Financial Freedom: A Proven Path to All the Money You W… (2024)

Sabatier covers all the basics. Still, quite a conservative book focusing on stocks with a small chapter on real estate. His plan will only work with a high salary. The highlights were the section on side hustles and on hacking real estate. However, with a very American-centric view - especially of taxes - and no mention of P2P investing options, how to make it without a large salary, or the myriad other ways to fund an early retirement (international teaching in my case) I could only give three stars. Worthwhile for individuals with a high salary looking to escape the rat race. Possibly not for those who are on middle to lower class salaries.

He started investing in 2010, probably one of the lowest points, so of course he made money. Just seems he failed to acknowledge luck and timing played a huge role in his current success. Let’s see how things pan out as he gets older...

Are there good things in this book? Yes. I like the concept of financial freedom, and also think the idea of saving now is very important. If you're looking for some inspiration to keep hustling, this book is great. But I really don't buy into the numbers being thrown around. For one, the author can't help but fall into the "look how much a cup of coffee could be worth" which doesn't take into account or acknowledge that inflation makes everything else more expensive too. Clearly, his all-in investment strategy has worked great, but though he acknowledges the change in the markets helping him out I don't think he fully considers how that has shaped his finances. The chapter on real estate seems like terrible advice. I don't want to discount this book entirely because there are legitimately good ideas and strategies within it. Still, the advice is sometimes questionable (invest in undervalued stocks like Buffet, as if that's something anyone can do) and there's no advice or thoughts on how things would play out if things went crashing down.

Is it worth a read? Maybe. But do yourself a favor and pick up Helaine Olen's Pound Foolish first so you can cancel out all the financial white noise in this book.

Main take aways
-Max out your employer's 401k match contribution
-You should be investing about 25% or more of your annual income
-Compound interest is a wonder of the world
-Money sitting in your bank savings account will depreciate in value due to inflation. Have an emergency fund and invest the rest
-Understand that you don't need to work until your 65 if you invest, you can live off compound interest
-Learn a side hustle

Overall I appreciated this book for giving me a new mindset of how I feel about money. That it's nice to set and forget, but if it's the thing I in many ways get up in the morning for I should be more intiment with how I manage it. Some really good insights and some ones I won't take away. But overall I generally enjoyed it. Plan on getting YNAB, realigning my 401k, and opening an IRA.

