Book Review – Freedom From Wealth

This book is an excellent resource for folks who have been accumulating wealth over their lifetimes – wealth that is more than they need to live off of.  Granted this isn’t everyone, but it’s probably a lot more of you than you think.  You don’t need to be a Bill Gates to have these sorts of issues in your path.

When you’ve worked your entire life to build up your wealth, you likely want to leave some of it to your children and grandchildren, but is it best to just hand it all over to them at your passing?  What if you also hoped to make a difference in the world with your money – perhaps with charitable activities, or to help your offspring to establish their own place in the world, or to leave a legacy, a way that your name can live on?

The first part of this book, fully half of the text, helps the reader to understand some of the issues that are necessary to address in order to be successful with such intents.  It’s important to develop strategies and employ the proper resources so that you can ensure that not only will your dreams be fulfilled, but also that your children and grandchildren will not become constrained by the wealth you’ve passed into their care.

That’s what the title is all about.  The authors, Charles A. Lowenhaupt and Donald B. Trone, have many, many years of experience in working with families as they transfer wealth over multiple generations, and this experience has shown that without proper planning, the wealth itself (and fulfilling the goals of the original wealth accumulator) can become a burden to the successive generations.  By putting the appropriate strategies into place, the heirs of the original wealth accumulator can carry out the intended plans and achieve their own life goals without feeling that the wealth itself is a burden.

The book begins with a full chapter devoted to the question “What is wealth for?”.  The answer isn’t as easy as you think.  The easier question for most folks who haven’t really thought about it much is “What is wealth NOT for?” – as in,

• I don’t want it used for taxes.
• I don’t want it squandered.
• I don’t want my spouse to take it in a divorce.
• I don’t believe in charity, so I don’t want it to go to charity.
• I don’t want my children to have it too young.
• I don’t want my lawyers to use it up in fees.

So – what wealth is for is something altogether more than the sum of all the things it’s not for.  Clearly, part of it is to provide sustenance to the owner of the wealth – but that may only be a small part of the overall accumulated wealth.  What else does the wealth holder hope to accomplish?  Do your heirs understand your hopes and dreams?  More importantly, do they agree with your hopes for your wealth?

The remainder of the book is a workbook of sorts that will help the reader to walk through the process of developing the strategy to achieve his or her life (and beyond life) goals.  This matter isn’t a simple undertaking; depending upon the size and complexity of the wealth portfolio, it will likely be in the best interest of the holder of wealth to hire appropriate resources (advisors and the like) the assist in the process.  This book can be a very good first step in the process.