Book Review: How to Survive Without a Salary

I read this book, How to Survive Without a Salary: Learning How to Live the Conserver Lifestyle, years ago and just last week read it again. I was once again impressed with its ability to really open my eyes and rethink old habits. It isn’t just another personal finance book, with suggestions about budgeting and cutting back. It is written by someone who is living what he calls “the conserver” lifestyle. And along with suggestions for cutting back and living on less, the author gives us a new way to look at problems.

The book won me over right from the start when it talks about how to value our time and why we can’t just compute the value of our time by calculating our hourly work rate. It also emphasizes the importance of skilling ourselves for just more than just one specialized task. There is an example of a gardener who fixes his own plumbing leak, and his neighbor the plumber who takes up gardening to save money. The usual calculations are performed to determine how much money each guy saves by doing himeself, versus his normal hourly rate. Although each could have made more money in his own trade, the author points out that we can’t work non-stop at our profession, earning our hourly rate. And more importantly, who would want to, anyway? As he states in the book, “…most humans are far too complex and clever to be satisfied with the exercise of a single task, a single skill, or a single career - to the exclusion of everything else.”

I always appreciate seeing a new perspective, a new way of thinking about problems, and in the chapter on “Needs”, the author gives us a new way of evaluating a problem. He emphasizes the importance of finding the real root of a need by asking the following questions:
1. What’s the problem?
2. Who needs it?
3. What would change the need?
4. How long will it last?
5. What are the alternatives?
6. What are the costs?

For example, you may think that you need a car to get to to work. What you really need is the transportation to get to work. This transportation my in fact be a car, but for some people who research and evaluate the need, it may become a form of public transportation, possibly even eliminating the need for a car. In one example, the author’s wife complains that they need to buy a dryer (they’d done without by employing a clothesline) because the childrens’ school clothes aren’t drying fast enough in the winter. The author re-frames the problem by stating that what they really need are sufficient clean dry clothes to get through the week. The ultimate solution is to purchase more clothing for each child, so that even if they clothes don’t dry quickly, they’ll have enough to get through a week. The purchase of the clothing in their case saves significantly over the purchase of a dryer.

There is a chapter devoted to “Casual Income”, addressing possibilities for freelance opportunities and casual employment. Most of us are so programmed to think in terms of full-time careers, that this section may be enlightening to someone who could survive on less income, but never considered “casual” income before. It is particularly well suited to someone who is nearing retirement but wants the security of some part-time income.

Many of the topics are those we’ve seen before when discussing personal finance: budgeting, assessing needs, getting out of debt, buying secondhand. But most of the topics are discussed in a different light than I’m used to seeing - very practical, down-to-earth talk with real-life examples. There is even an entire chapter devoted to buying at auctions.

If you like to read about personal finance, financial independence, and new ways of looking at our relationship with money, I think you will find this book valuable. It was one of the books I read during my quest for early retirement that helped shape my thinking about expenses and income and my overall relationship with money.

Other Articles you might enjoy:

• Book Review: How to Live Well Without Owning a Car
• Question Expenses Twice
• Defining Moments Part 2 - Stop the Impulse Buying
• When What you Really Want Costs More: Is the Price Ratio Worth It?

Tags: budgeting, Frugality, money management, saving, spending, thrift