Book Review — “The Art of Spending Money” by Morgan Housel

When Morgan Housel writes about money, you listen. In The Art of Spending Money: Simple Choices for a Richer Life, released in October 2025, the Psychology of Money author returns with another masterpiece on what money really means when the noise fades and the numbers stop moving.

The book opens with a story that sums up its heart. A woman undergoes LASIK surgery, hoping that clearer eyes will make her more attractive and intelligent in the eyes of others. The surgery works, but her life doesn’t change. Her husband isn’t more loving. Her colleagues aren’t more respectful. Her unhappiness, it turns out, wasn’t about sight at all. “You have a problem I can’t help you with,” her doctor tells her. It’s the same with money. We think we’re chasing freedom or joy, but often we’re chasing validation.

Housel’s central claim is deceptively simple: money is not math; it’s emotion. He insists that “spending money is more art than science,” because it’s often shaped by the silent comparison game we play with others. Anyone who knows Housel knows he writes with the clarity of a psychologist and the rhythm of a storyteller, little wonder Steven Bartlett says he is his favourite storyteller.

Is it the story of the Vandervilt family and their inheritance, or the one about how luck and persistence catapulted…