Wealth Your Way: A Simple Path to Financial Freedom

💡 What This Book Is About

Wealth Your Way: A Simple Path to Financial Freedom by Cosmo P. DeStefano is an award-winning personal finance book to help you build real wealth confidently.

Most people struggle with money not because they’re bad at math, but because no one ever taught them how to think about financial decisions.

Wealth Your Way is a no-fluff, behavior-first guide that helps you shift your mindset, design a plan, and build real wealth on your own terms. It’s not about spreadsheets, shortcuts, or chasing fads. It focuses on clarity over complexity, process not prediction, and progress over perfection.

This book is about designing a financial plan that actually fits your life — and then having the discipline to stick with it when markets, headlines, and emotions try to knock you off course.

🧱 Core Frameworks You’ll Learn

The book introduces a set of durable mental models you can apply at every stage of your financial life:

• Goals‑First Planning For Life’s Complete Financial Arc (Chapters 1-2)
  Start with what you want your money to do, not what the market might do.

• Process Over Prediction (Chapters 2, 7)
  Long‑term success comes from repeatable decisions, not forecasts.

• Behavior Beats Math (Chapters 9-10)
  Emotional discipline matters more than perfect optimization.

• Risk Is Personal, Not Abstract (Chapters 4, 14)
  True risk is failing to meet your goals, not short‑term volatility.

• PCR: Plan → Course-correct → Repeat (Chapter 2 and throughout)
  Thoughtful planning upfront allows you to do less, not more, over time.

These frameworks are the backbone of the book and the foundation behind many of the articles published in Wealth Your Way Insights.

✨ Why This Approach Works

Traditional personal finance focuses on tactics — which accounts to use, which assets to buy, which benchmarks to beat.

Wealth Your Way focuses on decision‑making under uncertainty.

Markets will change. Life will change. Your plan must be able to adapt without requiring constant tinkering or emotional heroics. By grounding decisions in goals, behavior, and process, this approach works across market cycles, career shifts, and life transitions.

📖 An Excerpt from Wealth Your Way: A Simple Path to Financial Freedom

The following excerpt comes from the opening of Wealth Your Way and introduces the planning-first, behavior-driven philosophy that underpins both the book and this newsletter.

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Introduction

Before retiring from my professional career as a certified public accountant (CPA) and tax consultant, I spent 22 years as a partner in a so-called “Big Four” public accounting firm (one of the largest professional services firms in the world with a global network of more than 284,000 people across 155 countries). I worked with clients big and small, public and private, across various industries helping them solve some of their more complex business and financial issues.

So it came as a bit of a surprise to me when I realized that one of my toughest financial challenges wasn’t in the professional realm, but rather at home, teaching my two children about money matters, among life’s other lessons. It wasn’t the teaching that was the problem, it was the learning—or at least that’s what I tell myself! Both caught on quickly enough about the importance of money (most kids do), but neither of them had much interest in spending time delving into broader financial matters or “boring business stuff” as they would often say. I don’t blame them—few people get as juiced up about personal financial planning as I do.

As the years went by, the conversations kept broadening out, first to several nieces and nephews, then to business associates, friends, and neighbors. I started summarizing my thoughts in a monthly email, each covering a different aspect of personal finance. The distribution and forwarding of those emails, which started with just a few family members, struck a chord and quickly expanded. Shortly thereafter, several readers suggested I put my thoughts all in one place.

This book has grown out of my efforts to teach financial matters to my children, who have their own interests and passions to follow. My simple wish for them is that they learn how planning for money matters can enhance their personal life’s journey, and maybe the lessons in this book can also help them avoid a few missteps along the way. And since you are reading this book, I hope it can do the same for you.

Company pensions are, for the most part, a thing of the past. Social Security was designed to supplement your retirement income, but it was never intended to be your sole source of retirement spending money. Today, managing your money is not an option but an imperative. On your own or with the help of an advisor, you need to do it.

This book and my philosophy on planning personal wealth management are based on the concept that accumulating wealth is simple but not easy. If it’s simple, why does it take a whole book to explain it? It doesn’t. I can summarize the concept in one (long) sentence: define what financial independence (FI) means for you, set realistic goals, develop a plan to achieve those goals with the right balance of risk and return, periodically review your progress, make changes as needed, and stay on your chosen path over the several decades that make up your Life’s Complete Financial Arc.

Simple, right? So, why this book? It takes more than a sentence (1) to flesh out all that is packed into that summation, and (2) to identify and explore ways to deal with the pitfalls and hurdles that can make the journey “not easy.”

To start, we will step back and explore what we are planning for in the first place—that is, what is “wealth” and “financial independence”? We will explore how to develop a dynamic planning process, set realistic goals and assess progress toward those goals, identify some challenges, and, yes, explore some investing strategies, including this fundamental understanding: investing is an important tool to help achieve your plan, but investing is not the plan. And the plan is not as critical as the planning process!

We will also delve into some of the philosophy and psychology of wealth planning, helping you recognize your cognitive biases and the emotional challenges hurled at you by market participants and pundits.

