Concept
Money operating system
A money operating system is a one-page summary of how your finances run: your number for enough, the automatic flow on payday, any debt plan, the investment rule with its crash sentence, and the cushion with its target. It is checked monthly and otherwise left alone; the Master Your Money Yol builds one.
Sethi's promise was a rich life that takes an hour a month; Housel's was that behaviour beats brilliance. The operating system is where they meet, and it has five lines. Enough: the monthly cost of a life that works and the yearly income beyond which you stop wanting more. The flow: which amounts leave on payday, to which accounts, for investing, savings and bills. The debt plan: the list, the order, the extra payment, until the last balance is zero. The investment rule: which fund, how much, on which day, and the written sentence about what you do in a crash. The cushion: months held and target. Every other money habit worth keeping (tracking, the real hourly wage, the spending plan, frugality, compounding) is a way of filling in one of those lines. The page exists so that the decisions survive next year. Its rule for change follows Housel's preference for the plan you can stick with: alter the system for reasons that come from your life (a new child, a new job, a new number for enough), never for reasons that come from a screen.
A real-life example
Deniz, an engineer in Izmir, has run her page for six months. It reads: enough 42,000 a month; on the fifteenth, 12 percent to the fund at the other bank and 6 percent to the cushion; no debt since March; the fund bought monthly, and in a crash, nothing; cushion at four months, target six. She reviews it on the first Sunday of the month with coffee. The account that was empty for four years is not empty.
How to use it
- 1Write the five lines tonight, by hand or in a note: enough, flow, debt, investment rule, cushion.
- 2Put the monthly review in the calendar as a repeating appointment.
- 3Change a line only for a reason from your life, and write the reason next to the change.