Ideas in the Wild: Logan Rankin is Creating Financial Freedom by Teaching Us How to Make Our Money Work For Us

The conventional pathway to financial freedom used to be clear: invest in 401(k)s, pay off debt, and save. But is this still the right path?

With the high rate of inflation today, “a penny saved is a penny earned” no longer applies. To achieve financial freedom, people must challenge what they’ve learned about money. Even more importantly, they must learn to invest on their terms.

In Find Your Financial Freedom, entrepreneur Logan Rankin reveals how to become financially independent. A self-taught investor who found his niche in real estate, Logan debunks common myths, provides a structure for managing money each month, and shows how to scale investments and achieve financial freedom.

Ultimately, Logan explains how to take the first step in a new direction toward confidence, clarity, and a lifetime of wealth. I recently caught up with Logan to learn more about why he wrote the book and the ideas he shares with others.

Why did you write this book?

From a young age the following was drilled into me: Work hard. Save money. Reduce debt. Put what’s left in a 401(k). Sound familiar?

Throughout this book I’m going to share why those beliefs held me back in my teens and my early 20s, even after the milestone my wife, Ashley, and I reached in deciding to pursue our Financial Freedom together. Maybe some of those beliefs are holding you back, too.

The good news — and the reason that I wrote this book — is that you can go on a journey from naivete to wisdom. You can challenge societal norms and beliefs. You can set a vision for your life, put on paper when you will achieve it, and determine the intensity level at which you’ll go after it.

It doesn’t end there, either. You can become financially literate to plug your leaks. You can figure out how to scale. You can also establish the seeds of your legacy so that your time on Earth leads to a better future for your children and others. I did all of this, and in this book, I teach you how you can do it, too.

Ultimately, I wrote this book to show people how to remove the unnecessary stresses of money, finances, and investments from their lives, and beyond that unlock the options available once they’ve achieved the milestone of Financial Freedom.

What’s an idea you share that really excites you?

It’s always been interesting to me that people are so quick to talk about how you need to “save” more to build wealth. Penny saved, penny earned. Don’t spend too much, because then more can be saved.

But have you ever wondered why a third option — investing — hasn’t been readily shared? Or maybe you’ve even been told saving is investing? Truly think about today’s world. What happens to your money as you save and save some more?

From the standpoint of control, the choice whether to save, spend, or invest is very much in your hands. Saving doesn’t get you a return in the way that the “penny saved, penny earned” attitude would have you believe.

If you’re like me, you’ve questioned this precept in general. You’ve questioned whether the best option for your money is to just sit there. And I’m here to tell you, it’s not.

Saving for emergencies and a rainy day is essential, but beyond having that nest egg contingency, saving is really not as great an idea as you might have been taught to think from the vantage point of accruing wealth because it means your money isn’t moving. When your money isn’t moving, it isn’t working for you. Penny invested, penny earned is more accurate.

How will following your advice improve your readers’ lives?

This isn’t a guide to get rich or get rich quick. It’s important to be thankful for everything you have at each stage in your journey. What I’m sharing worked for me, yes, and on a relatively short time scale — seven years to Financial Freedom from age 23 to 30 — but I’m not focused on dollar amounts as a first principle.

You can be financially free living a humble, frugal lifestyle. At the same time, if you want to live in abundance, that is up to you as well. As you start to stack money (which this book teaches you to do), you’ll have the option to decline or give into lifestyle creep — where you spend a little more than you were before — and enjoy a few more comforts than you did while in the trenches of your path to Financial Freedom. But that choice is yours.

In these pages, I share the power of an actionable process applied to a vision of Financial Freedom. Any of the most successful ideas in this book I’ve compiled either from other books or from direct experience. I’m striving to tell stories and explain things in a way that has resonated with me and for my students, mentees, and attendees at workshops.

My hope in doing all this is that this book will help you confront the lies you’ve been told, or that you’ve told yourself, about money, finances, and investment. It will show you how to make your money reach its full potential and work as hard as you do. Perhaps most importantly, by following the advice in this book, you will build a mindset, understanding, and blueprint to achieve the kind of Financial Freedom you desire.