All these concepts come under the umbrella of financial independence: How to think more broadly and holistically about your money plans. How to get to the point where you no longer need your labor to generate income to live on. How to grow your wealth and achieve the freedom of financial independence—the freedom to continue exploring the interests that provide you meaning and purpose in life.

In a lot of ways, the journey to FI is like dieting or exercising. Eating right or working out is simple enough. But it’s the design and execution of the plan that can be daunting.

The same is true with planning to grow your wealth. Financial independence is not simple because, as Warren Buffett once said, “Nobody wants to get rich slowly.”

Our plan will traverse your Life’s Complete Financial Arc. It’s much broader than “investing.” It’s about accumulating wealth, achieving financial independence, and then using that wealth to support the life you want to live.

That’s why my goal here is to help you with how to think about personal financial planning, not just what to think.

You may be a Gen Z coming of age, a millennial with oppressive student debt, a Gen X self-reliant but underfunded, or a boomer playing catch-up, but for all of us, financial planning boils down to this simple mantra:

Think about what to do, go do it, then do as little as possible after that.
PCR: Plan → Course-Correct → Repeat.

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📖 Inside the Book: Introduction, Table of Contents & Chapter One (PDF)

Wealth Your Way Sample

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📚 Buy the Book Today

→ Buy Wealth Your Way on Amazon →

Paperback | Kindle | Audiobook | ISBN: 978-1-5445-2984-4
Copyright © 2022 by Cosmo P. DeStefano
All rights reserved.

🏆 Awards & Recognition

Wealth Your Way has earned multiple honors for excellence in personal finance writing:

• 🥇 Best Personal Finance Book – 2025 Independent Press Award

• 🥇 Gold Medal: Best Business & Money Book – 2024 Global Book Awards

• 🥇 Best Personal Finance Book – 2024 NYC Big Book Award

• 🥇 Gold Medal: Best Retirement Book – 2023 Readers’ Favorite International Book Awards

• 🥇 Best Wealth Management Book – 2023 Goody Business Book Awards

• 🥇 Best Money Book – 2023 BookFest Book Awards

• 🥇 Gold Medal: Nonfiction – 2023 Literary Titan Book Award

🗣️ Editorial Praise

“What can a CPA with 30+ years of investing experience teach us? A LOT.”

– Alex Wieckowski, blogger, author, Learn to Love Reading

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“DeStefano hits a sweet spot: he provides substantive information in a light and accessible tone…A comprehensive guide for all ages on how to invest and achieve financial independence.”

– BookLife Reviews (Editor’s Pick⚡)

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“The author inspires his readers…Anyone who cares about their financial future—regardless of how much they may or may not know about finances at present—will benefit from this book.”

– Readers’ Favorite

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“[Wealth Your Way] adopts a practical and direct approach, demystifying intricate financial notions for the everyday reader. Targeted at both financial novices and those with a foundational understanding, Wealth Your Way is a treasure trove for anyone from young professionals…to those charting their retirement course.”

– Literary Titan

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“[The book’s] scope is comprehensive, but [its] straightforward style never intimidates. Those who want to invest for their future but don’t know how to start would do well to check this out.”

– Publisher’s Weekly

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🧠 Why I Wrote This Book

After 30 years as a CPA, consultant, and strategist, I repeatedly saw smart people stuck in confusing money ruts. They didn’t need more information; they needed a clearer perspective and a real plan.

Creating Wealth Your Way was a long journey, with moments of doubt along the way.

After sending my manuscript to one of the greatest investors of our time, he sent back a thoughtful handwritten note that encouraged me and reinforced the importance of the ideas I was sharing in the book.

I published Wealth Your Way to help more people cut through the noise, take control, and live better now, not just someday.

💬 What Readers Are Saying

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “It’s amazing how quickly my outlook on financial management changed from one of uncertainty and anxiety to assurance and excitement, all because of this book!”

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “It helped me to not just focus on how to achieve my goals but to think about why was I investing in the first place. Honestly, I wish that I read the book 10 years ago!”

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “A spirited, informative…roadmap for taking control of your personal finances. DeStefano writes with energy and clarity. I find his ideas and thought process refreshingly useful.”

📝 About the Author

Cosmo DeStefano is a retired PwC partner and personal finance strategist. He helps professionals and self-starters build wealth using practical strategies, mindset shifts, and long-term planning.

His writing and insights have been featured in Kiplinger, Benzinga, MSN, and The Evidence-Based Investor, sharing data-driven financial strategies with readers around the globe.

🙌 How This Book Connects to Wealth Your Way Insights

Many articles published in Wealth Your Way Insights are direct extensions of the frameworks introduced in this book. The articles explore real‑world applications, current market conditions, and behavioral challenges — all grounded in the same core philosophy.

Think of the book as the foundation. The articles are the ongoing conversation.

If you enjoyed the book or want to go deeper, I share fresh, practical insights every month in my free newsletter. Start with the book to get the complete roadmap. Stay for the newsletter to keep the momentum going.

Want to see how I think about money?
Explore My Blueprint — the foundation and frameworks behind everything I write.