Tác giả hướng dẫn các bước cần thực hiện để đạt được tự do tài chính (nghĩa là sống thoải mái mà hem cần đi làm). Theo mình thì cũng ko thực tế lắm :> ở Việt Nam thì hem thể áp dụng mấy cách này được. Với lại mình cảm giác chỉ có mấy người lương cao sẵn mới có thể đầu tư và để dành như cách mà tác giả đã làm và hướng dẫn. Nghĩa là bản chất người đó phải là người có khả năng kiếm nhiều tiền sẵn rùi, lương cao sẵn rùi. Mình hiểu đầu tư là cách để bảo vệ tiền/tài sản của mình ko bị mất giá do lạm phát. Nhưng mà vấn đề là lương tháng bèo bọt quá thì lấy đâu ra nhìu để đầu tư í, để dành quỹ khẩn cấp cũng ko dc bao nhiêu.
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Nhưng mà cũng tùy khái niệm "tự do tài chính" đối với mỗi người là gì nữa. Không nhất thiết phải ăn chơi không mới là tự do. Tùy vào con số mà mỗi người đặt ra cho bản thân thui, nên mấy cách này ở một mức độ nào đó vẫn có ích, điều chỉnh lại theo hoàn cảnh sống và môi trường ở VN thui. Ví dụ như mấy tips đầu tư thì chưa chắc xài được, nhưng mà những tips để tiết kiệm và tiêu dùng thông minh thì hoàn toàn hữu ích. Quan trọng là đừng để cảm xúc chi phối khi tiêu tiền nè. Trước khi mua cái j thì dừng lại suy nghĩ coi giá trị của cái này có đáng với sự thỏa mãn nó mang lại cho mình ko? Rồi lương thực tế theo giờ làm việc của mình là nhiu? Để mua dc cái này mình tốn bnhiu thời gian làm việc? Kiểu vậy.. Nói chung mình hoàn toàn đồng ý với những j tác giả khuyên ở phần này, phần lớn những j chúng ta mua là vì chứng ta thấy NGƯỜI XUNG QUANH cũng mua, chứ ko phải vì chúng ta thực sự cần. Nếu mình chỉ mua những j mình cần hoặc những j mang lại niềm thỏa mãn thực sự cho mình, thì số tiền mình chi tiêu sẽ ÍT HƠN ĐÁNG KỂ, kiểu mình không cần nhiều tiền như mình nghĩ, cuộc sống ko quá đắt đỏ như mình nghĩ, khi mình tiêu tiền lý trí hơn.
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Một điều nữa mình thích về quyển sách là phần đầu tác giả dẫn dắt rất hay về lý do vì sao mỗi người đều nên hướng tới tự do tài chính càng sớm càng tốt. Tác giả kể câu chuyện về chính cuộc đời ổng hồi 24 tuổi (bằng tuổi mình lun). Đi làm vài năm, ngồi trong một góc văn phòng tù túng, ngày nào cũng như ngày nào, đến cuối tuần thì đi chơi xả láng tiêu sài thoải mái số tiền kiếm dc để bù lại cho những giờ làm việc chán chường. Xong vòng lặp đó cứ lặp lại cho tới khi ổng thất nghiệp và trong tài khoản còn đâu chừng mấy đô, ko tiết kiệm dc đồng nào, gia tài ko có 1 chút j, giống như chưa hề đi làm một ngày nào luôn! Mà đấy là ổng tốt nghiệp một trường đại học danh tiếng và ra có công việc liền, mà đến năm 24 tuổi nhìn lại thấy cuộc đời cũng chả ra sao. Tác giả nhận ra nếu ổng cứ tiếp tục làm việc và tiêu xài kiểu này thì ổng có làm đến 70 tuổi cũng ko nghỉ hưu nổi :((
Vậy nên ổng mới quyết tâm đạt dc con số 1 triệu USD để dc tự do làm điều mình muốn, ko cần phải suốt ngày quanh quẩn trong vòng xoáy kiếm tiền và thiếu tiền nữa!
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Câu chuyện mở đầu của tác giả rất giống với tâm lý của nhiều người. Một khi tiền không còn là vấn đề sống còn nữa thì người ta dc tự do sống theo ý họ muốn, càng tự do sớm thì càng tốt vì còn trẻ thì mới có thời gian và sức lực để làm này làm kia. Chứ lớn tuổi rồi nhiều khi còn chẳng nhớ ước mơ của mình là gì nữa. Nhưng mà ko phải ko có sự đánh đổi. Các bước mà tác giả hướng dẫn, nếu mà làm theo thì thực sự càng có một nghị lực và một sức lực phi thường cả về thể chất lẫn tinh thần @@ Đồng ý là có vài người có thể theo dc nhưng phần lớn chắc là ko. Vừa có 1 công việc full time, vừa có 1 công việc tay trái, vừa có 1 dự án cá nhân :D (dự án cá nhân có thể gộp lại thành công việc tay trái nếu nó kiếm ra tiền, nhưng mình nghĩ là ko dễ như vậy@@) Với 1 cái nữa là dòng thu nhập thụ động, cái này cũng tốn ko ít công sức bỏ ra. Nói chung ai làm được những điều này thì vô cùng xứng đáng trở nên giàu có :v mà mình nghe tác giả liệt kê mình thấy kiểu như chỉ có làm quần quật cả ngày chứ ko có thời gian ngủ nữa í @@ chắc mình làm ko nổi.
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الكتاب مكتوب بالطريقة الأمريكية التي تميل للاسهاب و التكرار لجعل الكتاب في اكبر حجم ممكن بغض النظر عن الفائدة الحقيقة لطول الكتاب، كما أن الكتاب موجه بالكامل للمواطن الأمريكي و اغلب نصائحه غير قابلة للتطبيق خارج الولايات المتحدة وبالتحديد في مصر خصوصا في ظل هذه الفترة العصيبة التي يمر بها الاقتصاد الآن.

Absolutely loved this book and have already recommended it to several friends. Even if your goal isnt financial freedom in the shortest time possible, the alternative approach to money in this book is inspiring!

This book was good, but I really liked the advice on side hustles (having various income streams).

Мөнгө = Эрх Чөлөө
Манайхан нэг бол мөнгийг үзэн яддаг, нэг бол мөнгөний л хойноос хөөцөлддөг 2 туйл руу хэт хэлбийдэг нь гачлантай. Ингэснээрээ өөрсдийгөө мөнгөний боол болгочих гээд байдаг. Угтаа бол мөнгийг эрх чөлөөнд хүргэх гарц болгож ашиглах хэрэгтэй. Үүний тулд "мөнгө хийж" сурах хэрэгтэй! (Чи мөнгө "хийхгүй" бол мөнгө чамайг "хийнэ"!)

