Money Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom

Having already read and loved 'Awaken the giant within' and 'Unlimited power' by Tony Robbins, I was excited to say the least when this book was published especially as better finances is one of my goals for 2015. At 600+ pages this book is heavy reading! it took me a few weeks to finish the book but there is lots of great advice and wisdom in there which makes the effort worthwhile. If you are completely new to this area and a book this size seems too daunting for you then you're probably better off reading 'The richest man in Babylon' by George S Clason and 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' by Robert T Kiyosaki which cover the fundamentals of making money. Indeed, as Tony states on page 69 of this book "As a young man, I came across George Samuel Clason's classic 1926 book the richest man in Babylon, which offered common-sense financial advice told through ancient parables. I recommend it to everyone." Whilst money: master the game essentially covers the same advice in the aforementioned books it goes into far more detail about investing on the stock market and as can be expected from a Tony Robbins book, there is a heavy emphasis on personal development too. The biggest problem I found with this book is that I am British and it is clearly aimed at an American market so some of the advice is not relevant to a British or International audience. Having said that, there are some universal principles about investing in the stock market and you can still learn a lot from this book if you're not American. One thing I particularly liked is the interviews with Billionaires. I had already heard of Warren Buffett but knew none of the other investors interviewed such as Ray Dalio, Carl Icahn, Charles Schwab, T Boone Pickens, Sir John Templeton, Jack Bogle, Paul Tudor Jones and David Swensen. I found all the interviews inspiring but particularly liked the ones with Ray Dalio, Carl Icahn and Sir John Templeton. If like me you don't really know the difference between inflation and deflation and your eyes glaze over when news readers start talking about Consumer Price Index and the economy, there is a great video produced by Ray Dalio 'How the economic machine works' which Tony recommends readers watch at www.economicprinciples.org the video is half an hour long and it is brilliant! learning about this video was worth the price of the book alone as it makes everything easy to understand. In conclusion if you are completely new to managing finances you will learn a lot from this book but at 600 pages it's a lot to get through so you may wish to try the two books I mentioned earlier first which can be read relatively quickly. If you are already in the game so to speak then the interviews with highly successful investors are very insightful.

I love how this book is written. If you have ever seen Tony Robbins on YouTube you know it is in his own words and entertaining as well as informative. This book has made me want to save in way of investing. This book shows you that investing is the the smarter way to be rich even if the interest rates go up! I am not very good at maths and technical finance stuff and saving. This book is presented in a way in which everyone can understand and Tony Robbins really goes out of his way to make sure the average Joe can understand. So I understand the maths plus the financial stuff. In fact, there is an app which is free to use and referenced in the book that does all the maths for you when it comes to compound interest. Furthermore, now I understand how compound interest works and using the app to find out what my predicted results will be I am saving my money by investing it. The app even encouraged me to save more than I would have typically. This is because of the results it shows you which are possible and that you can do the process of this on the app over and over again to see the difference in how much it will be worth. Additionally, the app and the book makes you look at ways you can tweak your current finances to save more for your future. This book is highly motivating and useful to those who already save regularly or people like me who were not saving anything. An added bonus is that buying the book you are feeding people as Tony Robbins is not making money on this book. Instead, he is using the money to feed people who are in poverty. I really have nothing negative to say about this book! The item arrived promptly and well packaged.

I can't put this book down. It's full of gold. The language of this, often difficult topic is accessible, easy to read and understand. Physically, I'm finding the book to be tiring to hold. It's not something to slip into my bag because it's so big. One to read at home then, sitting at a desk because it's so heavy. You want to make notes and underline keen ideas. Really want to get some of these ideas to my family members but wouldn't buy them this book because the size alone would put them off. While I understand that the content is essential and insightful, a shorter version might get a wider audience. I'm thinking, if I went to get this book from a book shop, I would think twice about whether to buy it because of the size. Nevertheless - Highly recommended!

The best book available on the market today to help someone secure their financial future for themselves and their family. It is long, but very interesting and easy to read and requires discipline to follow. You can't retire young and well if you spend more than you earn, or what little you do save, put that away earning 0.5% with your local bank. The book is American so you do need to take the general principles, replace S&P500 with FTSE, replace 401(k) with pension and Roth IRA with ISA. It would be great if there was a chapter for us Brits but there isn't and if you can't research the subtle differences of what we need to do differently here in the UK, then you are not going to have the discipline to follow through, save, invest and retire, you might as well not read the book in the first place. Likewise for those of your disgusted at the thought you might need to make a few cutbacks and save more, you will be disappointed. There are no chapters on winning the lottery or getting free money out of thin air. For those who want to do the very best to secure your future and ensure your family and children are secure, willing to make a few tough decisions along the way then this is exactly what you need and I am confident that following this advice will transform the next 10-30 years for me.

