[Saaammyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would definitely recommend adding this layer to foundations from other personal finance reads. Appreciate that this one culminates with the Crossover Point for specifics in achieving FIRE.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incorporating fulfillment, satisfaction, and value in proportion to life energy spent.

One’s really in following the nine steps; financial independence is within its grasp.

[Richie Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly transformative way to think about personal finances. Two powerful ideas really struck a chord. First, thinking of money as the equivalent of life energy, because every penny we spend has to be earned with time dedicated to work, which is taken off the finite supply time we have in our life. The second, later in the book, is the acceptance of the sobering realisation that the only purpose of paid employment is precisely to earn money - period. All other aspects we associate with work are independent of making money, whether they be personal fulfilment, expression, service to the community etc. Consequently, separating in our thinking our purpose-driven pursuits from the necessity to make a living results in quite a radical freedom: our employers lose all power over our happiness, while our bank account balance may cease to be held back by inadvertent self-judgement and self-sabotage.

Only one star off for the sometimes repetitive writing and the organisation of the information that was somehwat confusing in some chapters.