INTRODUCTION
"I wish someone had given me this book when I was your age."
I looked at the purple book my chiropractor was handing to me: Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. I'd never heard of the book or the author. I briefly wondered if it had anything to do with bones or posture-why else would a chiropractor be giving it to me?
Even though I wasn't a big reader, I took the book home and read it. It wasn't about spines . it wasn't about anything chiropractic at all. It was financial advice. It was the first book I'd ever read that provided actual insight and knowledge into the world of business, investments, and real estate. When I finished it, I understood what my chiropractor meant when he said he wished he'd read it sooner. The book helped me understand and connect the dots between money and the choices I could make with my money. (Which to be fair, a lot of people don't understand until adulthood.)
And that's how my shoulder injury at age eighteen changed the trajectory of my life for the better.
Not only did the book help me imagine a life of financial freedom, it showed me ways in which I could start walking down that path as a teenager with little to no income.
It also taught me how powerful a book can be in someone's journey to financial freedom. While I won't be sharing any life lessons in this book, I will outline real-life techniques and disciplines that can be used every day and will put you and your family in a better financial position for the rest of your lives.
Your Image of Financial Freedom
Take a moment to imagine a life full of happiness and prosperity in which you can live on your own terms, on your own time, and for your own well-being. There are no wrong answers.
So . what did you see?
Perhaps you imagined yourself owning a mansion and a yacht and a garage full of exotic cars. Perhaps you imagined owning your house outright, having a modest car, a college fund for your kid, and a steadily growing retirement account.
Like I said, there are no wrong answers. Millions of people live out each of these scenarios every day. However, one can be more achievable than the other.
The point of this exercise is not to set your goals; it's to understand why you imagined what you did. For better or for worse, money is emotional. It can make you feel like the king of the world or like a worthless piece of shit. If something has that much power over our emotions, it has that much power over us. In this book, we'll decouple money from emotions and learn how to truly bring your true vision of financial freedom into focus.
The truth is, money is a tool.
Yes, a tool, like a hammer.
Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Money is not a sign of superiority. As the old adage goes, it can't buy happiness or love. However, it can solve a lot of problems. It can also create a lot of problems! (Hence the other old adage: "Mo' money, mo' problems.") But it can surely create security for you and your family.
As with most tools, it's imperative to know how to use it before you try to build a house with it. And money is a lot less self-explanatory than a hammer. Money is only useful when it is used with competence, skill, and well-informed risk.
My Journey to Financial Freedom
I grew up in a very middle-class family, and now I'm a multimillionaire. This isn't a brag book. It's just a fact.
I'm tempted to say I'm "self-made," which is true insofar as I didn't inherit my wealth, but the truth is, I did not get to this place alone. You can absolutely achieve financial freedom alone, but it will be much more accessible with the right partner by your side. Not only from a spousal standpoint but also from a business standpoint. Having the right partners can be instrumental to growth. Also true, it will be infinitely harder to do with the wrong partner. My wife has played an integral part in everything I've achieved. She was there throughout the long days, early mornings, and late nights when we were first starting out. We have (and had) the same goals and aspirations. She was willing to be frugal. Her commitment to what we were building kept me on track as well.
I'd venture to say that if you have a partner, their influence can affect your ability to become financially free just as much (both positively and negatively) as much as anything. Choose wisely.
But enough relationship advice. I'm not a relationship guru. I'm a tax and wealth advisor. I got my undergraduate degree in finance at Ohio University and went on to get an MBA at the California University of Pennsylvania. I also have received numerous finance and accounting specialty certificates from Bryant University and Harvard Online. I am a CFP (certified financial planner) and an EA (enrolled agent). These certainly aren't required to achieve financial freedom but can make helping others easier.
After grad school, I worked at Merrill Lynch. This is really where I gained my knowledge and professional skills in investment management. Among other things, I've opened, grown, bought, and sold multiple businesses, including a tax advisory firm, a wealth management company, and a mortgage lending company. I'm an avid real estate investor and have owned/currently own over sixty properties (not bad as a side gig, in my opinion).
Now, add "author" to that list. I've wanted to write a book about free lunch money for years. The more people I work with in a professional capacity, the more I realize there are so many people who would benefit from learning the financial basics that for some reason, most people don't learn in the US school systems in primary school and in college alike.
So many financial books or programs boil down to a get-rich-quick scheme. I'd love to see you become wealthy, but I promise you won't find any get-rich-quick schemes within these pages nor will you find any advice that only people with MBAs can understand. There's nothing in these pages that I haven't done, and likely still do. I like to eat my own cooking. Practice what I preach. When I became a multimillionaire at the age of twenty-eight, it wasn't because I just happened to invest in Apple in 1985 by some stroke of luck. (I wasn't even born yet.) It was because I learned how to invest and how to manage the money I made, even when that wasn't very much.
If I can do it, you can do it.
Financial Freedom Is Possible for You Too
Not everyone is as lucky as I was to have a chiropractor hand you Rich Dad Poor Dad as a teenager and a spouse who was committed to financial freedom from day one.
Maybe you've struggled to find your financial footing because you've always found money advice to be too vague, too "out-there," and intangible. Or perhaps you never made it past the emotions money can bring up, telling yourself that financial freedom is only available to those who were born rich or who were willing to take insurmountable risks.
It's true a lot of business books are written for entrepreneurs. (The Oxford dictionary definition of entrepreneur is "a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater-than-normal financial risks in order to do so.") I understand that not everyone who reads this book is going to take on "greater-than-normal financial risks." Not everyone is an entrepreneur or will become one, and that's okay. That's why we're focusing on your idea of financial freedom, not using Warren Buffett as a template. (Though I do quote him a lot.)
In this book, I am speaking to those who may not see a path to financial freedom or those that do but maybe need a more clearer direction. Even those who are already practicing but want more. I won't advise you to quit your nine-to-five job and free-fall into risky uncertainty. What I will discuss is how to think about recurring revenue, investments, real estate, etc.-basically how to make your money work for you rather than working for your money for the rest of your life. And this advice works for any income level, as long as you're willing to do the work.
My goal is to deliver useful, real-life knowledge that helps you make changes to your financial lifestyle that results in free lunch money. You may not agree with everything I say in this book, and that's fine. The point is to make you think and reconsider your financial habits and to make incremental changes toward financial freedom.
Free Lunch Money
You've probably heard the saying "There's no such thing as a free lunch." I heard this for the first time in my early twenties. I don't remember who said it, but whether I was contemplating the idea or encouraging myself to make smart financial decisions, I've thought about it. Maybe just the idea as to whether there is a free lunch or not. This phrase continued to work its way through my life all the way to the title of this book.
The truth is, free lunch money isn't actually free. You have to work for it. You have to become more efficient. You have to want to make it happen. And you have to use money wisely.
But first, you have to...
