Darrow Kirkpatrick is an early-retired civil and software engineer with five decades of hiking, biking, and technical rock-climbing experience, including first ascents in the Shawangunks of New York and the sandstone belt of Tennessee. He climbed three big walls in Yosemite Valley, California: The Shield and The Nose on El Capitan, and The Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome. In 2011 he founded Can I Retire Yet? — winner of the 2019 Plutus award for Best Retirement Blog. His personal finance books include Retiring Sooner and Can I Retire Yet? In 2021 he completed a six-year section hike of the 500-mile-long Colorado Trail, the subject of his memoir, Two Sticks, One Path.
Got this ebook for free off Amazon (thanks to a notice from Mr. Money Mustache) and it was good enough to read through. Not much new insight here for folks that have already read the entirety of the ERE and MMM canon -- but it looks like Darrow has his own online following and they probably requested information in book form just like has happened with Jacob from ERE.
If you're looking for a book to share with folks that need some perspective, but might be turned off by Jacob or MMM's extreme badassity -- this book might do the trick.
Author seem very sincere to help us to reach our financial independence with his Down to Earth advise. Highly Recommended for poeple that want to reach Financial Independence and retire early.
Clear well written book that provides a solid summary of the steps needed to achieve Financial Independence. No single book captures everything but this one comes close.
If you're familiar with the concept of early retirement, you'll find no revelations here. But if you're a beginner this book is a good introduction. My personal opinion is the book is just a tad bit boring. Financial independence can be an exciting topic, but this book was a bit dry. I also wish there were more specifics of the author's journey. He mentions several times he sold a business; I kept wondering about the payout. I also wonder if his own experiences were included, if that would have made the book more interesting. But overall the concepts were still solid.
Mr. Kirkpatrick saved, invested, had his own businesses and retired at 50. Retiring early is something to aspire to, and the author gives steps and guidelines for making it potentially possible for each of us. He does talk from his own perspective and so as I have seen in other reviews there are those who take offense at some of his opinions. He has been successful in the way he proceeded so it gives him some credibility. Not everything he suggested like having your own business or owning rental real estate will work for everyone but evaluating your spending, having a budget and saving more will bring about greater prosperity.
I personally didn't learn anything new from this book but that is because I've been a long-time reader of Mister Money Mustache. I think this book is really well laid out and may be more approachable to newbies than the (sometimes extreme) MMM or ERE blogs. It does a good job of covering all the important topics.
I may buy a paper copy of this just to loan to others that need to learn about financial independence.
Solid primer on the basics of early retirement/financial independence. If you haven't already dived deeply into Kirkpatrick's blog "Can I Retire Yet?", this is a good summary of the most important points from his blog posts.
A quick read with a comprehensive look at retiring at any age. Especially important was the section regarding YOUR personal inflation rate. Ignore the government's numbers, focus on YOUR spending and where it can be adjusted.
Excellent. Quick and dirty advice for retiring early. Make more, save more, spend less. No new info for me here, but good motivation to keep cutting costs.
I've learned nothing new in this book - but I think it is a good, SHORT, first look into early retirement. If you are already a reader of Mr Money Mustache, don't expect to learn from this book.
Enjoyed his personal journey to financial peace. Action plan transition you to making a course of implementing something to address the topic being discussed