Money as Life Energy: A New Way to See Your Spending
There’s a concept from the book Your Money or Your Life that has stuck with me for years: money isn’t just money…it’s your life energy.
Think about that for a moment. Every dollar you earn represents time, energy, focus, and effort that you gave to something. And every dollar you spend is that life energy being exchanged for something else.
When we start to see money through this lens, it naturally shifts the way we spend, save, and invest. It invites us to slow down, get intentional, and ask: is this how I want to spend my life energy?
What does it really mean to think of money as life energy?
It’s simple but profound:
You trade hours of your life for money.
When you spend money, you’re spending those hours — the effort, the stress, the late nights, the focus.
Is what you’re buying worth the time it took to earn that money?
This perspective isn’t about restricting joy, it’s about aligning your spending with what truly matters to you.
How to shift into this mindset:
1. Calculate your true hourly wage
Not just your salary divided by hours — factor in commuting, work-related expenses, and decompression time. What’s your actual hourly wage after taxes and costs?
2. Pause before spending
Ask yourself:
How many hours of my life energy am I trading for this?
Will this purchase make my life better, easier, more joyful, or more aligned?
3. Audit your spending through this lens
Look back at your last month of spending and translate it into life energy. How does that feel? Are there patterns you’d like to shift?
The benefits of seeing money this way:
Intentional spending: Less impulse, more purpose.
Reduced clutter: You’ll naturally buy less of what doesn’t serve you.
More freedom: When you spend less on things that don’t matter, you free up energy for what does.
Less guilt: Purchases aligned with your values feel good. The ones that don’t, start to fall away.
Mindset practices to help:
Mindful wealth rituals: Check in weekly or monthly to review your spending, goals, and intentions.
Journaling prompts:
What am I currently spending money on that no longer aligns with who I want to be?
What purchases light me up and feel truly worth my life energy?
Visualization: Picture the version of you who uses money as a tool to build the life you love. What does that life look like? How do they spend, save, and invest?
Additional Resources
Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin & Joe Dominguez — a powerful read to reframe your financial life.
Our free downloadable Personal Finance Tracker to help you stay aligned and intentional.
Join our Money & Mindfulness group program, where we dive deep into money mindset, intentional spending, and building financial habits that feel good.
In the end…
Your life energy is precious.
Your money is precious.
The more we slow down, become mindful, and make choices that reflect what matters to us, the more peaceful and fulfilled we feel — financially and otherwise.
It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you can always start today. One intentional decision at a time.