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Great advice that easy to follow and quite realistic. Gave me some good ideas on how to invest my money right.
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The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich
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Despite its sensational title, David Bach's The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich is not a get-rich-quick guide. Rather, the book is a straightforward march through common-sense personal financial planning that suggests readers "automate" their contributions to retirement and investment vehicles. Bach, in fact, calls his model the "tortoise approach" to becoming wealthy by retirement age.
In the early part of the book Bach builds on ideas he established in Smart Women Finish Rich and other bestselling titles. His core principle is that, to succeed, you must "Pay Yourself First." In other words, he suggests using pre-tax retirement accounts (i.e. 401(k)s, IRAs, or Roth IRAs) to set aside a fixed, monthly sum of money before considering what is left for living expenses. The "automatic" part of the title comes from Bach's emphasis on using automated payroll deductions to avoid the temptation of using the money to pay today's bills.
Bach insists that "regardless of the size of your paycheck, you probably already make enough money to become rich." But his claims that his plan requires "no budget, no discipline," is a bit disingenuous. His discussion of the "The Latte Factor" shows that, to find money to start a retirement plan, a person with a modest income needs to make an up-front commitment to stop accruing debt and to reduce spending on such "wasteful" items as lattes and cigarettes.
In the end The Automatic Millionaire does not offer much that is new for readers already familiar with personal finance basics like accelerated mortgage payments, "the miracle of compound interest," and the setting up of emergency funds. But, for those just starting with financial planning, Bach provides a host of resources to put recommendations into action. He walks his readers through such fundamentals as shopping for interest rates, creating a balanced retirement portfolio, and consolidating debt. And Bach's conversational style will make this quick read highly palatable for those daunted by more detailed investment and personal finance titles. --Patrick O'Kelley
null pages,
First published December 12,2003
This edition
- Format
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null pages,
- Published
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December 12, 2003 by Broadway Books
- ISBN
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9780767921312
- ASIN
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0767921313
- Language
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About the author
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David L. Bach is an American financial author, television personality, motivational speaker, entrepreneur and founder of FinishRich.com. Bach, is best known for his Finish Rich Book Series and Automatic Millionaire Series of motivational financial books under the Finish Rich Brand. He has written 12 books since 1998 with over seven million copies in print.
Eleven of Bach's books have been national bestsellers, including nine consecutive New York Times bestsellers, two of which were consecutive #1 New York Times bestsellers (The Automatic Millionaire and Start Late, Finish Rich). Bach has had four of his books Smart Women Finish Rich, Smart Couples Finish Rich, The Automatic Millionaire and The Finish Rich Workbook appear simultaneously on the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and USA Today bestseller lists. Eleven of Bach's books have been published from Random House (Broadway Books).
Bach's first book Smart Women Finish Rich was published in 1998, and appeared on the bestseller lists for a decade. His most recent book Debt Free For Life (2011) was published by Crown Business Books, and appeared simultaneously on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller lists.
Bach has appeared regularly on television dispensing his financial advice since 1994. His first appearance on television took place in San Francisco, on local cable channel BayTV, where he was "The Money Doctor", and answered personal financial questions.
He was a regular contributor to The Today Show, appearing weekly on the Money 911 Segments. He also has contributed to CNN American Morning, CNBC, Fox Business, ABC Good Money, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. He has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show over six times, including the shows "How to become an Automatic Millionaire" (2004), "How to become an Automatic Millionaire Couple" (2004) and "Oprah's Debt Diet Series" (2006). Bach has appeared on CBS's The Early Show, NBC's Weekend Today, CNN's Larry King Live, ABC's Live with Regis and Kelly, and ABC's The View.
Bach has written, produced and hosted two public television specials, Smart Women Finish Rich and The Automatic Millionaire, which aired nationally. Smart Women Finish Rich was produced by Connecticut Public Television (1998) and The Automatic Millionaire by Chicago Public Television (2006). He has hosted two radio shows, Finish Rich with David Bach (Sirius Satellite Radio) and The Finish Rich Minute (Westwood One).
Eleven of Bach's books have been national bestsellers, including nine consecutive New York Times bestsellers, two of which were consecutive #1 New York Times bestsellers (The Automatic Millionaire and Start Late, Finish Rich). Bach has had four of his books Smart Women Finish Rich, Smart Couples Finish Rich, The Automatic Millionaire and The Finish Rich Workbook appear simultaneously on the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and USA Today bestseller lists. Eleven of Bach's books have been published from Random House (Broadway Books).
Bach's first book Smart Women Finish Rich was published in 1998, and appeared on the bestseller lists for a decade. His most recent book Debt Free For Life (2011) was published by Crown Business Books, and appeared simultaneously on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller lists.
