Overview

I just finished If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly, and I think it is one of the simplest and most practical introductions to investing.

📚 Read the book here: If You Can

The core message is very clear: you don’t need to be a financial expert to build wealth. You just need discipline, patience, and a long-term system.

Instead of chasing stocks or trying to time the market, the book focuses on building a simple structure that anyone can follow.

The 5 Investing Hurdles

One of the most useful parts of the book is how it breaks down investing success into 5 key hurdles. The idea is that most people fail not because investing is complicated, but because they struggle with these basic barriers.

1. Savings Rate

The first hurdle is how much you actually save.

If you don’t save enough, even good investing won’t help much. The book emphasizes that building wealth starts with controlling spending and increasing your savings rate over time.

Exercise: Track your income and expenses, then calculate your current savings rate. Set a target to gradually increase it.

2. Asset Allocation

This is about how you split your money between stocks, bonds, and other assets.

Many beginners either take too much risk or too little. The goal is to find a balance you can stick with long term.

Exercise: Choose a simple allocation (for example, 80% stocks / 20% bonds) and write down why it fits your risk tolerance.

3. Fees

Fees quietly destroy returns over time.

The book strongly emphasizes using low-cost index funds instead of expensive actively managed products.

Exercise: Check the expense ratio of your current investments and compare them to low-cost index alternatives.

4. Taxes

Taxes can significantly reduce your returns if you are not careful.

The idea is to invest in a tax-efficient way and avoid unnecessary trading.

Exercise: Review how your investments are taxed and identify whether you are frequently triggering taxable events.

5. Behavior (The Most Important One)

This is the hardest hurdle: yourself.

Even with a perfect plan, many investors fail because they panic during crashes or chase hype during bull markets.

Exercise: Write a personal rule like:

“I will not sell during market crashes if my long-term plan has not changed.”

Key Takeaways

  • You don’t need advanced financial knowledge to build wealth.
  • Consistency matters more than timing the market.
  • Low-cost index investing is powerful over the long term.
  • Avoid unnecessary fees and emotional decisions.
  • Patience is one of the biggest advantages in investing.

My Thoughts

What I like most about the book is how it simplifies investing into something very practical. It removes the illusion that finance is complicated and instead shows that success mostly comes from discipline.

The idea that “boring investing is good investing” really stands out.

It is especially useful for young people who are just starting their careers and want to build strong financial habits early.

Criticism

The book is very short and basic, so experienced investors may not find new insights. However, that simplicity is also its strength — it focuses only on what actually matters.

Conclusion

Overall, If You Can is less about “getting rich fast” and more about building a system that works slowly and reliably over time.

It teaches that wealth is not about prediction — it is about behavior, consistency, and patience.