If I Had Known Earlier: How to Achieve Financial Peace and Freedom

Reviewed by Diario de un Inversor · UpdatedJune 13, 2026

Our review

«If I Had Known Earlier» is a personal finance book written from direct experience, not theory. Carlos Devis shares the costly lessons he learned over years of real estate investing and entrepreneurship in Latin America: debts he did not fully understand, ego-driven consumption decisions, limiting beliefs about money inherited from family, and mental traps that undermined otherwise sound projects. The tone is autobiographical and direct, making for easy reading. This is not a technical manual — it is a guide to financial mindset and attitude aimed at people beginning to examine their relationship with money. Its main value lies in the unusual honesty with which Devis describes his failures, rare in a genre that typically celebrates success. The limitation is that the concrete lessons are relatively straightforward — spend less than you earn, understand what you sign, invest in what you know — and readers with an established financial foundation will find the book too introductory. Published in 2023, it is particularly oriented toward Spanish-speaking audiences.

Key takeaways

• The beliefs about money we inherit from family shape our financial decisions more deeply than technical knowledge does.
• Financial ego — spending to project status or borrowing to sustain a lifestyle — is one of the primary destroyers of personal wealth.
• Understanding what you sign before committing to a debt or investment is a basic skill that many investors learn too late.
• The most valuable lessons in personal finance typically come from one's own mistakes, not from other people's success stories.

Fact

The book was published in 2023 by Carlos Devis, who is also the author of «Un inmueble al año no hace daño», one of the most widely read real estate investing books in Spanish.