Book Review, Summary, Highlights and Quotes from Buy This, Not That: How to Spend Your Way to Wealth and Freedom by The Financial Samurai, AKA Sam Dogen
I am a huge fan of Financial Samurai’s content, so when he offered to send me an advance copy of his book, I jumped at the opportunity.
And when I say book, I mean book. It’s huge!
But more importantly, it is jam packed with all the information anyone needs to get started and/or optimize their financial (and even life) journey.
Similar to The Simple Path to Wealth by blogger JL Collins, much of Sam’s book is adapted from his website Financial Samurai.
And yet even though I’ve read a ton of his content, there is something to having a physical copy (or ebook version) that allows you to digest the content, sit with it, and in the end take more away from it.
Buy This, Not That is actually a bit deceiving in name, because Sam covers everything from financial independence to happiness, from what type of assets to purchase to how to run your families’ finances, from whether you should pay for private school education or if you should start a side hustle. He even delves into what profession you might consider going into.
Sam, smartly weaves all of his content into a really great book.
Filled with his analytical approach to Financial Independence and his probability based way of life, there is something for us all to learn in Buy This, Not That.
I particularly enjoyed the second half when he moves away from how to put your money to work to how to maximize your wealth.
Sam’s perspective on how to maximize your wealth is spot on (in my opinion) and offers great advice for anyone looking to supercharge their career and/or home life.
Now, I don’t agree with everything. For instance Sam’s takes on risk tolerance is a bit conservative in my opinion, but hey, that might just be me??
All in all, this is more than a finance book, this is a book about how to live your best life. I highly recommend it.
AR’s Book Score: 9 out of 10
Key book highlights from Buy This, Not That
Like I said before, Sam takes his catalog of great online content and has turned it into a smart and digestible book.
Split into four parts, the book grew on me as I read on:
- Adopt the Right Money Mindset to Get Rich
- Put Your Money to Work
- Work While Maximizing Your Wealth
- Focus on the Most Important Things in Life
He dives into so many topics it is impossible to list them all here:
- Financial Independence
- Happiness
- Debt
- Allocating Assets
- Optimizing Investments
- Real Estate Fundamentals
- Where to Live
- How to Invest
- Career
- Negotiating Severance
- Entrepreneurship
- Private vs. Public Schools
- Love and Marriage
- How to live like a Financial Samurai
As you can see, this book covers nearly everything about your financial life and how to achieve the end goal: freedom.
Best quotes from Buy This, Not That
Save more, invest more, reach financial independence sooner. It’s that simple.
Sam Dogen, Buy This, Not That
So long as you have achieved the target net worth, you can change the composition of your net worth to generate income if you want or need to.
Sam Dogen, Buy This, Not That
The truth is that most of us get into debt because we want to live a lifestyle we don’t yet deserve.
Sam Dogen, Buy This, Not That
When it comes to money, finish your sentences. For example, if you say, “I bought twenty shares of Tesla,” it is critical to keep going with the second part of the sentence, “…so that I can ________.”
Sam Dogen, Buy This, Not That
A knife can help you prepare the most amazing dishes for your family and friends, but a knife can also cut you if improperly used. The same thing goes for debt.
Sam Dogen, Buy This, Not That
From a purely passive-income perspective, a vacation property is a double sucker punch of being high-maintenance with inefficient economic returns.
Sam Dogen, Buy This, Not That
Do not get distracted by the YOLO crowd who are desperately trying to show off their fabulous lives in order to justify why they aren’t wiling to work as hard.
Sam Dogen, Buy This, Not That
Your career is your number one wealth generator – at least in your younger years.[…] Please don’t mess it up.
Sam Dogen, Buy This, Not That
If you are any good, it pays to job hop for more money. Job-hopping also resets an employer’s vision of you, which may be helpful if you started at the bottom.
Sam Dogen, Buy This, Not That
The reality is that it is extremely difficult to be a great parent and a great employee or entrepreneur at the same time.
Sam Dogen, Buy This, Not That
Please don’t get fired or quit your job. Instead, get laid off.
Sam Dogen, Buy This, Not That
The reality is that it is extremely difficult to be a great parent and a great employee or entrepreneur at the same time.
Sam Dogen, Buy This, Not That
Work while others are sleeping so you can eventually play while others are working
Sam Dogen, Buy This, Not That
You don’t have to be smarter than anybody else. You just have to do things other people aren’t willing to do.
Sam Dogen, Buy This, Not That
If you have thousands of employees and everybody counting on your every move to survive, are you really free?
Sam Dogen, Buy This, Not That
What’s the point of having money if you have nobody to share it with?
Sam Dogen, Buy This, Not That
Remember: we don’t chase financial freedom for the money itself. It’s the freedom piece that we’re after.
Sam Dogen, Buy This, Not That
More from Sam Dogen aka Financial Samurai
- Website: FinancialSamurai.com
- Twitter: @financialsamura
- Facebook: @financialsamurai
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Oh wow I’ve never read a review like this before. Cool! How did you know that I love quotes ha?
I keep a list of inspirational quotes on my phone that I reread every now and then if I’m feeling glum, stuck, or just in need of a boost. I’m definitely going to add some from this list. Sounds like a very insightful and inspiring read. Now I definitely want to check it out. Thanks!
I do the same thing! You should check out my other reviews. I pull quotes from any book I read, and any review I do they go on that review. Then I put the best ones on my phone.
Thank you for taking the time to review my book! I really appreciate it. It is a big book, partially because I wanted to tackle the biggest dilemmas of our lives. Also, given most non-fiction Finance hardcopy books are priced about the same, I wanted to provide as much value as possible to the reader.
I don’t plan to write another book for a long time. So I wanted to put everything I had into this book to help people make better decisions, achieve financial independence in a risk-appropriate manner, and not look back on their lives with regret!
Best,
Sam