Safe Strategies for Financial Freedom (Hardcover)

by Van Tharp (Author), D.R. Barton (Author), Steve Sjuggerud (Author), Van Tharp (Author), D.R. Barton (Author) "Imagine that you never have to work again in your life..." (more)
Key Phrases: financial freedom number, red light mode, skateboard fund, United States, Federal Reserve, Big Mac (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Commonsense Rules for Financial Freedom – Anyone Can Do It!

Safe Strategies for Financial Freedom shows you how to know in 30 seconds whether you should be in or out of the market. The authors show you how great investors avoid mistakes – and win big. With Van Tharp’s legendary risk-control techniques; learn how the world’s most profitable investors reduce their risk and leave their wealth-generating potential unlimited, and how you can too.

You’ll learn how to invest wisely – in every type of market, protecting what you earn, and developing sources of regular income to achieve financial independence.

Safe Strategies for Financial Freedom provides you with a specific program for freeing yourself from the workplace—forever. Let it show you how to seize control of your financial life by investing in the assets that will provide you with steady income until the day when your investment income surpasses your monthly expenses—and you are, once and for all, financially free.

From the Back Cover

Get smart about your money and retire in five years or sooner!

Most people are only a few thousand dollars a month away from financial freedom. Financial freedom is not about millions of dollars in the bank--it's simply about generating investment income that exceeds your cost of living. Once you're there, you're financially free!

Safe Strategies for Financial Freedom shows you how to get there, from how to invest wisely and protect what you earn to proven techniques for developing sources of regular income to cover your expenses and achieve financial independence. Inside, you'll discover:

• The fastest and easiest way to get out of debt without pinching pennies
• Simple models that tell you how and when to invest in stocks, bonds, gold, and real estate

• Van Tharp's legendary risk-control techniques--How the world's most profitable investors reduce their risk and leave their wealth-generating potential unlimited

People achieve financial freedom every day--now it's your turn. Safe Strategies for Financial Freedom shares the secrets of how you can achieve financial freedom by determining your "financial freedom number," making the right investment moves, and accepting nothing less than absolute success. From its risk-controlling investment strategies to its "Why didn't I think of that?" money-management techniques, you'll learn a financial program designed to make you the master of your money, instead of its slave.

"Financial freedom is within your grasp. In this book, you will learn a simple strategy that will free you forever. Once you start, you'll watch yourself moving closer and closer to financial freedom every month."

--From the Preface

Wealthy folks don't achieve financial freedom by working for money. Instead, they have learned the simple rules for making money work for them! Safe Strategies for Financial Freedom provides the details of innovative yet achievable investment strategies that you can use to build and protect assets your assets in all investment climates. You can then use those assets as sources of regular income that will cover your monthly expenses and provide you with a lifetime of true financial freedom.

Written by world-renowned financial advisors Van K. Tharp, D.R. Barton, and Steve Sjuggerud, who have used these techniques to free themselves and thousands of others from jobs that barely cover expenses, this book describes:

• Your Personal Financial Freedom Number--How to build passive monthly income that frees you from the workplace
• Specific strategies for transforming your assets from money pits to money producers
• Stock market strategies that produce profits in all market environments, even major bear markets.
• The Max Yield Strategy--A once-a-year system for safe, double-digit profits
• Three proven real estate strategies for generating instant equity, long-term income, or both

Is your current plan is to spend your life working 50 or more hours a week and then saving your nickels until you retire to a modest, fixed income? You're not alone. But it might surprise you to discover just how many people are now actively taking the steps to achieve financial freedom that are contained in this book.

Safe Strategies for Financial Freedom provides you with a safe, specific program for freeing yourself from the workplace forever. It shows you how to seize control of your financial life by investing in those assets that will provide you with steady income until the day when your investment income has surpassed your monthly expenses--and you are, once and for all, financially free.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 350 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (June 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071421475
• ISBN-13: 978-0071421478
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #59,722 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

175 of 189 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars What A Disappointment, August 23, 2004

By	Reader (Colorado) - See all my reviews

I gave it an extra star because at least Van Tharp tries to offer some real investment alternatives; unlike every other fluff-ball financial planning book.

Unfortunately, most of the investments he offers are filled with landmines that have ruined many experienced & educated investors. When he discusses investments, he doesn't talk much about downside risk, except by ending chapters with "do your due diligence".

