Sept. 24: The Art of Spending Money

September 24, 2026

Money is great, but you can’t let it run your life: The Art of Spending Money

In his latest, thought-provoking book, The Art of Spending Money: Simple Choices for a Richer Life, Morgan Housel begins by noting “it’s astounding to witness someone gain what they thought they always wanted only to realize that happiness is more complicated than they first assumed. And, my gosh, that is so true with money.”

His far-ranging analysis of money, and the good and bad effects that it can have on us, covers a lot of ground. He cites a 1907 book, The Quest of the Simple Life, by William Dawson, as noting that “those who were trying to get more money were actually held captive by it. They were so obsessed with wealth that it held control over their sanity, their relationships, their quality of life.”

Money – and the absence of it – can affect us in many ways. Housel cites the example of Tiffany Aliche, a pre-school teacher who “became a wildly successful educator.” She suggested she suffers from “post-traumatic broke syndrome,” a fear of spending her newfound wealth. “I was broke for so long, and it was so hard, that I’m afraid of going back there,” she states in the book.

At the other extreme, he continues, is the fear of saving.

Housel’s brother-in-law, a social worker, once tried “to convince a poor husband and wife about the value in saving even a small amount of money to avoid being evicted from their apartment the following month.”

The couple laughed the social worker off as a “future thinker.”

“You have the luxury of thinking about the future. We don’t. Our vision of the future is the next 24 hours. Sometimes it’s a five-minute window, like where we are going to get the next meal. That’s as far ahead as we think.”

He notes that our desire for more money “and the things it can buy often obscures what you actually want: respect and admiration from other people.” But, Housel continues, things like nicer cars and a bigger house rarely bring such respect and admiration.

Sure you’ll get attention – from strangers gawking at your car, perhaps – but it is not “durable” attention, Housel writes. Buying fancy stuff to impress people is “the junk food of respect and admiration,” and when you see it in that light your urge for showy purchases diminishes, he suggests.

“The higher my desire for fancy stuff, the less real value I have to offer for things that actually make me happy,” he writes. And the people whose admiration and respect he wants pay attention not to his stuff, but to “how I make them feel, how I treat them, and how helpful I can be.”

The goal, he writes, is happiness.

“True happiness is when you stop asking what else you need to be happy,” he explains. “You realize that the key to happiness is being content with what you have, and its antidote is focusing on what you don’t.”

He elaborates on that point.

“Most of what makes you happy in life has nothing to do with money and realizing that once you have money can be a painful admission.”

This wonderfully told book is peppered with great stories of money found and lost – such as the story of the Vanderbilt millions that were ultimately spent on vanity by inheritors and not sustained.

The testimonial stories speak to the need, Housel reminds us, to be in control of the money – and not the other way around. “If you’re satisfied with who you are, you naturally view money as a tool to be used to make things even better. That’s when you become wealthy,” he explains. But when you think money can “improve… your morals, your values, your personality, your friendships…. that’s when the money you have – or even just your ambitions for more – takes control of your life.”

He does spend some time talking about saving.

“Saving for the future creates independence today” he explains. If puts away $100, “I gain something today — $100 in independence. One hundred dollars in options and freedom to do anything I want in the future that costs $100.”

Saving up for future independence, he adds, is something that is OK to spend frivolously on!

Those who understand this know the value of what Housel calls “quiet compounding.”

“They just quietly saved and invested for decades. They never bragged, never flaunted, never compared themselves to others or worried whether their investments trailed their benchmark last year. Their entire financial universe was contained to the walls of their home, which allowed them to play their own game and be guided by nothing other than their own desires. That was their superpower.”

There is a lot more to this inspirational book than can be covered in a short review – it is highly recommended.

Saving for the future – and your future independence – is indeed a very worthy goal. And a tremendous savings partner in this effort is the Saskatchewan Pension Plan.

You provide the dollars to be invested – you can contribute any amount up to your registered retirement savings plan annual limit and can transfer in any amount from other RRSPs you may have. Once SPP receives your savings dollars, they are invested in our low-cost, professionally managed, diversified funds. The savings grow over time and when it is time to leave work behind, you have the options of receiving a monthly lifetime annuity payment or the flexibility of the Variable Benefit.

Check out SPP today!

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The Art of Spending Money

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