Book Review – The Psychology of Money. Likely the best book I read this year

I waited for this book to come out for a while, and it surely doesn’t disappoint. The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel is an excellent book on personal finance, our thinking towards money and how that drives a lot of our decisions in life. Not only does the book contain a lot of wisdoms and high quality content, but it is also well and crisply written that you can finish it in a weekend, unlike a lot of other books that are unnecessarily lengthy.

If you care about growing your net worth, investing and making important decisions in your life (who doesn’t?), I really recommend this book. It will transform what you think about money and life. Below are a few nuggets from the book. Have a nice weekend!

The premise of this book is that doing well with money has a little to do with how smart you are and a lot to do with how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people.

Few people make financial decisions purely with a spreadsheet. They make them at the dinner table, or in a company meeting. Places where personal history, your own unique view of the world, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives are scrambled together into a narrative that works for you.

Excerpt From: Morgan Housel. “The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness.”

“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 wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds, “Yes, but I have something he will never have … enough.”

The idea of having “enough” might look like conservatism, leaving opportunity and potential on the table. I don’t think that’s right. “Enough” is realizing that the opposite—an insatiable appetite for more—will push you to the point of regret.

Excerpt From: Morgan Housel. “The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness.”

Think of it like this, and one of the most powerful ways to increase your savings isn’t to raise your income. It’s to raise your humility.

Be nicer and less flashy. No one is impressed with your possessions as much as you are. You might think you want a fancy car or a nice watch. But what you probably want is respect and admiration. And you’re more likely to gain those things through kindness and humility than horsepower and chrome.

Go out of your way to find humility when things are going right and forgiveness/compassion when they go wrong. Because it’s never as good or as bad as it looks. The world is big and complex. Luck and risk are both real and hard to identify. Do so when judging both yourself and others

Less ego, more wealth. Saving money is the gap between your ego and your income, and wealth is what you don’t see. So wealth is created by suppressing what you could buy today in order to have more stuff or more options in the future. No matter how much you earn, you will never build wealth unless you can put a lid on how much fun you can have with your money right now, today

Excerpt From: Morgan Housel. “The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness.”

Jim Simons, head of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, has compounded money at 66% annually since 1988. No one comes close to this record. As we just saw, Buffett has compounded at roughly 22% annually, a third as much. Simons’ net worth, as I write, is $21 billion. He is—and I know how ridiculous this sounds given the numbers we’re dealing with—75% less rich than Buffett.

Why the difference, if Simons is such a better investor? Because Simons did not find his investment stride until he was 50 years old

Excerpt From: Morgan Housel. “The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness.”

Savings in the bank that earn 0% interest might actually generate an extraordinary return if they give you the flexibility to take a job with a lower salary but more purpose, or wait for investment opportunities that come when those without flexibility turn desperate.

If you have flexibility you can wait for good opportunities, both in your career and for your investments. You’ll have a better chance of being able to learn a new skill when it’s necessary. You’ll feel less urgency to chase competitors who can do things you can’t, and have more leeway to find your passion and your niche at your own pace. You can find a new routine, a slower pace, and think about life with a different set of assumptions. The ability to do those things when most others can’t is one of the few things that will set you apart in a world where intelligence is no longer a sustainable advantage

Excerpt From: Morgan Housel. “The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness.”

The idea is that you have to take risk to get ahead, but no risk that can wipe you out is ever worth taking. The odds are in your favor when playing Russian roulette. But the downside is not worth the potential upside. There is no margin of safety that can compensate for the risk.

Room for error does more than just widen the target around what you think might happen. It also helps protect you from things you’d never imagine, which can be the most troublesome events we face.

Excerpt From: Morgan Housel. “The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness.”