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Built From Broken
# Built From One Decision at a Time
### Book Summary
In his thirties, Chris Bailey was $75,000 in debt, living in his parents' basement for the second time, and using marijuana daily to cope with a life he no longer recognized. *Built From Broken* is his honest, still-unfolding account of how he got there — and the decisions, one at a time, that are slowly rebuilding a life he actually wants.
The book traces Chris's path from a first marriage that quietly eroded his self-belief, through the loss of his first apartment, a spiral of impulse spending and "I deserve it" purchases that buried him in debt, and a breaking point outside a nursing home where he worked a job he'd come to hate. It follows his decision to become a truck driver — the CDL training that nearly broke him during a grueling mentor phase, the discipline of a self-built budgeting system he calls the 50/50 Rule, and the ongoing, unfinished search for a piece of land to call home.
What sets this book apart is its honesty about being incomplete. Chris isn't writing from the other side of success — he's writing from the sleeper cab of his truck, mid-journey, still working toward the life he pictures. Each chapter pairs his personal story with a practical "note for the reader," turning memoir into something readers can actually apply to their own situation, whether or not they've ever set foot in a truck.
*Built From Broken* will resonate with readers of debt-payoff and personal-finance memoirs, as well as anyone who has had to rebuild their sense of self after a major life setback. It offers no easy fixes — just the honest, sometimes unglamorous truth that a different life gets built one decision at a time.
**Word ~17,500 (currently expanding toward full length)
**Comparable *The Total Money Makeover* (Dave Ramsey) for its debt-payoff practicality; *Educated* (Tara Westover) for its raw, mid-transformation memoir voice; *The Simple Path to Wealth* (JL Collins) for its reader-facing takeaways.
### Book Summary
In his thirties, Chris Bailey was $75,000 in debt, living in his parents' basement for the second time, and using marijuana daily to cope with a life he no longer recognized. *Built From Broken* is his honest, still-unfolding account of how he got there — and the decisions, one at a time, that are slowly rebuilding a life he actually wants.
The book traces Chris's path from a first marriage that quietly eroded his self-belief, through the loss of his first apartment, a spiral of impulse spending and "I deserve it" purchases that buried him in debt, and a breaking point outside a nursing home where he worked a job he'd come to hate. It follows his decision to become a truck driver — the CDL training that nearly broke him during a grueling mentor phase, the discipline of a self-built budgeting system he calls the 50/50 Rule, and the ongoing, unfinished search for a piece of land to call home.
What sets this book apart is its honesty about being incomplete. Chris isn't writing from the other side of success — he's writing from the sleeper cab of his truck, mid-journey, still working toward the life he pictures. Each chapter pairs his personal story with a practical "note for the reader," turning memoir into something readers can actually apply to their own situation, whether or not they've ever set foot in a truck.
*Built From Broken* will resonate with readers of debt-payoff and personal-finance memoirs, as well as anyone who has had to rebuild their sense of self after a major life setback. It offers no easy fixes — just the honest, sometimes unglamorous truth that a different life gets built one decision at a time.
**Word ~17,500 (currently expanding toward full length)
**Comparable *The Total Money Makeover* (Dave Ramsey) for its debt-payoff practicality; *Educated* (Tara Westover) for its raw, mid-transformation memoir voice; *The Simple Path to Wealth* (JL Collins) for its reader-facing takeaways.
69 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 16, 2026
About the author
Christopher Bailey
40 books2 followersLibrarian note:
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There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name
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