Энэ номонд "яаж баяжих вэ?" нтр гэсэн хөгийн юм байхгүй. Харин өөрт байгаа боломжуудыг яаж ашиглавал хамгийн богино хугацаанд санхүүгийн эрх чөлөөнд хүрч болох талаар л бий. Яаж ийж байгаад орлогоо ихэсгэ, дэмий юманд мөнгө битгий үр, цуглуулсан мөнгөөрөө зөв газар хөрөнгө оруулалт хий, ажлынхаа хажуугаар хөнгөхөн хаасл хий, юм сур! гэх мэт.

Энд санхүүгийн эрх чөлөө гэж ажил хийлгүйгээр өөртөө хангалуун амьдрах боломжийг хэлж байгаа юм.

Манай Монголчууд энэ номны эхний хагасыг заавал уншваас зохилтой!

It's the first book I've ever read about personal finance and it was mostly great. It's filled with down-to-earth suggestions that you can start putting into practice from right now. But if you're not living in the US, the last part of the book is totally non-relevant. So I think it's ok to skim that part.

The key take-aways are:
- Hustle hard! Try to earn as much as money you can. Try to negotiate a raise in your full-time job. Do side-hustles with the skills you already have. Learn something that you can turn into side-hustle. Skill is the currency of the future! Create a passive income source with the skills you acquired.
- Invest hard! Invest in stock funds, bonds, and real estate. Every dollar you put into your savings/investments today will buy you months of freedom in 30 years!
- Think hard before spending your money! Every penny you spend today takes away hundreds of dollars from your future savings! So think twice before spending your money on useless sh*ts
- Chill hard! Always remember Life > Money. So don't sacrifice your family or your health for money! You have to chill hard as you hustle hard!

Have you ever looked up at the heavens and said “if I just had a book that told me everything about work, money and starting a small business I’d be set for life!”

Well, the answer to your cry for help is Grant Sabatier’s new book “Financial Freedom.”

Going from broke young professional to millionaire in five years, the ‘secret’ to Grant’s success started with a fundamental truth: you can’t master money if you don’t understand it well.

And this is where Financial Freedom begins. Not with how to make a ton of money and retire by 35 with millions in the bank, but with a basic (but comprehensive) grasp of money and investing.

The book then details seven core areas to understand and build your plan to accelerate your saving and earning power and ultimately reach your “magic number” where you never have to work in a stale office again surrounded by people you may or may not like that much. However, while you are still in your day job, Grant provides many great ways to maximize your time and finances while working for someone else.

Filled with detailed charts, examples and personal anecdotes, if you take the time to dig into Financial Freedom to understand and implement many of Grant’s tips and models, most readers will find the road to financial independence a less mysterious and arduous one.

Great book. Necessary for everyone. Wished I learned the truths years ago.

Shows the nuts and bolts of financial freedom. I enjoyed this book because it explains what is happening in our lives in the past 17 years of marriage.

Shows how a young person can become financial free at 35 years of age. With $1,000,000 in investments and living on 3% a year it will yield $30,000 yearly income plus grow to several million dollars at retirement age.

Financial freedom allows one to live life and serve God and pursue life’s passions without using the excuse, “I wish I could but I can’t afford to!”

This book has a lot of interesting anecdotes but there are also a lot of boring fillers. If you constantly read about financial freedom and early retirement then there isn’t much in this book for you. There is almost an entire chapter on the benefits of dog walking and while I like dogs, those parts are extremely childish and short sighted. Those parts sound like a shallow blog post gone long. Overall it is a decent book but the delivery could be improved. I enjoyed his research on investing the most.

Financial Freedom gets advice on acquired significant wealth based on the author's experience and strategies. He explains how to determine your current financial situation and set goals as well as techniques to achieve those goals. The is loaded with charts and tables. This was a free review copy through Goodreads.com.

This was just the right time for me to read this book. Quite a few good tips and ideas for me to think over.

I read a lot. Because of that I'm willing to take chances on books. I'd say 1 out of 25 personal finance books are good. Maybe 1 in 10 productivity. This book is just like the 24/25. Over simplifies stuff, full of charts and graphs ( I never even look at tables etc, the text always makes the point)
Plus I literally believe he pulled some of these anecdotes out of his ass.
He did not sell a website template for a few hundred and then sell it a couple months later for some huge number, I can't remember either 50k or 500k. Didn't happen.
Also I call bullsh*t on the dog walker making 200k in Chicago by hiring folks to do the walking. Just play with the math, it's not happening.
Anyway hard pass, another full of sh*t PF book.

