Today we’re going to take a look at a personal finance book that deserves a place on your book shelf:
Financial Freedom: A Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need, written by Grant Sabatier, promises to transform the way you view money and to help you save, invest, and better manage your money so you can achieve financial freedom.
Before we go any further, I should tell you that Grant offered me a free review copy of his book in exchange for writing an honest review on this site.
My family is nowhere near financial freedom at this point. We’re a middle class family doing the best we can in one of the most expensive states to live, and we have three young kids who are active in sports and still have many years of expenses left to go.
So needless to say, the idea of one day achieving financial freedom for my family is exciting.
Now, if you’ve never heard of Grant Sabatier, he is the owner of the popular personal finance site called Millennial Money.
When Sabatier finished college he was unemployed and living with his parents. He had exactly $2.26 in his bank account.
But just five years later, he was worth over a million dollars.
Financial Freedom tells the story of how Sabatier achieved this seemingly miraculous turnaround.
Here is a very simplified version of the steps Grant took:
- Sabatier found a good day job and worked his butt off to maximize his potential earnings
- He became a sponge and soaked up every bit of knowledge he could from his coworkers so he could increase his own skills and value
- He ruthlessly cut his expenses anyway he could
- He freelanced and side hustled relentlessly to increase his income
- He took every dollar he could and invested it in the stock market and in real estate so his money could work for him
Of course, that description barely scratches the surface. The real gold is in the details where Sabatier lines out a plan you can follow to achieve financial freedom for yourself.
Now let’s dig a little deeper into our review of Financial Freedom.
What I Liked Most
Sabatier achieved his dream by putting together a smart plan and then executing on it. You have to admire his hustle and focus.
Perhaps the most important key to Sabatier’s success is what he calls the enterprise mindset.
Here is how Sabatier defines the enterprise mindset:
Take advantage of every opportunity to make more money and build wealth in as many ways as possible by cutting expenses, optimizing fees/prices, minimizing taxes, building multiple income streams, and whatever other ways present themselves. Focus on making as much money as possible per minute and hour of your time.
I think this is a key takeaway because there are so many people who complain about their situation in life yet never take any action to change things.
If you’re in debt and struggling to make ends meet, sitting on the couch in front of the TV all night isn’t going to help.
But if you embrace the enterprise mindset you’ll start to use your time more wisely. You’ll begin to look at each of your purchases and question whether whether or not they are really worth it, especially when you consider that those purchases will only delay you from reaching your own financial freedom.
What I Didn’t Like
I admit I’m going to be a little nit-picky here.
The stock market is a major part of Sabatier’s blueprint for achieving financial freedom. There’s nothing wrong with that but I fear at times he takes too much for granted.
Sabatier’s formula assumes a long-term rate of return of seven percent for the stock market. He doesn’t just pull that number out of thin air either, that actually is the historical return over many years.
But that doesn’t mean you are guaranteed that rate in the future. The stock market is not a smooth ride that hands you a seven percent return every year. There’s no guaranteed payout each time you pass go.
The stock market is more like a roller coaster where you could seven percent one year, lose ten percent the next, and then gain 25 percent the year after.
Over a long time period, history suggests the average return will be around seven percent. But we live in turbulent times and who knows what the future will bring?
I fear that following the plan too literally could lead to financial disaster if a recession hits right after you quit your job.
To be fair, Sabatier does point all of this out. I just wonder if less financially-savvy readers will just gloss over these warnings in their excitement to be financially free.
The Bottom Line
I think it’s important to note that Grant Sabatier is an outlier. He managed to achieve financial freedom in just five years, but that doesn’t guarantee his methods will work for you.
Quite frankly, not everyone is willing to make all the sacrifices Sabatier made along the way.
For example, Sabatier once lived in a bad neighborhood that his girlfriend refused to visit just to save money on rent. That’s not something I’m willing to do.
That said, Sabatier’s plan is one that can be followed by just about anyone. And if you aren’t willing to make all of the sacrifices required to achieve financial freedom as quickly as Sabatier.
But even if you can’t retire in just five years, wouldn’t it be amazing to follow most of Sabatier’s methods and then be able to retire ten or maybe fifteen years earlier?
If you ask me that’s a pretty big achievement too!
If you think so too, check out Financial Freedom on sale at Amazon today.