I’ve written and published that book

Over my 9-year journey to financial independence (FI) I’ve had a number of readers of both this blog and the fora that I frequent ask me if I’d write a book.  If the truth be told I was reticent while on my journey as I thought I would be a hypocrite for writing about how to achieve something that I actually hadn’t done myself.  That all changed in July 2016 when I achieved my financial independence goal with being a hypocrite switching to feeling empowered and ‘qualified’ to tell the story.

I also thought that I was too busy to write the book but in hindsight that was just the victim coming out in me.  Like anything in life both achievement and success is all about unrelenting prioritisation in my experience.  Without that you just don’t have a chance.  So with a focus on just work and the book (thanks go out publically to a very understanding and supportive family who’ve had to put up with it and me) I’ve been able to get it written over the past months and it’s now published.

I’ve called the book - From Zero to Financial Independence in less than 10 Years: Tools and techniques to escape the rat race quickly.  It’s currently only available on Amazon but is available in both ebook and paperback formats giving some choice.

So why write it?  A few reasons:

• I’ve found my FI journey an incredible experience both financially and spiritually.  I’ve also learnt so much, including a lot about myself, most of which will serve me well for life.  This includes a switch to focusing on quality of life rather than the far more common standard of living.  At age 44 I am also now in a position that is incredibly liberating and empowering.  I would just love others to be able to at least see what’s possible and hope the book might spread that message further than this blog.  If they then choose to stay on their current course I’m more than ok as at least they saw an alternate option and made a choice.  The book has only been live a few days and this goal is looking good so far.  It is already ranked number 4 in their retirement planning category, number 11 in their ebook personal finance category and number 24 in their ebook finance category.
• I wanted to provide the book that readers asked for.
• An unexpected reason was that I actually found the whole process incredibly cathartic.  For years I have been learning and had tonnes of information swirling in my thoughts.  By sitting down and putting pen to paper it allowed all that to be organised and filed forever freeing my thoughts for more.

RIT Reader EBook Plug – Slow and Steady Steps from Debt to Wealth

A Retirement Investment Reader, John Edwards, yesterday kindly sent me a copy of his EBook Slow & Steady Steps from Debt to Wealth. It’s a very easy read and at a little over 7,000 words can be devoured for the first time with a cup of tea. That said, doing something with the common sense approach will certainly take a little more time... I’ve been on a similar journey to the one described and I’m now 5 years in and still learning.

I’m plugging it because there is lot of commonality with the message I try and promote on Retirement Investing Today. The difference is that I fear that I sometimes over complicate the problem where John lays out a series of steps that go from debt (this site doesn’t really cover debt and instead starts with someone possessing £0) to a healthy investment portfolio.

Let’s look briefly at each of the Chapters in turn:
1. Avoid Debt. One sentence rams it home – “The first step to financial freedom is to avoid debt in the first place”. I couldn’t agree more.

2. Over Consumption. We are encouraged to answer two questions – “Do I really need this?” and “Do I really want this?” I probably push this concept more than most people could tolerate but it’s one of the ways I can regularly save 60% of my earnings.

3. Start Saving. This was the starting point in my KISS Investing for Retirement post.

4. Pension. “I had a variety of pension pots ... none were performing all that well and one reason for this was the high charges being levied every year.” I also believe that it is critical to minimise those charges and have it as one of the fundamentals of my Low Charge Strategy. I don’t understand how people can be so blasé and just accept say a 1% charge without question. Given that a reasonably balanced portfolio might only on average return 4% after inflation you could be giving 25% of your return away. John also makes another good point with the statement people “often don’t fully appreciate how much they need to save”. My belief is that you are not going to reach true financial independence early by saving 10% a year.