Borrowing money is a terrible path to wealth. A lot of this is great but when they discuss borrowing money they have weird take on it. The book talked about how if you borrow money it is better than using your own money for rental properties, but they forgot to discuss the monthly cost to having that loan.
I can not recommend this book.

I felt there was very little to do with "millennial" anything in this book. A lot of it was restating what other, more famous books already said, and the rest was becoming a salesman. He didn't even tell his whole story, which is very confusing because the cover talks about him going from $2 to FI in 5 years.

Verbose stuff, Cliche statements, useful in bits and pieces.

This book was a gift to me from my mom (thanks mom) on my 24th birthday. The only reason I trusted this book is because she recommended it. She’s worked in finance for 25 years and is a CFA charter holder, and she insisted I start here with my personal finance education. Books about personal finance tend to give advice that sounds too good to be true. The information can be exaggerated at best and a total scam at worst. Therefore I avoid the material and just stockpile my savings in a basic account that I barely ever look at. Investing is too complicated and scary to think about, so I thought I would just put it off until I’m in my mid 30s or so. This book taught me that I need to start investing, as much as I can, and as soon as possible. I highly recommend it to anyone who doesn’t exactly dream of working in an office until their mid sixties, but especially younger people fresh out of college or just a couple of years into the workforce. It has great advice about why and how you should be investing, and doesn’t contain the annoyingly common and unrealistic recommendations to never spend any money and work yourself into the ground on multiple side hustles until you reach your goals. Sure, if you never go to a restaurant again, live on a couch in a friend’s basem*nt, and work 100 hours a week, you’ll probably be able to retire in less than ten years. But what kind of awful life is that?

One caveat is that most of the author’s advice assumes that you are employed by a corporation that offers benefits and you make over $50,000 per year. He also skims over the fact that, although he was in fact able to retire just a few years after starting to follow this advice, he also got extremely lucky in many cases (started investing in the market in 2010 when it was extremely low, bought 800 shares of Facebook’s IPO, etc.). The advice is still great and contains a lot of information that people need to know to have basic financial literacy, but the message “I did it easily so you can too” isn’t exactly accurate.

Several really good chapters in here I had to take nots on, and I definitely learned a couple new things, but a lot of it was pretty much the standard fare. Still a very easy and comprehensive read.

Financial Freedom is one of those books which is written with a very narrow perspective for a very small group of people thus it fails to resonate with ordinary people like me. Keeping my personal biases aside, the trashy parts of the book outweighed all the good parts that I read thus the poor rating.

Let me elaborate on the parts which I don't agree to and why. Grant himself runs a business and he wants other people to do that too. In the book he goes on to belittle people who do jobs and makes doing a job look like a sin. Like shut up, Grant! He is either ignorant or he intentionally trash-talked about jobs. More than any of the former points, I think he wrote this book according to his past experiences thus his bias against jobs is clearly reflected in the book. He had to give financial advice but instead chose on to rant about his bad experiences with his job.

Other than this, the book has some charts that showcase the wealth that you will accumulate by investing x amount a month with x% yearly growth rate. Along with this he also advises one to cut down on wants such as Starbucks coffee and other things of that sort and voila you will have $1000 saved within a month. I mean not alot of people have a $1000 to spend on coffee in a year let alone a month.

As for the charts in the book, he is thinking rationally and is assuming that people will be able to contribute the x amount each month like a robot which is rarely the case in real life. Life happens and then in a blink of an eye you have to use the invested money somewhere else or maybe you are not able to contribute that much of an amount that you could in the initial months. He needs to understand the psychology of money.

Grant makes side hustles look more than easy in his book. Before proceeding forward, let me add that I will always stand against side hustles; for the most part they don't yield you anything. Side hustles are unpaid, rough work you need to do in the name of hard work and pursuing that American dream.

After years of trying to balance side hustles and my job altogether, now I only focus on my job and have ceased all forms of side hustles that I did in the past. Most of the side hustles require you to put in alot of work and the monetary returns are meagre compared to your job. These sh*tty personal finance authors won't tell you this because they feed the readers with what the reader wants to read, not what the reader should actually be reading.

Needless to say, this is the worst book (until now) that I have read in my whole life. Calling it the worst book seems like an understatement. I regret buying this book and you will too. Save yourself some bucks and go get a fiction book; it will be much more of a delightful read.

