Review: FI Money: Learn the Hard Way, Teach the Easy Way by Peter Duffy

Nick Making Money, Investing reviews, property 4 Comments

I was pleased to receive a review copy of FI Money: Learn the Hard Way, Teach the Easy Way from Peter Duffy. Peter is the author of the book (and a fellow UK money blogger).

FI Money (as I’ll call it for short from now on) is a self-published paperback of 222 pages (it’s also available as a Kindle ebook). It is organized into 28 main chapters plus additional material. I won’t list all the chapters here, but here are the first ten to give you a flavour of the content (and style).

1. Force yourself to smile
2. YouTube obsession
3. Your relationship with money
4. Overthinker
5. Understanding our ‘Chimp’ emotions
6. Goals written down
7. Crystal clear goals
8. Stress less
9. Mental training
10. How NOT to invest

FI Money is a personal account of one man’s journey towards financial independence (the FI referred to in the title). It is a self-development book, but as Peter says in the Introduction it isn’t the usual success story typically associated with such books. He says, ‘I am a work in progress, similar to a building under construction.’

The chapters are generally quite short. They are well written and broken up with bullet-points, headings, To Do lists, and so on. Peter focuses on different aspects of his quest for financial independence, with a particular emphasis on buy-to-let. As this is not something I have ever got into myself (apart from some investments on property crowdfunding platforms) I was particularly intrigued by this. Peter talks about his experiences with refreshing honesty and is not afraid to disclose some of the mistakes he has made along the way. If you’re thinking of investing in buy-to-let yourself, there are some valuable lessons to be learned here.

The book covers many other subjects as well, including property renovation, tax, investing, keeping records, and more. I particularly enjoyed Chapter 10 ‘How NOT to Invest’ which focuses on some of Peter’s less successful investments. These include Premium Bonds (like me he’s not a fan), Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and a particularly ill-advised buy-to-let project early in his career. There are some salutary lessons to be learned from all this (and a few laughs to be had as well!).

In addition to the practical advice, FI Money has a particular emphasis on the psychological aspects of achieving financial independence – the money mindset, as Peter calls it. He is a firm believer in building your financial knowledge, but also adopting the right emotional and practical disciplines and carefully planning and managing your journey towards FI. There is a lot of food for thought in the book from someone who really has been on this particular journey himself (or at least is well on the way there).

As mentioned earlier, Peter also runs a personal finance blog called Duffmoney. This is well worth a read as well, and will give you a flavour of Peter’s style and his attitude towards investing and money matters generally.

As always, if you have any comments or questions about this review, please do post them below.

Disclosure: In common with many posts on Pounds and Sense, this review includes affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a fee for introducing you. This will not affect in any way the price you pay or the product or service you receive.