The Money Master book review on the Sunday Reads.

Happy first Sunday of December. In 20 days, that big guy in the red suit hops in his sleigh and miraculously flies around the world delivering presents to all of the good boys and girls. The trip is accomplished in several hours. That is almost as incredible as Elon Musk sticking a landing with a reusable rocket. And speaking of rising to challenge (sorry that’s the best I can do for a segue on one cup of coffee), we’re going to look at an inspiring personal finance book, from Canadian Sandy Yong. It’s the Money Master book review and book giveaway on the Sunday Reads.

I like the book more for the energy that it exudes, than the ‘how to’ content. Though that is not a slight on the book. For my money, it is just that the spirit trumps the ‘how to’. It’s a good punchy read.

As Nike suggests with one the best branding ‘slogans’ in marketing history – Just do it.

You either ran today, or you didn’t.

Nike advertising poster

Slide that sentiment over to the wealth-building front, and you either invested today or you didn’t. You either paid off your mortgage today or you didn’t. You either started another side hustle today or you didn’t.

Put on your happy wealth-building face

The book’s marketing wrap, sums it up quite nicely.

The Money Master takes you step by step through a system for mastering your finances and puts you on the road to financial prosperity. Transform your outlook on money to think like a wealthy person—the results will follow! Replace your old money habits with new ones that help you reach your goals. Discover ways to protect your wealth. Consider where to put your money, whether it’s the stock market, real estate or your own business, to achieve financial freedom.

• Train your brain to have a millionaire mindset.
• Develop healthy and wealthy habits.
• Balance today’s needs with tomorrow’s wants.
• Take control of your financial future and get the lifestyle you deserve.
• Find out what women have never been told about financial advice.
• Learn the inside secrets to protecting your wealth.
• Discover words of wisdom from financial experts.
• Create your own financial portfolio and have money work for you.
• Earn money in real estate.
• Be your own boss by starting your own business.​​​

The financial journey, step one, walk away …

Sandy’s financial journey began as it does for most Canadians. She walked into a bank and was offered some crap high-fee mutual funds. Those funds usually are offered with no advice, and certainly nothing by the way of financial planning. Yes, you can get the not so full package for fees in the range of 2% to 2.5%.

Sandy was smart enough to eventually walk out, and turn her back on those funds. Sandy knows that you want to beat the bank. Own the banks, don’t let them own you.

And speaking of book reviews, From Larry Bates …

Don’t give away half of your investments – Beat The Bank.

Sandra took matters into her own hands. That process starts with a change in mindset. Look to those first two bullet points (above). You have to take control of your money and your financial life. Start thinking like a millionaire. Start believing and knowing that you can do it – you can become wealthy. It is a positive feedback loop.

Belief leads to action, leads to positive results, leads to a sense of accomplishment, leads to the desire to do more.

That first step is changing your mental approach to money, debt and wealth building. As Sandy offers ‘take control of your financial future’. Put the past behind you, and that can include saying goodbye to past money mistakes. Hey, most of us have a sketchy financial past. We all have a money skeleton to two in the closet. Let it go.

That change in mental approach will then lead to a plan.

A plan with actionable steps

You will tackle debt. You’ll do a budget and get cashflow positive. You’ll have money to invest. Sandy offers that the ‘rich’ often have multiple revenue streams. You might seek additional ways to earn money.

Sandy and her husband are also quite active on the real estate front. They own and rent several condos. They were featured on the Burn Your Mortgage podcast with Sean Cooper. Once again, I love the energy and courage; the ability to embrace risk.

I was on the podcast in episode 28. Real estate played a large role in our wealth building, but by way of home ownership, not rental properties.

On the investment front

You won’t be surprise to read that Sandy embraced a simple but effective hybrid approach. There’s a combination of stocks and some couch potato ‘stuff’.

My Own Advisor Sandy offered … 

For the past dozen years that I have been investing in the stock market, my portfolio has remained relatively the same with plain vanilla funds. I keep it fairly simple – diversifying it with Canadian/US/International index funds. Sprinkled with some Berkshire Hathaway (since I’m a big fan of Warren Buffett!) and a Canadian Banks ETF (they pay nice dividends) … It is on pace for me and my husband to reach financial independence within the next 8 years (hopefully sooner!).