I think I would have enjoyed this book more if I had read it rather than listening to the audiobook. This book gets into some seriously nitty-gritty territory (which I think is good), and a lot of the time Sabatier is talking about amounts of money that kind of made me laugh (like, LOL, in my dreams). So, this book definitely makes more sense if you're a high earner. Nonetheless, as a non-high-earner, the fact that he presents the topic in such granular and specific terms is actually really encouraging. Throughout the book he emphasizes that your mindset is just as important as the amount of money you're dealing with. If you don't have the mindset that each dollar you save/invest brings you one step closer to retirement, then you probably won't save as aggressively. And that mindset is the foundation for, and motivation behind, all of the strategies presented here.

This book would be especially useful to anyone trying to navigate a side-hustle (I felt somewhat inspired myself...) since there's basically an entire section on side-hustling.

The parts about real estate hacking were interesting but I felt exhausted just listening to it. More power to you if you have the energy for that.

Overall, an ok book with specifics about making/managing money, saving, investing, and building the life you want. I think Sabatier's general mindset and recommendations about automating, but also manually managing your money to some extent, are useful for maximizing your saving potential. I liked the section at the end with his recommendations for periodically "checking in" with your money and your goals.

I was really looking forward to reading this book, but now when I finished I have very mixed feelings.
What I like:
* Approach to the number needed for retirement. This is brilliant point I never read before
What I didn't like:
* The author was extremely lucky with the stock market so far. The path he suggests wouldn't withstand any more or less serious recession. If you have medium-high risk aversion, this strategy is not enough to sleep good
* Real estate approach is very speculative as well. There is another part of the story of using bank leverage: just tap on developers story during 2008 crisis, when banks call their commercial loans back...
* Overall it's not a comprehensive system, rather than disintegrated thoughts here and there. You can find something interesting for you, but it's not
* The book and the approach is very redundant. It's possible to track much less data points with the same outcome

Long book... Long story short save more, make more, be frugal, invest more. Let things compound, withdraw less than the AVG return of your investments minus inflation, never touch the principal. Calculate your monthly expenditure, make sure to cover it with your returns asap.

I read this book because a friend of mine recommended this to me.

After all, it is a good read if you're at the beginning of your journey.

There was some good basic finance information in this book, but I felt like a lot of his tips were ridiculous. Such as "live rent free by jumping from house-sitting job to house-sitting job" or "save money on flights by flying into a different airport" which only works in the few cities that have multiple airports.

Lots of actionable tips, and very in depth while being very beginner-friendly.

I would add a little bit of humor, personally.
4.75 stars!

This is an awsome book and almost worthy of 5 starts but there are some huge drawbacks in it. But first the goods. It gives a good road map to succes with tons of information 318 pages of information and things broken down.

This is also one of the points that brings it to a four star. Someone who is reading it as a first may not understand alot of it because it is not beiken down to laymen terms. Another problem with it is he does go against himself at times sayeing dont sweat little things buuuutttt little things add up. Mught want to ski on the 3 doller cup of coffee buuuuuuuuttt if you like buy just know the true vost of it. Not to metion assumes you can save 1 million dollar like your saving nickels you find on the ground so someone who isnt bussines might as well nit pick the book up. Saying if you make 25000 or les witch I do it maybe hard. Hard your telling me i should save what i make in a year and towards the end saying i should save 4 times what i make.

But through hard work side hustles and lots of drive and push and learning knowledge in how to make money this all makes sense and lead to a huge ah hah moment. Excellent book and well worth the time.

Great companion books Rich Dad Poor Dad, millionaire next door , and resources to a side hustle maybe $100 start up might help.

A mostly solid how-to manual for any age to retire ...more applicable for Gen Z and Millennials but also applicable to X-ers nearing the golden years.

Most of the advice is standard but be does flesh out the generic advice with actual recommendations and projections. He writes extensively about "side hustles " and real estate.

While the advice is solid, he shortsells the risk. Having lived less than 40 years , the author just rode an incredible bull market and real estate appreciation to wealth. That may or may not be repeatable. He didn't have money on the line during the Great Recession so he hasn't been through that 50% portfolio drop. Encouraging real estate purchases with as little as 1-3% down is reckless. But fortunes can be made and lost in real estate.

One shortcoming most of the FI/RE literature has is a self absorption and lack of philanthropy. While late in the book, Sabatier does acknowledge the place for generosity and that financial freedom brings that ability. This adds balance to pursuit of wealth for selfish reasons.

I enjoyed learning his journey and recommendations, and they are sound, though with understated risk. Spend a lot less than you earn. Save a cash cushion . Invest for the future. Let it grow. And you will be financially free.