I have been reading finance books for 15 years and this is the best I have come across. It is designed for beginners and people who have been investing for years. This not just about making money. For me it was about developing the right relationship with money so that it can help you achieve the things you perceive money can do. You get to truly appreciate your recourses, appreciate what you have in your life and how you can add to it be having sound financial understanding. like any great book, it has the potential to challenge your assumptions and change the way you think. For the Beginner: You get to understand the key anatomy of the financial market, teaches you how to not get conned, and how to not be afraid to take control of your financial future. For the intermediate: You get an understanding of risk ,and how you can be hijacked by your own emotions when investing. For the advanced: You get insights from some of the greatest investors of our time, and the principles that make them exceptional. For everyone: How to have fun and fulfilment while you travel this investment road. Well done Tony and thankyou so much for this gift of a book. What a gift.

Ideal for a person who doesn't yet understand his/her's financial options. Reading the book has made me switch bank accounts which in itself has given me £125 on switching, an increase on my spending account interest rate (5% on anything up to £2K with TSB), I started a regular savings account with 7% interest (First Direct) for a year which should make me just under £100 in interest while building what Tony calls a "freedom fund". And I put 18% of my monthly pay into my pension at 23 years old (includes 3% employer contribution). I didn't read all of the investment stuff because I don't have enough money at the moment to put into any other investments - I just took out a mortgage - but judging by the above I'd say this book is a worthy investment. It cost me about £6 and it's already made me £125 cash in hand and has forced me to look at my financial options, and will end up making me more money on interest in the future.

