It gives you permission to deviate from the exact steps found in the YMOYL book (it’s a follow-up to Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez’s Your Money or Your Life). To see the different stories in the book is motivating, helps you put your own into perspective. For example, I have no idea how many years until I can be Financially Independent, but I know it’s not four, or six like the authors. Several other people in the book, though, were looking at FI 10, 15 years out, but were still working towards it. I liked that. Plus, there were some good tips for frugality.

I felt Affluenza would be a really good book for someone just becoming interested in voluntary simplicity. It gives a good overview of what’s wrong with our current system, but since I’d read several other books, I’d heard that part before. What’d be great for a newbie is that it fires you up and gives you some good resources in the “treatment” portion of the book. Highly recommend it!