FIRST TO A MILLION

An infomercial-style book about financial independence options and long-term goals.

Sheeks’ plan for achieving FI includes four useful mechanisms with clear and concise advice on how to earn more, spend less, save robustly, and invest wisely. The formula to reduce the burden of debt and grow wealth also features several short profiles of real young people and describes their experiences. The insights about time and frugality are highlights, and the 4 Percent Rule for savings and other tools encourage helpful reflection. Sheeks discusses how aggressive saving, establishing good credit, and wise investing will help readers obtain FI long before the usual age of retirement. However, with a limited analysis of alternate viewpoints and no mention of broader societal inequities that have an impact on personal opportunities and finance, such as race, sexuality, gender identity, and social class, readers could become wary of this approach. The weak, repetitive writing quickly becomes as tedious as an awkward middle-aged relative trying to sound hip, offering a handful of valuable perspectives that go somewhat against the grain of conventional wisdom about retirement yet delivering the feel of a long-winded sales pitch complete with multiple reminders to post selfies and videos featuring the book on social media.

A mildly informative but incomplete view of financial goal setting.