Please note, this review was written by Roman M from USA website, I was asked to put it here so you UK guys can read it as it was an honest and very thorough review. ** My own personal view was this book was inspirational, although perhaps long and parts repeated.. it was definitely useful to read and more importantly, it got me thinking/focusing on my long term investments. As a trader in financial markets, I found the advice for beginners to not try and trade themselves and complete with pros was a solid one and Tony instead gave resources on how a beginner to more safely gain returns. He also talked about the many dirty tricks pensions funds use to steal your money. I have been getting robbed blindly for 10 years now! Time to put a stop to that! I personally made a note to re-read as so much useful content ** But enough about me, here is Roman's fantastic review that gives another perspective on the matter and will help give you all a balanced view of this book : I realize that this is not going to be a popular review in a sea of readers who are either huge fans of Tony's work or people who are new to investing and I am in no way trying to discourage anyone from buying the book. I just hope that a few people will read this with an open mind in order to make an informed purchase. I started following Tony's advice back in the early 90s, when I was a teenager, and am very familiar with all of his principles. A couple of weeks ago I saw a post on Facebook about him releasing a new book on finances so I bought it to see if it would be any better than his books and CDs (if you've read any of his books or listened to his CDs, you probably know that he provides very little concrete advice and invites you to attend his expensive "Wealth Mastery" seminar in order to learn more). As expected, the first few chapters of the book consist mainly of motivational material and a description of the issue (i.e. most Americans don't know how to make money in the stock market long-term). You can easily skip those without missing any critical information, unless you need motivation to invest. As I was listening to these chapters on Audible, I was starting to worry that the entire book would consist of nothing more than motivational material... Then he finally starts going into some specifics. He starts out by saying that the secret to wealth is to add more value to other people's lives. Okay. Then he talks about deciding on a specific percentage of your income that you want to invest (he recommends saving and investing 10-20% of your income). He spends a lot of time talking about index funds (of which many books have been written before, such as books by John C. Bogle) and the exorbitant amount of fees charged by most mutual funds (nothing new there either. See Phil Town's "Payback Time", for example). He talks about dollar cost averaging, re-balancing your account at least once a year, don't invest in actively managed mutual funds, etc. So far, all of this information is accurate, but if you have been investing in the market for a number of years or even read the free articles on the Motley Fools' website, I'm sorry to say that there is little new information here. But at this part of the book, Tony starts referring to the reader as "an insider", which I find a bit comical. In all honesty, if you are new to investing, this is one of many potential books where you can get more information. However, be aware of the following: 1. The book is very long. And sadly, it is not because it is so full of financial wisdom. Although there are some nuggets of useful information found throughout the book, unfortunately, most of the pages are filled with "filler" information. Tony goes on and on listing the names of the "insiders" that he spoke with to come up with advice for this book. The information is very repetitive. He also spends a significant amount of time going into non-financial information from his prior books and seminars (i.e. the six human needs, controlling your emotional states, etc and trying to tie the information to money). Unfortunately, all this filler information makes the book painfully slow to read and was totally unnecessary if you ask me. If you read a book like Benjamin Graham's classic, "The Intelligent Investor", you right away see the difference. It's all meat and no potatoes. Not the case with Tony's book, unfortunately. 2. Although he tells us not to try to time the market, he then proceeds to give us a list of examples of past predictions he made which turned out to be correct. However, he doesn't mention anything about his August 2010 prediction in which he said: "Right now is a time you might want to take some stocks off the table in the stock market. Especially if they are in manufacturing or retail or banking or god forbid homebuilding and housing . . . I would feel bad if I didn't warn you . . . One of the biggest bubbles in history is blowing up now." What happened after he made this prediction, you ask? The market ended up gaining 90%! (See the recent BloombergView article for more information. I will post the link for it in the comments section). In addition, his recommendation to take money out of the stock market directly contradicts information found in the book (which specifically recommends to "wait out" market lows and continue investing every month, also known as dollar cost averaging). 3. A lot of the "financial shortcuts" that he mentions have "catches" (as he finally reveals hundreds of pages into the book, although in the first few chapters -and on the book cover- he only talks about the positives of his methods, making them sound easy and full-proof). Definitely do your research before attempting anything other than the time-tested advice, such as investing in index funds. Even his "All Weather" portfolio might not prove to be as good as his historical numbers suggest (see the link in the comments section for more information). In fact, as I keep on finding more and more reviews online by financial advisers and financial journalists, I see that many of them have noticed some of the same issues and contradictions that I discovered when reading the book. I'm going to post two more links to articles on the first comment for anyone who cares to read them. 4. The free "app" (which is not really an app since you can't download it as far as I can tell) is nice. It asks you for your current spending on different items (food, mortgage, transportation, etc) in order to calculate how much you will need in order to pay for these things through your investments. However, I am puzzled that it utilizes today's amounts and doesn't seem to take inflation into account. So it gives people the false impression that they will reach their goals much sooner than expected but that seems like a critical mistake to me. Let's suppose that you had achieved financial security back in 1984 (20 years ago) and back then you needed 4,500 dollars a month to pay for your basic needs. According to USinflationcalculator, today you would need 10,754 dollars in order to pay for the same items (a 139% cumulative rate of inflation). Ouch! In addition, as fellow reader "MJC" mentioned in the comments, the app does not take important recurring annual expenses such as property taxes into account, which can easily add up to thousands of dollars a year! I have spoken to multiple people in the financial industry over the years and the number one regret that they hear from their clients is that they did not save enough for retirement. So Tony's app worries me. You may want to sign up for the free app and run through your numbers before you buy the book to see if this feels right to you. 5. The book is very hyper and has too much excitement. As another reviewer, Prohobo, put