As I need a little brush on my financial knowledge, I decided to dive into the book which I had purchased during Big Bad Wolf this year. Achieve Financial Freedom by Sandy and Matthew Botkin.
This had been sitting on my shelve for quite some time due to my busy schedule and to be honest, I am not really an avid reader. I had trouble concentrating after the first few chapters. So instead of doing a final review of the book (which I am not sure when will that day come), I decided to do it by chapters.
Of course, to achieve something big like financial freedom, we ought to look into the reason why most didn't achieve it. Sandy Botkin start of the book by telling his interaction with his friend, Jeff, a top financial planner at their state, discussing why so many people are failing financially.
They have enlisted 16 reasons including 6 horsemen of financial death (as in the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse). Those reasons are as follows:
- People's longer lifespan.
- The huge amount of information people must process.
- Inflation
- People's lack of understanding of compound interest.
- People's failure to diversify their investments.
- People's failure to plan for retirement.
- People's failure to save for large future expenses (like house and kid's education)
- People's failure to create short- and long-term financial goals.
- Failure to plan for divorce and multiple families.
- People's procrastination in confronting reality.
While the 6 horsemen of financial deaths are:
- Disability
- Premature death
- Lawsuits
- Estate taxes and probate
- Overspending and unwise use of credit card
- Income taxes.
After this we will look into RESERVE.