Ramit Sethi – How to Win the Game of Advanced Personal Finance

This is an honest review of How to Win the Game of Advanced Personal Finance, a program from Ramit Sethi.

Advanced Personal Finance (APF) is a video course that serves as the “next steps” in personal finance.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably wondering:

“Should I buy Advanced Personal Finance?”

In this article, I’ll explain:

• Who should buy Advanced Personal Finance
• Who should not buy (and what to do instead)
• How the Advanced Personal Finance program works and the changes I implemented in my personal finance system

Let’s get started.

Disclosure: I used to work with Ramit Sethi at I Will Teach.

I bought APF because even though I worked with a financial advisor, I wanted to hear Ramit’s take on building your “financial fortress.” I felt like I was still in the dark with how my investments performed, and that I was still handling too much of the minutia around my finances.

There had to be a better way.

Who should buy Advanced Personal Finance?

Based on my experience through the program, seeing the level of financial acumen of the other participants, and what I was able to implement, you should take this program if:

• Have an individual salary greater than $100,000 (or household salary greater than $140,000)
• Have read Ramit’s book, I Will Teach You to be Rich and implemented 75% of the lessons
• Want to hire out parts of your personal finance system (e.g., an accountant for taxes)

How the Advanced Personal Finance course works

One of the first things Ramit asks is to explain your financial situation in the comments. Immediately, I notice: I’m surrounded by people more advanced than me. And I love it.

These people — who are others in the program — unabashedly talk about their quarter-million-dollar salaries, their multiple houses, stock options, and successful small businesses. They do so with candor, without gloat or brag.

I could see how this might turn off others, but I found it refreshing and motivating. These people are just being blunt: “This is where I am at this stage in my life and this is why I am in this course.”

It also reinforces the idea that no matter how much money you make or how “advanced” you become, you’re still going to have questions about “what’s next” and “have I checked all my boxes?”

A second major takeaway right off the bat:

Advanced personal finance is not doing more of the basic stuff, but better. Advanced personal finance is learning how to run your finances like a CEO — that means focusing on the strategy and delegating responsibility to others.

In other words, it’s not further optimizing your Roth IRA or finding an even better credit card. If you’ve gone through the basics, you’ve checked all these boxes. Instead, advanced is letting yourself off the hook from doing all of this yourself, so you can focus on the strategy of earning more, increasing investment, and protecting what you have.

From a student’s perspective, it was jarring at first — Ramit was basically saying, “I’m not going to teach you what you thought you were going to learn.” However, it made sense, and I could feel myself going along for the ride.

From the perspective of someone who builds courses, I was definitely impressed. The ability to shift expectations during a program is not easy and extremely nuanced. It is not easy to convince someone with preconceived notions to do the unexpected. Taking this program for example, if you came in expecting to learn more about investing in cryptocurrency or using platforms like Fundrise, it’s very hard to convince them that where they NEED to be focusing is learning to delegate their taxes, bookkeeping, and investment strategy… and then executing on those things.

However, Ramit makes the transition pretty seamlessly.