The 4-Hour Work Week

The title of this book sounds too good to be true but I found this for a few dollars at a thrift store and thought I would read what he has to say. It sounds so appealing and I wondered if he might have the answer to how I could work less and still earn enough to live on. It was published in 2007 when the author was around 30 years of age, so still young, but old enough hopefully to have had some life experience and gain some wisdom.

The longer I am away from my usual work role the more I want to try to earn money by not having to work so hard. I know I'll never earn as much as I can in my usual work role but for me it is not about earning a lot of money - it is about covering our living expenses, having an emergency fund and some savings. If we have this the that's all I need if I can spend my days doing what I want.

We have worked hard over the years to save money and pay off our student loans and mortgages as fast as we can. We have been cash strapped students for a number of years in our 20's and did try to limit the size of our student loans by working several part time jobs between us. We went without things like a car - walking everywhere, and we also had no home phone for two years - and this in the days before cell phones! We survived.

We had a budget and tried to stick to it as best we could, we avoided debt and as soon as we were earning an income we continued to live like we had as students to pay down our student loans and save for a house deposit. Now that we are in middle age we are in a comfortable position with our mortgage nearly cleared and no other debt with savings in the bank so I feel we can step back. My husband's diagnosis has made it even clearer to us that time is precious and it has made me question how I want to spend the rest of my life - knowing that he won't be around for a large part of that time.

I guess I am searching for some answers as to how I can earn a living without busting my gut. I will interested to see what he suggests and see how realistic he is...

19th Sept edit - I thought I would let you know what I thought of this book. I think the underlying premise and philosophy behind it was reasonable - aim to work less so you can spend your life doing more of what you want. However I think it was written by a young man with no apparent relationship responsibilities (spouse or children) so he was free to go where he chose and take risk where he wanted. I suspect he came from a privileged background also as he attended Princeton University. I also felt it to be a very Western take on becoming rich - taking advantage of people from poorer nations to do menial tasks for him as he outsourced the "chores" in his life. He did have some good ideas like checking emails only once a day and his idea that working long hours was not a good way to live are commendable principles. However I didn't like his approach to achieve this and his goal seemed to be to make excessive money rather than find job satisfaction to earn enough to live on. Overall I didn't come away feeling he gave any useful suggestions for someone who is not otherwise young, single, privileged (and dare I say it..) white and male. I don't think I will be using this book as a guide for my life journey moving forward.