I loved YMOYL and hoped this book would be as good. While I did learn a few things, I wished they had spent more time talking about others and less time talking about themselves. They were typical rich yuppie types with more money and stuff than they knew what to do with. The poor things have $9,000 a year in IRA interest alone besides the number of other investments they had. Not to knock having money, but I'm a starving artist type that had never bought into the yuppie dream. I would have liked to maybe hear about someone like me or more about people with lots of debts that need ways to get out from under them. (thankfully, I have no debts). :) It just seemed like they needed two books, one for the yuppies with lots of money, who suddenly become socially aware and want to divest themselves of their things, and one book for people who are naturally frugal, or poor, or in debt. If you're in the last category, this book won't appeal to you as much.

After I read this, I was left with a pretty sour taste. A lot of the book is taken up with "See how rich and extravagant we were, and now we're on the YMML program and see how wonderful we are", definitely not the kind of story I want to read if I'm stuck in debt trying to get out.

If you are interested in simple living, this book is a must (together with its companion volume, "Your Money Or Your Life"). It gives the personal and human side of the process of breaking away from the high-paced consumer culture. Interviews with others going through the process show how many different paths people are taking. At first I thought a quick skim through this book would be enough, but I've found myself coming back to it again and again in the last two years. The few negative reviews below don't seem to have much to do with the book, which is pleasant and unpretentious.

Should be subtitled, "How Two Seattle Yuppies Retired Early on 3.5K a Month". This book contains some helpful info, but I was hoping to see someone with a negative net worth pay off their debts and become FI. What I got was the story of a couple of yuppies saying, "Whoa, were worth a bundle and if we refuse to pay for our kids' college we can retire early". Not too impressive to me. I would not read this book if I were looking for material on voluntary simplicity. Why does Vicki Robin endorse this book?

We read Duane Elgins excellent book Voluntary Simplicity decades ago, and would simply caution that this book Getting A :Life will probably appeal to those who have lots of money and really do not have to worry about making ends meet. For those who are on some type of a fixed income. or those with middle class incomes in a precarious economy it doesn't have much useful information. And I agree with those reviews that note the "yuppy" element.

We run a small simple living group in the Sierras, that is like the ones we ran in Alameda and San Joaquin counties here in California. So we are not new to the live simply and get out of debt ideas. And I note that there is a big difference between spoiled brats needing to learn what is really important in life and those who know what is important in life and want to know even more about how to simplify their lives.

The Intenet be it google searches or Yahoo groups has a whole lot more free information that is useful than this book. Amazon[.com]offers a whole lot more books on the subject that I would recommend.

After reading Your Money or Your Life by the late Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, Getting a Life: Strategies for Simple Living Based on the Revolutionary Program for Financial Freedom Your Money or Your Life seemed to be a natural progression.

This book *does* offer some very helpful examples of individuals who used the advice in Your Money or Your Life. However, after reading the original book, I was somewhat disappointed by these authors' inconsistent choices in areas of voluntary simplicity. For example, they talk about how they cut their food bill down to just ($) a month for two people, and I know many couples who are into voluntary simplicity who can easily spend much less than that in a month. They also mention that they kept Call Waiting because they only have one phone line, which made me think, What did people do in the past with only one phone line when people were trying to call them? It just seemed inconsistent with some of the other advice they give in the book. Another annoyance was their example of a family who decided to go without health insurance, and just put money away in savings every month in the event of health expenses down the road. This would seem to me false economy. What would happen to this family if after saving a few thousand dollars they were hit with a serious accident or illness? Such an event could easily wipe out all of their savings.

In spite of the inconsistencies, this book does offer some good advice as well as list plenty of helpful resources for anyone interested in voluntary simplicity. The epilogue does a follow-up of the individuals listed throughout the book and tells you where they're at now in their lives. The epilogue is followed by a section of resources listing foundations, books, newsletters, organizations and other helpful resources for those interested in voluntary simplicity and financial independence.