Bach has appeared regularly on television dispensing his financial advice since 1994. His first appearance on television took place in San Francisco, on local cable channel BayTV, where he was "The Money Doctor", and answered personal financial questions.
He was a regular contributor to The Today Show, appearing weekly on the Money 911 Segments. He also has contributed to CNN American Morning, CNBC, Fox Business, ABC Good Money, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. He has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show over six times, including the shows "How to become an Automatic Millionaire" (2004), "How to become an Automatic Millionaire Couple" (2004) and "Oprah's Debt Diet Series" (2006). Bach has appeared on CBS's The Early Show, NBC's Weekend Today, CNN's Larry King Live, ABC's Live with Regis and Kelly, and ABC's The View.
Bach has written, produced and hosted two public television specials, Smart Women Finish Rich and The Automatic Millionaire, which aired nationally. Smart Women Finish Rich was produced by Connecticut Public Television (1998) and The Automatic Millionaire by Chicago Public Television (2006). He has hosted two radio shows, Finish Rich with David Bach (Sirius Satellite Radio) and The Finish Rich Minute (Westwood One).
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I'm a bit of a personal finance nerd, and I love budgeting, being frugal, and paying off debt. I tackled my consumer debt after returning home from a teaching job in Japan, and in about 2 1/2 years paid off about $20K thanks to Dave Ramsey's "Total Money Makeover" and "Your Money or Your Life" by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. Between those two, I had all the motivation/information I needed and diligently dug myself out of my B.S. money ways while working full time and going to grad school full time (for free, thanks to my employer- hence the full time work thing).
This long winded introduction had a point... oh, yes. So I saw this book on my mentor teacher's shelves, and my other mentor teacher uses it for her LA IV class, and I decided to check it out to compare to other finance books I had read. All in all, I think it's a solid book. The "automatic" in the title doesn't refer to the timeline of achieving millionaire status, but rather the method of becoming a millionaire by automating all of one's bills so that one doesn't miss the money being diverted into retirement accounts and savings funds and debt payoff. I fully agree with this principle, because humans are in general terrible at wishy washy things like "Motivation" and "Willpower". I believe these are myths. Accept that you don't have the wherewithal to diligently get money and give away 1/3 of it every month to boring adult things like 401K's and credit card payoffs, and just make it automatic so you never see it/never miss it. If people only followed this one bit of advice and were complete nincompoops with investing I think it would serve them well.
Did I learn anything new? No, but nothing in personal finance is truly new and groundbreaking- we all know we should avoid debt, save for retirement, and not fritter away our money on credit card fees and interest, but most people still do it. So there needs to be 31 flavors of personal finance information out there so that people can find what makes them sit up and finally pay attention to basic adult skills of financial responsibility. I think this book would be a great starting point that is more nuanced than Ramsey's "Total Money Makeover" and less New Age-y than "Your Money or Your Life". It's straightforward, easy to read, detailed without getting dense, and makes something very overwhelming seem manageable.
This long winded introduction had a point... oh, yes. So I saw this book on my mentor teacher's shelves, and my other mentor teacher uses it for her LA IV class, and I decided to check it out to compare to other finance books I had read. All in all, I think it's a solid book. The "automatic" in the title doesn't refer to the timeline of achieving millionaire status, but rather the method of becoming a millionaire by automating all of one's bills so that one doesn't miss the money being diverted into retirement accounts and savings funds and debt payoff. I fully agree with this principle, because humans are in general terrible at wishy washy things like "Motivation" and "Willpower". I believe these are myths. Accept that you don't have the wherewithal to diligently get money and give away 1/3 of it every month to boring adult things like 401K's and credit card payoffs, and just make it automatic so you never see it/never miss it. If people only followed this one bit of advice and were complete nincompoops with investing I think it would serve them well.
Did I learn anything new? No, but nothing in personal finance is truly new and groundbreaking- we all know we should avoid debt, save for retirement, and not fritter away our money on credit card fees and interest, but most people still do it. So there needs to be 31 flavors of personal finance information out there so that people can find what makes them sit up and finally pay attention to basic adult skills of financial responsibility. I think this book would be a great starting point that is more nuanced than Ramsey's "Total Money Makeover" and less New Age-y than "Your Money or Your Life". It's straightforward, easy to read, detailed without getting dense, and makes something very overwhelming seem manageable.
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Although the writing is repetitive and long winded, the message is clear and incredibly sensible: automate your savings at 10% or more, automate your debt reduction, automate your giving, don’t buy on credit, don’t rent. Automatic millions are doable, but there’s no such thing as a “get rich quick” scheme.
