There's nothing new in the book 'The Psychology of Money'.

I was dissapointed when I put down 'The Psychology of Money' by Morgan Housel after I finished reading it. It didn't have anything new for me. I didn't learn much from this highly recommended financial help book. 

Now after my experience with the book, would I recommend this book to other people? Deninitely! with a little fine print, of course.

Let me set the stage, the book was published in October 2020, and I read it mid 2025. Also I have always loved reading bits and pieces on financial literacy and listened to podcasts and watch both long form and short videos on similar topics (althought I must point it out that I have never been able to apply any of the ideas in real life). So for me when I finished reading this book the information in there was barely new to me. I had heard and read of the same ideas over the past few years. 

I have nothing against the author or the content of this book in this book review of mine. I am not disagreeing with the author on anything. I actually liked the expepience of reading from the actual book than listening to bits and pieces of it on some podcast. I am only dissappointed in mysyelf for not having picked up this book earlier (like when it actually came out). 

When I finished the book, like I said earlier I was dissapointed. I felt like I wasted my time on a book that didn't teach me anything that I wasn't already familiar with. And I definitely didn't want to write a book review. But in the weeks that followed I kept thinking about how a book recommended by so many people could fail to teach me anything. And then one day I realized why that happened. 

When the book came out in 2020 I was in Samtse, two years into my job. I was barely surviving on my salary and didn't have any sort of saving to my name. This would have been the perfect time for me to pick up this book and learn about what the psychology of money is and how I could start saving. But instead I was running out of money by the second week of the month and hanging on to dear life, so to speak, until the next salary day. And also I did some back-check on my own social media accounts, I read one single book that year which took me two months to complete. I don't think I was listening to a lot of podcasts or watching Youtube videos on finance as well at that point of time because for one it was during covid and I was actively working on the frontlines as part of the surveillance team and number two I was a lot more carefree in terms of my finances. I mean I couldn't afford a lot or do much in anything but I was just glad that I was able to get through life. 

After that in 2021 I transferred to Paro, and was no longer a part of any surveillance team for covid and had a lot more time to myself. Again from my Instagram archive I found out that I read 15 books that year which is probably the first time I heard about this book while looking for book recommendations but I never picked it up. My commute to work was about 30 minutes plus drive so I started listening to audiobooks and also some podcasts here and there durng the long drive to work and back. I started watching a lot of youtube videos by then and also TikTok had become such a huge thing that I spent most of the time either reading books, listenting to podcasts, or watching videos on Youtube and TikTok and other social media platforms.

And that's when I started hearing more and more about 'The Psychology of Money' and now in hind-sight I was actually already learning about things and ideas that were actually mentioned in the book. I was already familiar with the story of the janitor who left about 8 million dollars in his will when he died to his stepkid and a local hospital.

I am at a point right now in the book review of mine where what ever I write is probably going do to others what all those podcasts and videos on the internet did to me; spoil the book for anyone who is reading my blog and also wants to read the book so I think it's better for me to wrap things up.

Like I said earlier, I would definitely recommend this book to other people to read but with fine prints. And here are my fine prints: 

1. You just landed your first job and have started earning.

2. You haven't listened to a lot of podcasts or watched a lot of videos on financial literacy because if you have you are probably already familiar with a lot of the ideas in the book. 

3. You haven't read the book already. I know some people like re-reading books but if you are someone like me who has read the book but still hasn't gotten the hang of saving and investing, this book takes you on a whole other guilt-trip.