All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending [Hardcover]

Laura Vanderkam (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 1, 2012

How happy would you be if you had all the money in the world? The universal lament about money is that there is never enough. We spend endless hours obsessing over our budgets and investments, trying to figure out ways to stretch every dollar. We try to follow the advice of money gurus and financial planners, then kick ourselves whenever we spend too much or save too little. For all of the stress and effort we put into every choice, why are most of us unhappy about our finances?

According to Laura Vanderkam, the key is to change your perspective. Instead of looking at money as a scarce resource, consider it a tool that you can use creatively to build a better life for yourself and the people you care about.

For instance, the average couple spends $5,000 on engagement and wedding rings, making these pricey purchases largely because everyone else does. But what if you decided to spend $300 on rings and apply the rest to future date nights, weekend getaways, and thinking-of-you bouquets over the next ten years? In he long run, what would bring more joy to your marriage? Likewise, will owning a home with a pristine lawn and a two-car garage—the American Dream—really make you more satisfied? Or are you saving up for this investment just because financial planners tell you it’s worth it?

Vanderkam shows how each of us can figure out better ways to use what we have to build the lives we want. Drawing on the latest happiness research as well as the stories of dozens of real people, Vanderkam offers a contrarian approach that forces us to examine our own beliefs, goals, and values.

Among her advice:

• Laugh at the Joneses: It’s human nature to compare yourself to those around you, but you can create lifestyle hat rings you personal satisfaction without copying your neighbors.
  

• Give yourself the best weekend ever: Studies show that experiences often bring more pleasure than material goods. With a little planning and creativity, you can give yourself a memorable getaway without leaving town or going broke.
  

• Embrace the selfish joy of giving: Giving back not only helps you build karma, it also helps you build a community—which is much more fulfilling than a tax deduction. All the Money in the World is a practical and inspiring guide that shows how money can buy happiness—if we spend it wisely.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Money is one of the most complex, emotionally charged issues within the larger subject of happiness. In this engaging and thought-provoking book, Laura Vanderkam explains how we can get the most happiness bang for our buck--right here and now, in the way we live our ordinary lives.”

(-Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project )

“All the Money in the World offers a total rethink on personal finance. Instead of prescribing the same-old hard-to-follow rules, Vanderkam encourages you to take your own values and goals into account when it comes to saving and spending. It is packed with creative ideas on how to get more, spend less, and most importantly, better use what you have. This book shows you that it’s not dollar signs that are standing in the way of what you want in life.”

(-Adelaide Lancaster, author of The Big Enough Company )

“Bravo! Laura writes another thoroughly-researched and thought-provoking book! Whether you're an extravagant spender, a frugal coupon-clipper, or anywhere in between, All the Money in the World will challenge your longheld financial beliefs and practices. This book is guaranteed to make you think long and hard about how to allocate your money to bring you true fulfillment.”

(-Crystal Paine, founder of MoneySavingMom.com )

“With extensive research and rare insight, Laura Vanderkam reveals the financial mindset that can lead to lasting happiness.”

(-Zac Bissonnette, author of Debt-Free U )

About the Author

Laura Vanderkam is the author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think and Grindhopping:  Build a Rewarding Career Without Paying Your Dues, which the New York Times hailed as “loaded with smart observations.” Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, City Journal, the Huffington Post, USA Today, Scientific American, and Reader’s Digest, among other publications. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and their three children.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover (March 1, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591844576
• ISBN-13: 978-1591844570
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #276,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Laura Vanderkam is the author of All The Money In The World: What The Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending (Portfolio, March 1, 2012), 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think (Portfolio, 2010), and Grindhopping: Build a Rewarding Career Without Paying Your Dues (McGraw-Hill, 2007).

She is a member of USA Today's Board of Contributors, writes the "168 Hours" blog for CBS MoneyWatch, and her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, City Journal, Scientific American, Reader's Digest, Prevention, Fortune.com, and other publications. She has appeared on numerous television programs, including The Today Show and Fox & Friends, hundreds of radio segments, and has spoken about time, money and productivity to audiences ranging from the Healthcare Businesswomen's Association to MTV's employees to graduating seniors at her high school, the Indiana Academy, who brought her back as their commencement speaker in 2006.

A 2001 graduate of Princeton, she enjoys running, writing fiction, and serving as president of the Board of Trustees for The Young New Yorkers' Chorus, an organization which specializes in commissioning new music from composers under age 35. She lives outside Philadelphia with her husband, two young sons and baby daughter.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#54 in Kindle eBooks > Business & Investing

#54 in Kindle eBooks > Business & Investing

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and Thought-Provoking March 14, 2012

By Catherine

Format:Hardcover

In her latest book, All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending, Laura Vanderkam (who also wrote 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think) helps readers to be deliberate and thoughtful about the question of money, challenging widely accepted ideas about it, and offering suggestions for how to better get and use it.

A lot of personal finance books offer advice on how to set up a budget, cut your latte factor, or get out of debt, but I'd argue that reading All the Money in the World would be a better investment of your time because of how it will challenge you to really think through your assumptions and beliefs about how you get, spend, and give money. Vanderkam points out that money is a tool to help you live your life, so thinking about money and finances is really about thinking through what kind of life you want to lead, what you want to do, and what you want to achieve.

Vanderkam exposes quite a few common assumptions about money, and provides research and suggestions for why you might want to reconsider things like:

-Spending a fortune on an engagement ring and big wedding versus spending that amount over the course of your life to invest in your marriage (since happiness is more about frequency than intensity),
-How much you really need a lawn (since so few people love to take care of one and they are so expensive to maintain),
-Whether or not you can really expect to retire (and why you might want to just get a job you love instead),
-How many kids you can afford (and what "afford" means when it comes to a family),
-Aspiring to a big house (when that means more housework and yard work, tasks which most people don't enjoy).