it so well: "there is a lot of "excitement", "wow factor", "hype", "selling" and "fluff" in the book - leading up to the meat. So it does read very "self-helpy" for a lack of a better word." It has a bit of a feel of a "get rich quick" book, so be ready for that if you're going to buy it. Also, Tony anticipates and responds to any criticism of his book by dismissing anyone's critical opinion unless they themselves are rich. Yet, he himself did not make his initial wealth in the stock market. Rather, he made his millions in his twenties through his books, tapes/CDs, coaching, and seminars (remember "Wealth Mastery"?). According to Forbes, "'Unleash the Power Within,' nets him some $9 million annually", not counting his other seminars and products. He claims to teach the keys to wealth and business mastery, but other than selling personal development products and services, which he admittedly is very good at, his overall business track record is questionable to say the least. Does anyone remember what happened to his public company, DreamLife? Or what about his "more than twenty companies, a dozen of which he actively manages" (according to his description on Amazon)? How does one person actively manage that many companies? Although Tony says that he will donate all of the proceeds for this book, it has stirred up a huge amount of publicity for Tony's brand, his products, and the companies which he is constantly promoting throughout the book. And there is a disclosure at the beginning of the book saying that "the author is in discussions with StrongHold Wealth Management to enter into some type of business partnership". In fact, I looked into this and I found an article from ThinkAdvisor which claims that Josh Jenkins-Robbins, Tony's son, works for Stronghold! The article states: "According to FINRA's BrokerCheck, [Josh Jenkins-Robbins] is registered with Stronghold Financial in San Diego. And his LinkedIn Profile links to three company websites: Stronghold Financial and two enterprises in which Tony Robbins enjoys joint ventures. In his book, the elder writes that Josh "has been in financial services his entire life."" Hmm... 6. As Cullen Roche wrote in a recent MarketWatch article, "Robbins stresses the importance of becoming an "insider" and steers the reader toward many of his own companies or companies he's partnered with" (see the link to the article in my 11/28/14 comment). In addition, "the book promotes a low-fee approach, yet it recommends working with companies [i.e. Lifetime Income and Stronghold Financial] that will outsource you to high-fee firms. This is a contradiction that is difficult to reconcile, and it seriously undermines the credibility of the text. [...] The book is filled with contradictory strategic investment commentary. Robbins stresses the importance of using passive index funds, but also explains the importance of asymmetric returns and active strategies. He interviews supposed "insiders" who have totally contradictory approaches (stock traders, activists and indexers), while putting many high-fee hedge fund managers on a pedestal. He even cites his own market-timing calls over the years as if that adds any value to the text without mentioning that he has made some horrible stock market calls [...]. You come away thinking that these high-fee active managers are geniuses, but then you're told at points that high-fee active managers are useless. Again, the commentary seemed to contradict itself consistently." I highly recommend you read the full article so you know what you are getting yourself into if you're going to buy the book. Having read dozens of financial books over the years, my "baloney detection kit" went off multiple times while reading this book. For example, I believe his advice pertaining to paying off your mortgage faster is inaccurate (someone with real estate expertise correct me if I'm wrong on this one). On page 251, "The Banker's Secret", Tony claims that if you have a 270,000 dollar home financed over 30 years at 6%, if you prepay 270 dollars a month, you will pay it off in 15 years, saving 50% of the total cost. I have a mortgage so this would be great news for me. However, I went to Bank Rate's website and ran those exact numbers and the result I got was that the mortgage would be payed off in 21 years (i.e. 9 years sooner, rather than the 15 years claimed by Tony) and that you would save 107,729 dollars, versus Tony's 50% which would you have been closer to 265K, since the total cost of the home would have been 582K at 6% over 30 years. In addition, on that same page he writes "To be clear, you're not paying extra money; you're simply prepaying next month's principal a touch sooner", even though I am paying 270 extra dollars every month... Hmm. At the end of the day, it's an inexpensive book and a lot of the advice in it is good and it is nice to read the views of the some of today's great investors (although even that part spends too much time talking about the individuals and their achievements, it has little practical advice, and sounds very much like his old "Power Talk" series, which were fun to listen to but ended up having little impact on your life). Tony has a special gift for taking old information, even common wisdom at times, and "repackaging" it to make it sound earth-shattering. If this book makes you take action on information that you already know, then it's worth every penny. If you are new to investing, you will get a lot of good information (although I strongly recommend you read a few more books to get different perspectives. See the comments section for some suggestions). That is, if you can make it through the entire book. However, if you know more than 90% of the general population (which isn't hard to do, given the financial ignorance of the average person), then you can safely skip this book. At the end of the day, the book ends up over-promising and under-delivering if you ask me. Update: So many of you have been asking me for a list of key points from the book so here goes :) 1. Understand the power of compound interest and save/invest 10-20% of your income. 2. You can't beat the market. 3. Fees kill your returns. Look at America's Best 401(k) or Feex to see how your 401(k) fares. 4. Hire an independent fiduciary adviser. 5. Use a Roth IRA or Roth 401(k) and pay taxes now as much as possible, since they are likely to rise in the future. 6. Forget Target Date or actively managed mutual funds. Use index funds instead. 7. Know how much you need in order to retire (use the free app to find some rough numbers. Make sure to take inflation into account since the app doesn't do that) 8. Come up with a solid asset allocation: a secure bucket (bonds, CDs, cash, etc) and a growth bucket (stocks, real estate, commodities, etc). Re-balance regularly. Take the Rutgers University risk tolerance quiz to find out how much risk you can stomach. That's all for now. I'll continue as soon as I have more time :) P.S. Did anyone notice that there is no bibliography? On page 639, Tony gives you his main website to go access the bibliography (it's online "in order to be efficient on additional space", he says) but I was unable to find it anywhere. Did anyone else find it?

Amazing book, learnt soooo much about investing and life in general, it's long and quite a heavy read for someone like me who just starts learning about money game but it's worth going through the effort. It taught me that money can give happiness only when you are prepared for it and that it is important to live in many directions, not forgetting about enjoying life and being kind and giving to others.. Might seem like a cliche but to me it was important to read it, that to have money you do not have to be 'bad' or ruthless.