BOOK REVIEW: THE ART OF SPENDING MONEY: Simple Choices for a Richer Life by Morgan Housel (2025)
Book Reviewed by Patrick Blair on December 28, 2025
First Impression Versus Lasting Impression: I expected more of a how-to, practical book using healthy psychological backing for motivation to spend well. However, the book is more conceptual in nature and advocates a “do what makes sense for you” type of philosophy. This non-judgmental perspective allows for creative, brainstorming type thinking, but may lack the guardrails that some might desire.
The Book in a Word: INTROSPECTIVE.
Summary: The author, Morgan Housel, wrote The Psychology of Money, a book focused on how to make money using psychological insights. The Art of Spending Money is a follow-up book that covers the much less discussed topic. It provides many interesting concepts, warnings, and suggestions on how to use money to enhance your life.
What I Liked the Most: The book topic is very underserved and deserves more airtime. I also appreciate the psychological, subjective perspective, which is a little unusual for a book about money. Although this is not a biblically based book, I felt spiritually challenged by many of the concepts presented. Also, there are many great author quotes and cited quotes.
What I liked the least: The book promotes the idea that you should not let others (or society) tell you how to spend, but to focus on what specifically matters to you on a deeper level. However, the author pre-supposes that everyone’s goal is to make themselves happy, which is partially incorrect for Christians. Also, the author gives allowance for people to spend heavily on things for themselves to compensate for their past traumas (i.e., it makes sense for them, so who are you to say otherwise).
Recommended for: those who are over 30 and interested in psychology. The more money someone has, the more useful and interesting this book might be for that person.
Not Recommended for: those who want a practical or moral framework on how to spend money. To be fair, the book does in passing mention people’s choice of faith as subjectively important and worth spending on. Moreover, some of the concepts presented can be viewed as spiritually challenging.
Faith-finances.com Website Categories Covered: Personal Finance and Lifestyles
Reading Level: Basic … Intermediate … Advanced … Scholarly.
Interesting Concept: “Try Something New” starting on page 159. Housel recommends we experiment by spending money on all sorts of things to see what makes us happy (but quickly abandoning the expenditures if it doesn’t work for us). See page 162. The idea is that many of us don’t really know what might make us happy and should experiment with it. If something works for us, we should spend more on that thing and spend less on other things that don’t make us happy.
Great Quotes: “The goal is to be able to live the life you want and have money serve you. … Money should always be a tool to leverage who you are, not a goal in itself” (p. 156). “Money is so tangible that it’s an easy goal to strive for, and pursuing it can become the path of least resistance for those who haven’t discovered what truly feeds their soul.” (p.xvii). “Happiness is complicated, … you realize how limited money’s role can be. It’s not that it has no role, just smaller that you may have assumed.” (p.41). Also, on page 171, Money & Kids is a good chapter.
Spiritual Content: Limited. There are some common psychological pitfalls that the author details that could be seen as spiritual (I did in some cases).
Book Citation: Housel, Morgan. The Art of Spending Money: Simple Choices for a Richer Life. New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin, 2025.
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