Mastering the Art of Spending Money - Morgan Housel - #1055

Modern Wisdom

Chris Williamson

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness

4.6 • 5.9K Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2026

⏱️ 121 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Morgan Housel is a partner at The Collaborative Fund, an investor and an author. Why is spending money well a skill most people never learn? In a world obsessed with saving, why does saying “it’s okay to spend” still feel taboo? What can high performers teach us about investing not just money, but time, energy, and attention wisely? Expect to learn why it’s important to talk about how to spend money well when learning about personal finance, why good financial ideas struggle to spread while bad ones travel effortlessly, what Morgan’s definition of success is, how much modern dissatisfaction comes from comparing ourselves to people we don’t actually want to be like, the real relationship between money and happiness with nuance, why it’s so hard to find people who have managed to be wealthy, successful, happy and peaceful, and much more… Timestamps: (0:00) What Your Spending Habits Say About You (6:28) Will a Big House Make You Happy? (10:22) The Surprising Truth About Money and Happiness (21:35) Is Wealth Actually Measurable? (28:11) Why We’re So Hard On Ourselves About Money (34:01) The Relationship Between Money and Status (39:59) Can You Train Yourself to Feel Financially Content? (49:46) What Really Makes People Happy? (54:13) Is Inheritance a Hidden Burden? (01:04:59) The Smartest (and Dumbest) Ways to Spend Your Money (01:12:03) The Transformative Power of Storytelling (01:24:51) Why Anger Makes You Feel Superior (01:32:29) Do Men and Women Build Wealth Differently? (01:37:28) The Biggest Money Mistakes Parents Make (01:42:49) How the Housing Crisis Shaped a Generation (01:52:25) Why People Are Afraid to Spend Money (01:59:34) Where to Find Morgan Sponsors: Get my free Valentine’s Review with 75 intimate questions to ask your partner: ⁠https://chriswillx.com/valentines⁠ See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: ⁠https://chriswillx.com/deals⁠ Get a Free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get up to $350 off the Pod 5 at https://eightsleep.com/modernwisdom Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom New pricing since recording: Function is now just $365, plus get $25 off at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: ⁠https://chriswillx.com/books⁠ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: ⁠https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom⁠ Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Goggins⁠⁠⁠ #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Peterson⁠⁠⁠ #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Huberm - Get In Touch: Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx⁠ Twitter: ⁠https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx⁠ YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast⁠ Email: ⁠https://chriswillx.com/contact⁠ - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Valentine's Day is coming up and whether you want to more deeply connect with your partner or work out whether or not you should break up.
0:06.2	I've got the fix for you. I have put together a list of 50 of the most viral and science-backed ways to connect with your partner more deeply and 25 questions that will help you work out whether or not you should break up.
0:17.3	And they're all available right now at the Modern Wisdom Valentine's Review. And it is completely free. You can get it by going to chriswillex.com slash valentines.
0:24.8	That's chriswillx.com slash valentines.
0:29.2	You are my favorite writer. Thank you.
0:31.7	You have the most insights per word of anybody that's writing stuff at the moment.
0:37.3	Well, thanks.
0:37.7	That means a lot to me.
0:38.7	Thank you.
0:39.2	You could have chosen to write about anything.
0:41.9	Why choose to write about spending money?
0:44.9	Well, I'll take it back to the start of my career, which was like a lot of young men,
0:49.6	particularly in the mid-2000s.
0:52.7	The ultimate goal, before tech really existed, the ultimate goal was
0:56.7	be an investment banker on Wall Street. And it's hard to remember that era, because now if you're a
1:00.8	young person at Stanford or whatever, your goal is like, go work at Google, go work at OpenAI.
1:06.2	Back then, it was all go work at Goldman Sachs. And so what my my sole kind of life aspiration when I was
1:12.7	20 was to be an investment banker or a hedge fund manager. And I knew I loved investing. Even at that
1:18.3	age, I used to go to Barnes & Noble and read investing books. And I loved it to begin with. I just,
1:23.4	I was fascinated with money. And then I haphazardly got a job as a writer because I graduated in 2008. The economy was a wreck and nobody was hiring. No banks were hiring. And so the only finance job that I could find was as a writer for The Motley Fool. Didn't want to be a writer, hated writing, was embarrassed that I had dreams to be a powerful investment banker. Now I was a journalist.
1:45.4	I was like, I hated that. But I actually like pretty quickly fell in love with it. And what I loved
1:50.1	about it was I loved being an outsider who was not being influenced by the incentives of that career.
	...

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