it was helpful and i'm glad i read it ♥️ but it was a bit boring and took me forever to get through

Simple and practical advice for the common man who wants to build steady wealth. I love that it goes into enough details to enrich the reader and yet keeps the message clear. It's a classic book to be read and passed on to the next generations.

I really liked how things are explained through a story. Lots of what is said in this book are still very relevant.

“The Wealthy Barber Returns”, the newer version of the book, is better though. It has some updated advices, and especially for Canadians it has more relevant advice (the original book was focused on the US).

Definitely recommend reading, but pick the new book.

Easy read. Basics still apply today although it’s an old book.

What a great read. For a book that covered several person finance topics, it presented it in a story-like fashion that made it hard to put down. I'm also glad it covered some lesser spoken of topics like wills, life insurance and taxes that aren't as glamourous or frequently talked about as the investing topics.

Now for why its not 5 stars.
1. Published in 1989, the book is out of date. I know he has since written a sequel, "The Wealthy Barber Returns" which I have also read, but I couldn't recommend this book as an intro to personal finance for the fact that many lessons, tax laws, and other rules are outdated. The TFSA wasn't even around when this was written. This isn't of any fault to the author, its just out of date now.

2. The author suggests that the best way to pick an investment fund is by selecting the mutual fund manager with the best expertise and recent track record. Although this was the prevailing sentiment at the time, there was evidence in '89, and definitely is overwhelming evidence today that index funds outperform actively managed mutual funds. Any modern personal finance book worth its salt will recommend diversified index mutual funds or ETFs.

Personal finance in a narrative format. Good information in an easy to understand format.

Originally published http://lifeasaninvestment.com/2014/04...

It is nicely written, and with a sense of humor. The Canadian author gives it away with the title—it does not matter what you do and how much money you earn, you have the same chances of being wealthy as anybody else. Most importantly, follow your financial plan no matter what.
David Chilton is not only a writer; he is also a successful investor. He can be seen making investment decisions at the Dragons’ Den Canada show (from 2012-present).

On a cozy weekend evening, make a cup of warm chocolate, sit on your favorite armchair and enjoy reading and learning…

Decent read, not the best finance book but also not the worst, some things are outdated, some things hold true. A few things I just disagree with but that’s my personal opinion. Looking to get some modern reads from BiggerPockets here

As a book given to me as a gift by my mother, I had relatively low expectations. That was a good thing. This book is essentially a financial self-help book thinly veiled in multiple conversations multiple people have with, you guessed it, a wealthy barber. The financial advice is, in fact, useful. However, the content is relatively dry and could be shared with the reader much more efficiently through a different means than this book. Saying that, I'd recommend this book to those who need some common-sense financial advice but are scared to expand their reading past novels.

Bad jokes and good financial advice go a long way to making me enjoy a book and this had both. By now the book is probably a little dated for some of the advice but really there are important principles that are timeless, the first being that I should have started investing ten years ago. Ah well. Really this book is a nice short read and serves well as an entertaining primer to financial planning. Probably much of the advice is common knowledge and the toughest thing is making the first step to put it into practice.

I was disappointed on re-reading this book. I really liked this book 20 or so years ago. It’s sort of a retelling of the richest man in Babylon. Maybe this book would still work as a simple little introduction to personal finance, but I found too much of it outdated, simplistic, and some of it just wrong.

this original is probably outdated now but it still has quite a lot to offer. I read this at 21 (my mother forced me to read it). It is one of, if not the very first book that opened my eyes to the world of investments, esp. real estate. It was instrumental in helping me purchase my first home at 23, then my first investment property at 25. There are a lot of books in finance, but this one was my first real teacher. I talked about it a lot with my clients and when I spoke at seminars.

A great book to have your young adult kids read, if you can get them to.