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The statement on page 80 sums up the author's philosophy, "-you need to have a system that doesn't depend on your following a budget or being disciplined."
This personal finance book is less about shaming you and your irresponsible money habits, and more about how to take an hour or two and straighten out your finances. The book revolves an example of one main family who exemplifies the topics of each chapter. (It's refreshing after reading a Dave Ramsey book with hundred's of letters from families). Bach isn't interested in why you are in a certain state, he just wants to talk to you like a college professor who's just pointing out the way the money you have is going to be ok to work with. He's not going to yell at you to get three jobs and watch your budget intently. I'm pretty sure that Bach knows that if his clients needed to get a second job, that they would just do it.
The book is designed thoughtfully, and each chapter gives you the homework to do list at the end. The first couple of chapters might seem like a sales pitch (including the obligatory opening page about how if your reading this in a book store you should buy it.) I would encourage you to keep reading the rest of the book to get some clear advice and instructions on how to get wealthy with your current income.
This personal finance book is less about shaming you and your irresponsible money habits, and more about how to take an hour or two and straighten out your finances. The book revolves an example of one main family who exemplifies the topics of each chapter. (It's refreshing after reading a Dave Ramsey book with hundred's of letters from families). Bach isn't interested in why you are in a certain state, he just wants to talk to you like a college professor who's just pointing out the way the money you have is going to be ok to work with. He's not going to yell at you to get three jobs and watch your budget intently. I'm pretty sure that Bach knows that if his clients needed to get a second job, that they would just do it.
The book is designed thoughtfully, and each chapter gives you the homework to do list at the end. The first couple of chapters might seem like a sales pitch (including the obligatory opening page about how if your reading this in a book store you should buy it.) I would encourage you to keep reading the rest of the book to get some clear advice and instructions on how to get wealthy with your current income.
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Very helpful when it comes to getting into the mindset of how to save money. I never would have thought to save money by not buying lunch everyday at work. I could save a lot more by making something and bringing it in or eating leftovers. This is only one of the many tips I learned from this book.
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Best way to not have to be disciplined and budgeted is to make everything automatic. If it's automatic you don't have to think about it and it's just running in the background. Even saving 5% of your pay will make a huge difference in the end.
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Although this is a departure from my usual reading, we are approaching an age where we really need to get our ducks in a row with our retirement savings.
I have heard great things about Bach's book and thought I would spend a day reading this to make sure we were on the right path with our savings.
This book tells the story of a couple, that David was providing financial consulting to, and their journey to becoming millionaires. David is completely astounded that they have saved this much because the couple seemed like the typical middle-class family who didn't seem like they had a lot to save.
Their story, he reflects, is the template we all need to achieve the same financial freedoms.
The idea of automating things is an easy one to implement, especially in this era of technology. His template to remove the "latte factor," pay off your vehicles, pay off your house, possibly do another property ownership, pay down debts, and then save are pretty straightforward.
The idea of being aggressive with retiring and how to make your savings work for you is where the meat of these lessons worked for me.
One of my tasks this week is to do some of these ideas for automation and we upped our retirement contributions since we have worked hard to put a safety net in place.
If you are trying to pay things down and looking for a strategy to begin, I think this is a great one for learning beginner skills to grow your savings and retire comfortably.
Although I hate to plug my own book, I do think there are some additional lessons you could discover in my book. Bonus, it's priced at just $4.99 on Kindle.
I have heard great things about Bach's book and thought I would spend a day reading this to make sure we were on the right path with our savings.
This book tells the story of a couple, that David was providing financial consulting to, and their journey to becoming millionaires. David is completely astounded that they have saved this much because the couple seemed like the typical middle-class family who didn't seem like they had a lot to save.
Their story, he reflects, is the template we all need to achieve the same financial freedoms.
The idea of automating things is an easy one to implement, especially in this era of technology. His template to remove the "latte factor," pay off your vehicles, pay off your house, possibly do another property ownership, pay down debts, and then save are pretty straightforward.
The idea of being aggressive with retiring and how to make your savings work for you is where the meat of these lessons worked for me.
One of my tasks this week is to do some of these ideas for automation and we upped our retirement contributions since we have worked hard to put a safety net in place.
If you are trying to pay things down and looking for a strategy to begin, I think this is a great one for learning beginner skills to grow your savings and retire comfortably.
Although I hate to plug my own book, I do think there are some additional lessons you could discover in my book. Bonus, it's priced at just $4.99 on Kindle.
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read the first chapter (motivational and eye-opening if you haven’t ventured far into the personal finance realm), skim the rest.
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