During college, I followed Sam’s financialsamurai‘s blog religiously. Even after college, I followed his blog and learned a lot of the personal finance strategies that allows the reader to explode their net worth growth. I personally grew my net worth to $400k+ and I have no plans to slow down.
The thing that I liked the most about Sam’s blog is that he was an actual millionaire teaching others to actually become millionaires themselves. I have a deep desire to be a millionaire and I think I will get there by my 30s through the strategies I read from his blog.
When I say I followed his blog religiously, I mean I followed his blog every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday post for a solid 2 – 3 years straight. That’s not even including any of the blog posts he linked through his articles.
So when I had the opportunity to actually read one of the books that Sam wrote called Buy This Not That, I was thrilled. Let’s delve into the book review from someone who wants to know what to buy and what not to buy in order to be wealthy.
Buy This Not That Book Philosophy
The Buy This Not That book’s philosophy is all about managing your money well so that you can be richer earlier rather than later. The book touches upon every aspect of life that has to do with money. From the ideal age to have a baby to marriage, divorce, and asset allocation strategies based on your risk profile.
It’s for the people who wants to put in the work in order to reach their money goals. Let’s be honest, money is such an integral part of our lives it really doesn’t make sense to not be educated on it. Sam’s book is actually the first personal finance book I actually read in my entire life.
I usually do not read personal finance books because I put in all of the legwork when I was in college by reading the many personal finance blogs that were prevalent then. However, this book intrigued me and I couldn’t resist when someone I know wrote a book themselves.
The book’s philosophy is for people who wants and is willing to put in the work to get there. Who is willing to get educated about the actions they can take today in order to be wealthy tomorrow. No one ever hands you a bag of money.
For the vast majority of us, we have to earn the money ourselves instead of depending on someone else to hand us money. It’s all about financial independence not dependence. When we depend on someone else to give us something, we are at their mercy. Let’s stand on our own two feet!
What I Especially Liked About Buy This Not That
This year, with the onset of the bear market, I’ve been pretty much losing passion for life right now. Whether I want to admit it or not, making money has been a major source of happiness in my life, so far. That’s not to say that I think money is the most important thing in the world.
However, I can’t deny money’s influence on the joy that I feel. With the onset of this bear market and with me thinking that this bear market is going to get even worse, I’ve been losing passion for life. I didn’t know what else I can try this year in order to make more money.
My net worth will pretty much end up flat, maybe with a small increase this year. However, Sam’s Buy This, Not That book kept the fire going again. He gave out real life examples of side hustles that people employed in order to make more money and live a better life.
That was my favorite part in the entire Buy This Not That book with real life people and real life numbers at play. That gave me hope and life that I can turn my luck around at any point in this year. It may not be easy and I may have to work harder than the next person, but the possibility instilled optimism in me.
I’m now thinking of and drumming of ideas of the side hustle that I want to pursue next. My blog’s been taking up an enormous amount of my time in the weekends. However, once I know I’ll have some free time on the weekends beyond my blog, it gave me hope to try new side hustles again.
Who The Buy This Not That Book is For
Even if you’re a religious follower of his blog, it’s still a good book to learn from. There is new information that I haven’t caught from his blog that he added to the Buy This Not That book. New strategies to employ, new perspective that you haven’t even considered.
My life philosophy is, if you can buy a book for $30 and have it return 1,000x your money, then the book was well worth it. Life is all about spending $10 to make $1,000. While I can’t guarantee this book will return that much money to you, it has a good chance of doing so.
Money should not be used to buy things you don’t need in your life. Money should be used to make more money so you can life a comfortable life down the road. This book is for everyone, even for the non-religious financial independence, retire early folks.
If you have a choice between becoming wealthy and not becoming wealthy, why would you ever choose not becoming wealthy? It takes a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck to get there, sure. But everyone has the option to turn their life around as long as they put in the work over and over again.
The Buy This Not That book goes over the many asset classes that I’m not as familiar with. Stocks are my bread and butter. However, it goes even further than that into real estate, alternative assets, angel investments, and the like. You can actually know how one of Sam’s angel investments went!
The Final Verdict of Buy This Not That
The Buy This Not That book is good. I don’t have any affiliate marketing relationship with Sam and I was not paid for this review except for getting the book for free. Followers of my blog knows that I don’t care about feelings or relationships.
If this book was actually bad, I would actually publicly say the book was bad on my blog, without caring whether it would damage my relationship with Sam or not. That’s not the case here. The book touches on all aspects of life, including college graduation, marriage, having a family, and the like.
Aspects of life that I haven’t touched upon and am not sure when I will touch upon them. However, I do like to be prepared and knowing the information in the Buy This Not That book has been beneficial and helpful to me.
The information that Sam highlights in the book is all out there. However, I wouldn’t even have known to look for this information let alone know where to find the information. His book is a shortcut way to find condensed valuable information you couldn’t easily find out for free out there.
With this book, I would give it a solid five stars for you to read and add to your collection. It brought me out of depression into feeling like I was stuck this year, even if just for a few short weeks. It was worth it because now, I’m slowly regaining hope in this chaotic world that’s about to get even more chaotic..