Financial independence. That sounds like a plan to me.

The Money Master Book review giveaway

I have two signed copies. The book might help you change your mindset. Who knows, it could be a first big step in the right direction. Use the contact form on this site. That sends an email to me. Simply tag the note with The Money Master book review and giveaway.

Your name will go into a Santa hat, and my lovely wife will pick the two winners. I will then contact you to get your address (if you’re a lucky winner). I’ll drop that in the mail for you and leave it in the hands of Canada Post. So you should be getting your copy by Christmas of 2022 🙂

You can buy the book here, including a Kindle version.

You might also check out my personal finance book. Well, wealth building is quite simple at the core. My ‘book’ is a short blog post.

Oh look, I just found $880,000 in your coffee.

The other moneymaaster

And while we’re on that Money Master stuff, you might check out the moneymaaster blog. That is not Sandy’s blog, but one of the Canadian investing and personal finance blogs that often offers up on Twitter, where he promises to be ‘Canada’s least read financial blogger’.

The Sunday Reads

You might stick on this site for a minute. Yesterday I posted on what you need to know about omicron, and I took a look at the big Canadian banks and their week of generous dividend increases – in the range of 11% to 25%.

And this week I introduced the ultimate asset allocation ETF page that compares the wonderful all-in-one portfolio ETFs. Share that link with friends and family looking to step away from high-fee mutual funds.

Here’s my latest for MoneySense. It offers an interesting mix, including a stroll into the metaverse.

Banker on Wheels rides in with the death of the 60/40 portfolio and more.  

https://www.bankeronwheels.com/stock-picking-squid-game-sunday-ride-9/

That post also offers some wonderful links and topics. And yes it starts with the 4 periods of ‘lost decade’ or more for the U.S. 60/40 balanced portfolio. There is also a Financial Times post where a contributor blames passive index funds for the U.S. stock market valuation issues. Pure baloney, ha.

There’s also a very interesting post link from A Wealth of Common Sense that shows the market concentration and effect of the 20 largest stocks for the U.S. market.

On fiPhysician – asset allocation and risk tolerance.

Weekend reads and cashflow

Here’s the weekend reads on My Own Advisor. Mark offers a financial independence update. The Canadian bank dividend increases from this week add $1000 annual to that effort.

On Tawcan, Bob offers an overview of Cashflows and Portfolios – a co-production from Mark from My Own Advisor and Joe (the creator of Million Dollar Journey). The site and tools will help self-directed investors in the all-important step in finding the most tax-efficient retirement funding strategy.

It’s another leap forward for the self-directed investment community. And it allows many to say goodbye to their advisors and planners in many cases. Yes we can go end to end from the accumulation to decumulation stage. That’s not for everyone, but with enough research and the help of the personal finance community, an investor can go it alone.

That said, I am a big fan of financial planning, you might consider checking in with an advice-only planner in the accumulation stage and when you create your retirement funding plan. How much help you need depends on the level of complication of your finances and scenario.

I’m sure many Cut The Crap Investing readers will give that service a go. I’m happy to partner with Joe and Mark in that regard.

On The Findependence Hub, a Q & A on retirement income with Dr. Moshe Milevski.

Here’s a must retirement read on Cut the Crap Investing. Milevski wrote this book with Alexandra Macqueen.

Pensionize Your Nest Egg.

Stocktrades.ca offers Canada’s top renewable and clean energy stocks.

And Mike The Dividend Guy offers some monthly income ideas.

This week, there were several new posts on Million Dollar Journey.

Cut your fees, get some offers here …

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I have partnerships with several of the leading Canadian Robo Advisors such as Justwealth, BMO Smartfolio ,Wealthsimple, Nest Wealth and Questwealth from Questrade.

Consider Justwealth for RESP accounts. That is THE option in Canada with target date funds that adjust the risk level as the student approaches the College or University start date.

Our savings accounts

Make your cash work a lot harder at EQ Bank. RRSP and TFSA account savings rates are at 1.25%. You’ll find some higher rates on certain GICs. They now also offer U.S. dollar accounts. They have been awesome.

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