Most interesting to me was the section where Vanderkam challenges conventional wisdom about cutting back expenses to save money. She points out that most households spend 10% of their budgets on food and clothing, but 40-50% of the budget on housing and cars. Sure, you can cut coupons and hit sales, but you might be better off keeping your housing costs lower or rethinking your vehicle situation. She admits that the grocery and clothing cuts are easier to make immediately, but the way she discusses home and travel expenses is nuanced enough to be helpful even to families who already feel like they have those categories at bare bones level.

I got a lot out of the section in the book about giving. Vanderkam discusses why being generous and helping others is a good way to spend money and points out several examples and suggestions for how you can be a "microphilanthropist" even if you don't have a lot of money to spare. She advocates being involved and connected to causes you support, which I agree is critical, and lists resources for building that engagement.

Another great section discussed the hedonic treadmill (how something can feel so awesome when you haven't been able to afford it before, but quickly becomes old hat) and how to combat it, including how to teach your children to appreciate their blessings without becoming entitled or misunderstanding the connection between work and money. We've been talking in our family lately about how to handle allowances, so I appreciated the research Vanderkam highlighted.

The book ends with a series of exercises designed to help you think through the topics presented in the book. These include the big picture, getting, spending, and sharing. I can see how this would be a fabulous book to go through with a book club or to read with a friend or your spouse, because the questions lend themselves to a lot of reflection and discussion.

What I love about this book is that it's not a how-to book for austerity or a one-size-fits-all prescription for achieving some particular level of financial status. Rather, it's an empowering book about understanding your own life and your own priorities and goals, and how you can use money to live a better, happier, more fulfilling life. Understanding this is so critical, no matter what your situation or aspirations. Having money won't make you happy, but using money to achieve your purpose will.

I found All the Money in the World tremendously helpful and would highly recommend it, whether for personal reading or in a group setting.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful and Interesting February 23, 2012

By Book Fanatic TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This is an interesting book. I'm going to say that I think the subtitle misleads as to the contents. "What the Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending" really should be "What Laura Vanderkam and Online Crowds Think about Getting and Spending". The book is not rigorous science research about happiness but the speculations, experience, and reasonable conjecture of the author and others. However, neither of those really take away from the value of the book as long as you take it for what it actually is. It's not a great book but it is worth a read if the subject of money and happiness interest you; I assume that's most people in 21st Century America anyway.

The book got me thinking about the value of money in my own life and how I might use it for the tool it is in a better way. I think it will do the same for most people and in that respect it succeeds. Vanderkam has some useful insights and some different ways of thinking about money than most people and I recommend you give them some consideration.

The book is broken into three main parts Getting, Spending, and Sharing. The table of contents follows:

INTRODUCTION You Have More Money Than You Think
CHAPTER 1 What Else Could That Ring Buy?

GETTING
CHAPTER 2 Don't Scrimp More, Make More
CHAPTER 3 Rethink Retirement

SPENDING
CHAPTER 4 Laughing at the Joneses
CHAPTER 5 The Best Weekend Ever
CHAPTER 6 The Marginal Cost of Children
CHAPTER 7 The Chicken Mystique

SHARING
CHAPTER 8 The Selfish Joy of Giving
CHAPTER 9 Another Way to Invest

ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD
CHAPTER 10 Ode to a Ziploc Bag

THE HOW TO BUY HAPPINESS HANDBOOK

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Worthy Work March 12, 2012

By MCollins

Format:Hardcover

All The Money In The World is predicated on the idea that, if you had all the money in the world, how would your life change, and how would that money buy you happiness? Vanderkam wants you to consider both the dream purchases and the practical, everyday impacts that money would create...and then find the ways to start building that life here and now, with the money you currently have. In a similar vein to 168 Hours Vanderkam illustrates the control we have on our finances-- that how we spend our money is choice, that one dollar spent on something is one dollar not spent on something else. This mindset enables one to think more carefully about where their money is going, and if it is being used to build a happy life. Vanderkam starts almost immediately with reframing the idea that money can buy happiness....if you make smart, personal choices with it.

While Vanderkam avows that she is not a financial guru, her book still gives practical, sensible and usable advice on how we get, spend, share and feel about money. She encourages people to play "offense and not defense" with their money-- thinking how you can make more, rather than how you can scrimp to cut spending. "The Joneses" become a target-- as Vanderkam forces us to question whether the stereotypical major purchases of modern life really bring us happiness, or are we just buying what we think we should be buying, because society encourages us to have big houses, shiny new cars and overflowing closets. I am someone who has always focused on the allocation of money-- from as young as I can remember, when I used to sort my babysitting money in envelopes for spending and saving. I've always also attached a lot of guilt to money, being hypersensitive on every dime I spent, always worried if it was a necessary purchase, or if I could have gotten it for less. This work has reframed my thinking of my finances, and given me the freedom to believe that, if this money is buying me happiness and helping to build the life and world I want to live in, then it is money well spent.

I argue that both this and her earlier book, 168 Hours, are companion works. Both are built on the same foundation: we don't think we have enough time, we don't think we have enough money, but if we analyze and rethink some aspects of our lives, we will find that we do. I also found that they echoed each other in many places. You can buy time with money, and time well spent can earn you more money. I am so thankful that I've read both of these works. I feel like I am smarter and more sensible as a result, but more importantly, happier.