Financial Freedom

Financial Freedom is a book about financial independence for those who are ready to look at the numbers. This is a practical handbook. It’s particularly ideal for someone who wants to convince a skeptical partner to give FI a closer look.

As a non-math person, I like that Financial Freedom includes lookup tables of numbers. It doesn’t require a calculator, which is good because I’m the kind of person who can get four different answers for the same math problem. Fortunately, financial independence is possible for anyone, regardless of numeracy.

Sabatier starts the book with a copy of his bank statement, containing $2.26, while he is back living with his parents after a layoff. At one point he counts up how much he had earned at his last job, after taxes, and compares it to the credit card balance he had run up. He doesn’t say it in so many words, but effectively he’s come out ahead by only $2.50 an hour. Whatever was going on with his full-time work/standard consumer lifestyle, it wasn’t working and it sure didn’t look much like financial freedom.

Sound familiar?

Five years later he was a millionaire.

I’m guessing that part does NOT sound so familiar.

Not everyone wants or needs to be a millionaire, and most people won’t feel that it’s possible for them when they start. Sabatier outlines seven levels of financial freedom, starting with simple clarity, and none of these levels has a specific dollar amount attached. It depends on your personal situation. The author started with no knowledge and a bunch of debt, and one year later he had seven income streams and $100,000 in savings. It can happen fast if you figure out how to do it.

Most people probably spend more time, in minutes, figuring out what movie to watch than they do looking over their accounts or planning a financial strategy. We have the free time, we have the intelligence, we certainly have the desire to be free of stress and struggle. All we’re missing are the role models and the plan, and Grant Sabatier is here to help with both.

Favorite quotes:

No matter how much money you owe, there’s a path out and a path to wealth.

I’m just going to come out and say it—most people who are side hustling, especially when they are first starting out, charge way too little for their services or products.

The next time you think about buying something, ask yourself, Is this worth trading my freedom for?