The passive investment Tharp recommends most often is real estate (with some incredible return claims). And he points to his seminar buddy John Burley as the trainer you should use. I just received a flyer today hyping John's latest Boot Camp, and it costs $6,000. Maybe he's a great teacher, but his brochure has all the traits of a sleazy scammer.

Tharp spends a lot of time telling you how to predict the inflation rate, or whether the U.S. dollar is going up or down. If Tharp, or any of his students could do this - they would easily be trillionaires, but he can't point to any. Throughout the book, I kept wanting to see "Where is the proof?" Just claiming that you have a backtested model is NOT proof, and only a fool would invest based on this (every beginning trader knows this and Tharp claims he's an expert?). Tharp's evidence comes from the other authors. But they are newsletter writers that make a living selling newsletters - not from their trading profits!

Rather than go into many more examples of his vague "successfully redeploying assets", I'll just say that: since Tharp describes himself as The Leader in investment psychology (and coaches the best investors) - I expected real substance. If you buy this book, you are only paying for Van Tharp's Financial Freedom.

I also spent $100 for Tharp's accompaning software thinking that maybe all the 'huge return examples' alluded to in the book was in his "upsell" product. Wrong. You input your financial information and it adds it up and displays a graphic showing your income & expenses each month. But I already knew these numbers - I was the one that input them!! If you click on the discussions it basically repeats vague stuff from the book.

90 of 98 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Financial Freedom Number Concept alone is worth a star, June 20, 2004

By	James Lor "James Lor" (Montreal, CANADA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Firstly, I would like to state that I'm a Van Tharp fan. I read his "Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom" at least 15 times. I think that book and Marcel Link's "High Probability Trading" are the best books written about trading in a long time. I rated both as 5 stars.

There are good things and bad things about this book.

The good things: The Financial Freedom Number Concept alone is worth the price of the book and 1 of the stars. It was quite a revelation that you become financially free when your monthly passive income exceed your monthly expenses. It may be a blinding flash of the obvious, but most people don't realize it until someone points out that fact. The other good things about this book are that there are strategies that work in up, down and sideways markets. The system expectancy and risk control methods are included (but I already read them in his other 2 books).

The bad things: The down side is that there is too much damn advertising and it's damn irritating. I had to look twice to make sure it wasn't a "Wade Cook" book. I deducted 2 stars from the rating to show my disapproval!!!

Van K. Tharp, you DA MAN!!! But if you write another book, can you just please just write new material and leave out the marbles game thing, and the expectancy thing, and the position sizing thing? You already wrote them in your other 3 books. And if you have to put in all the damn advertising, at least have the decency to put in all in the appendix and not all over the book. Thanks.

49 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Safe Strategies for Financial Freedom, June 19, 2004

By A Customer

I have been investing myself since about 1980, in Real Estate, Stocks and my own business. I have read pretty much everything I can get my hands on from economics, math, business, to investing as in the classic trading books and options strategies. I did read Van Tharps' "Trade your Way to Financial Freedom" I liked that one and learned a fair amount.
I'm not sure what happened to Van Tharp, if he needs money or what, but I found "Safe Strategies" to be about one level above an infomercial mentality. The only reason this is one level above is because I bit and bought this book because of Van Tharp's name.

I guess if you if you are just starting out hopefully this will wake up your interest in making and taking care of your money.

Most of this book to me was comical, especially chapter 12, The Real Estate strategies. There is another name for most of those strategies and that is bank fraud, my opinion. Any Real Estate investing that talks about funds held outside of escrow then being "forgiven" after closing and not being disclosed should send a red flag up to you. The slang for this is Texas Earnest money. If Berry has ever actually did some of his deals and can sleep at night great, not for me. I've seen this deals come to me and usually laugh at the people attempting to make them. I ask what seminar you go to or where did you read this.
Read Chapter 12 and ask yourself how stupid do people have to be to accept his offers.
Oh you can say hard-up yeah ok good luck finding them, much less reselling the property. But hey everybody has to learn for themselves I guess.

I could on about this book but I have already wasted enough time with it between reading and now this.

I will say if you want to read a couple of great books about the stock markets, in my opinion, check out `Trade Like A Hedge Fund" by Altucher; "Practical Speculation" by Niederhoffer and anything written by Dr. Elders, for options, "Options as a Strategic Investments" by McMillian.

Hey if you like this new Van Tharps book, so be it. Sure there a few good ideas that are rehashed like position sizing and really just being disciplined but my area for many years has been real estate so when i read things that in my State would most likely get people into trouble i feel a duty to at least warn them about this.