Choose FI: Your Blueprint To Financial Independence, Book Review

As regular readers know I’m financially independent and semi-retired from my W2 job.  So why would I be reading and reviewing a book claiming to be a blueprint for financial independence? 

Because the main author, Chris Mamula, reached out to me and asked, silly.  This is a community that, for the most part, helps and supports each other. 

So why wouldn’t I? 

Chris, who writes at Can I Retire Yet?, along with co-authors Brad Barrett and Jonathan Mendonsa of the ChooseFi Podcast have done a lot for the FI community.  I was excited to see if their attempt at a book would live up to their contributions in blogging and podcasting. 

The book goes on sale on October 1st and you can order it here (affiliate link).  Or, more wisely, you can request that your library get some copies.  Chris himself recognizes the wisdom in borrowing from the library and even says so in the book. 

The book is about living differently after all…

 

Choices

The authors set the tone of the book right from the start – it’s a book about choices, plain and simple. 

Sure they eventually get into taxes, investing, and real estate strategies.  They discuss hacking college and starting your own business.  But in the end all of these things are just ideas.  Having the luxury of time and the energy to explore these things requires you to make the right choices.

But choices involving what? 

They frame the book around the three basic tenants of financial independence. 

• Spend Less
• Earn More
• Invest Better 

These three simple things are basically FI stripped to the bone and examined through an x-ray machine.  It’s all you really need to do. 

But just as the equation for weight loss is “burn more calories than you consume”, it’s the execution of the simple formula that’s hard.  In this case there’s ample material for a 300 page book.

 

Strengths

The beauty of this book and its biggest strength is its clear and straightforward writing style.  Fancy language and more complex writing has its place, but that place is definitely not in financial self-help books.  This book is easily digestible and well organized. 

To me the book The Simple Path To Wealth by JL Collins is the best and most straightforward pure investing book out there.  This book serves as its fraternal twin, but for achieving financial independence.

The authors thankfully address finding your “why” in life early on in the book.  Achieving FI shouldn’t be just about piling money up.  It’s important to dive into your life’s mission and purpose.

The personal stories and anecdotes sprinkled throughout the book are incredibly valuable and show that they’ve walked the talk.  All three authors left their traditional W2 jobs and are living life on their own terms.  Their personal experiences give tremendous credibility to the advice and tactics they espouse. 

Chris teamed with the ChooseFI podcasters to leverage their sizable catalog of interviews with entrepreneurs and people who have achieved FI.  The beauty of this book is that it takes the massive amount of information, tips, tricks, and lifehacks from those hundreds of interviews and distills it all down into a coherent narrative. 

The book has simple ‘action steps’ at the end of every chapter which are excellent.  I tried to put myself in the mind of a reader who is not FI, and these action steps give very simple and clear things to do before transitioning to a new topic.  It’s something more books in this genre should incorporate.

As someone who blogs about health a lot I love the way they addressed health insurance and health care.  They emphasize the fact that affording health insurance can be difficult for those who retire early, but they highlight what a lot of people don’t consider – that early retirement allows you to focus on your health care.  In a country where more than 70% of people are overweight and 40% obese, this is not a minor point.

It’s kind of difficult to care for your health when you’re spending 40 or 50 hours a week sitting in an office, in addition to another 5 or 10 driving to and from work.  There’s no way to make that healthy, none.  Financial independence to me is primarily a tool to live a healthier life and gives me the time to take care of the only body I’ll ever have.

 

Critiques

I wish more time was dedicated to the “spend less” section.  I’m of the opinion that lifestyle inflation is the main culprit in preventing most people from ever having a chance to reach FI.

After all, I live in the richest area of the country where most folks earn a six figure salary.  Yet they still have debt-to-income ratios as high or higher than other parts of America.  

I do understand the argument that you can only save so much, but that your earning potential is theoretically unlimited.  I have a problem with the second part of that argument though.  In theory, sure.  In practicality, not so much. 

There’s a large portion of the population who simply don’t have an entrepreneurial mindset, or who simply want to work for someone else.  The bell curve of earners is the bell curve, and just by magically saying everyone can earn more won’t change the dynamics. 

It takes a lot of effort to earn more in most cases, whether through one’s existing job or through side hustles.  It doesn’t take as much effort to spend less.  Just don’t buy the $1,400 iPhone, buy a $99 Andriod instead.  That’s quick and actionable, with immediate results. 

Additionally, as the horrid financial status of most high earners such as doctors shows, even when one does earn more it’s the American way to spend it all, plus some.  We don’t have as much of an earning problem in America as we have a spending and consumerist mindset problem.  So based on predominant behavioral patterns, if everyone was successful in following the “earn more” advice they’d be inflating their lifestyle right along with it, and no closer to achieving FI.

That’s my opinion, of course.  And that’s also why I feel there’s a bit of a missed opportunity here in not exploring more topics in the spend less section.  I’ve listened to most of the ChooseFI podcast episodes, and I know the advice and content is there.

 

Summary

This book is perfect for someone who is just starting their financial independence journey, or someone who has heard about FI and is “FI curious”. 

If you’re well versed in FI concepts and are chugging along in your journey, you can still get value from this book but it might not reveal any new paths to go down.  It could, however, speed up your pace on those paths.  

Being well past FI myself and semi-retired I still got value from this book as it refreshed my knowledge on a few topics and forced me to re-address my “why”. 

And that’s always a good thing.

ISBN-13: 978-0960058907
My Rating: 8/10

*This article contains affiliate links. Using those links throws some change in my pocket at no additional cost to you. Here’s my disclosure.