3.5/5 ✨

As someone who’s always seeking financial wisdom, I found “The Automatic Millionaire” to be an enlightening read. David Bach, the author, distills complex financial concepts into practical steps that anyone can follow. Here are my key takeaways:

Pay Yourself First: Bach emphasizes the importance of automating your savings. By setting up automatic contributions to your retirement accounts or investment funds, you ensure consistent wealth-building without relying on willpower.

Debt Elimination: The book advocates for debt reduction as a crucial step toward financial freedom. Bach’s approach is refreshingly straightforward: pay off high-interest debts systematically.

Frugality with Purpose: Living frugally doesn’t mean sacrificing joy. Bach encourages readers to cut unnecessary expenses while still enjoying life. It’s about aligning spending with your values.

The Latte Factor: Small daily expenses add up over time. Bach introduces the concept of the “Latte Factor,” where skipping that daily latte can lead to significant savings. It’s a wake-up call for mindful spending.

While the book lacks depth in some areas, it compensates with actionable advice. The real strength lies in its simplicity—no complex budgeting required. Whether you’re a financial novice or a seasoned investor, “The Automatic Millionaire” offers a blueprint for building wealth effortlessly.

Note: I deducted a star and half due to occasional repetition and lack of advanced strategies. However, if you’re looking for a practical guide to financial success, this book is a solid choice.

Remember, financial literacy is a journey, and this book serves as an excellent starting point.

I guess this might be a good place to start if you know nothing about finances at all. However other books do it better. I like the idea of paying yourself first - I think I just like Ramit Sethi's approach a bit better, where you pay yourself first but have a "conscious spending plan" instead of focusing on "The Latte Factor."
(I think it is important to monitor the small stuff and make sure the spending doesn't get out of hand, but I don't make it my primary saving strategy.)


I also flat-out disagree with some of the stuff that is said:
- "Homeowners get rich; renters get poor"
- "You can't get rich renting"
- "The fact is, you aren't really in the game of building wealth until you own some real estate"
- "...buying a place to live [...] needs to be a priority"

He says all this before going into how to get a mortgage. And hey, don't worry if you can't afford a sizeable down payment, just pay the CMHC some more of your hard-earned money. It's fine because you'll get to be a ~*homeowner*~.
And don't forget to use 20K from your RRSP towards the purchase! Get your partner to do the same! Yes, rob your RRSP of all that potential compound interest....

AND THEN he goes on about "How you can get ripped off by a 25yr mortgage"
Uuuummmmm I though homeownership was gonna get you rich?
"During the first 10yrs of your loan, more than 90% of your payments go to pay interest. [...] Millions of Canadians with 25yr mortgages are wasting a fortune paying for their homes this way. [...] With a mortgage like that, you spend the first 10yrs working hard for the bank but building little equity for yourself."
He goes on to describe how paying your mortgage biweekly instead of monthly can make a huge difference (*a GOOD point, in his defence*).
But with homeowners paying so much simply on interest (nevermind that they also have to pay for land transfer taxes, closing costs, maintenance fees and repairs, property taxes, etc....) can't it be argued that homeowners also "throw away" a lot of money?
For a lot of people, I agree that a mortgage can be a good forced-savings plan. However, sometimes renting can be the right call (try reading The Wealthy Renter).


Also, the book hasn't aged well in some respects... "there's hardly ever any foreclosures," he says, right before the housing bubble bursts and the great recession begins

الكتاب بالجملة مفيد لعامة الناس .. كونها يحوي طريقة لتجميع مبلغ مالي جيد من خلال التوفير من الإيراد الشهري أو النصف شهري ..
يحوي أفكار كثيرة رائعة .. لا يرقى لما طرحه كيوساكي في كتابه " الأب الغني والأب الفقير " لكنه في الجملة رائع ومفيد
أكثر ما أعجبني فيه طريقة التسديد النصف شهري والذي يضيف نصف شهر في السنة ويسقط عليك نصف التكلفة بعد مرور عشرين سنة ..
أنصح بقراءته

Borrowed this from the library as a little personal finance refresher as I enter into a five year period in which I will be getting married, probably buy a house, and (if COVID allows) take a trip or two. This book very much did not deliver. There was no guidance on insurance, no suggestion of how to balance saving goals of various terms, no allowance for the possibility that some readers might be trying to pay off student loans, no reference made to competing life goals, nothing.

It was just the super, ultra basics, and when paired with Bach's vaguely condescending attitude and infomercial salesman rhetoric it really wore on me by the end of the book. There is a good idea in here - the necessity of automating savings plans - but it all could easily have been covered in a single page article. Instead the book is stuffed absolutely chalk full with filler examples, repetition, and self-promotion. But I mean c'mon: are they really people out there over the age of 16 who don't realize that cutting out a Starbucks latte every day (or the equivalent) would add up over time in terms of $ saved? Or that owning your own house is better than not owning your own house? Did I really need pages-long description of the times he showed somebody the math and they were surprised?

Worse, some of the advice around homeownership is outright cringe-worthy, written in 2003 as it is. For example: the strong hint that making a 0% downpayment is a legit option because housing prices always go up and you don't want to miss out on your chance to get rich do you?! Tell that to those poor people in Detroit (and elsewhere). So David Bach can save me all those trademarked phrases, "the bet ya didn't know this" (bet they did), and "rich people think like this, but people who aren't serious about getting rich think this".

Also, a bit of unintentional humour, from which I derived schadenfreudal pleasure: his earliest example of an Automatic Millionaire (insert trademark symbol here) features a couple who is telling him about how they became wealthy by doing simple stuff, and he just can't believe it. Sounds like typical personal finance book stuff right? Well here's the kicker: the stuff they did was AFTER ATTENDING HIS SEMINAR. So his disbelief - surely contrived, but still - is for the value of his own methods.

David Bach is just a salesman. Go do what I should have done and read/re-read The Wealthy Barber instead.

2/5

I found this book easy to read and packed full of information. It made me think about some of the ideas that I could implement to become financially stable. A wealth of information I would like to pass on to my children and any one who would listen

A friend recommended this. It had some good advice and some that seemed a little dated (and some that is about 30 years too late). It had some good and practical tips so was worth my time.

Great, practical tips to managing money. Loved the "latte factor."

Simple easy to read with straightforward concepts. I have applied many of these myself and working on doing more as a couple. I also learned about a new method for charity giving that I plan to look into further. Great advice for anyone looking for an easy solution to save more and retire sooner!

تعديل 12-11-2016: اعيد قراءة الكتاب هذه الايام ورقى مترجم للعربية من اصدار العبيكان

نزلته من على النت فى صورة فولدر كبير به 9 فولدرات ل 9 موضوعات بداخل كل منها ما بين 8-12 مقطع صوتى كدروس حول ذلك الموضوع العام
- كورس المليونير التلقائى و 6 اسلة يجب ان تسألها ل نفسك
- قصة latte factor
-ادفع لنفسك اولا و معادلة ديفيد باخ للحصول على الثروة
- حسابات التقاعد و انواعها "و دى حاجة خاصة بالمجتمع الامريكى"
- الاسواق المالية و حساب الطوارىء
- اشترى منزلك الخاص و مساوء التاجير و مميزات امتلاك المنزل
-بطاقات الائتمان و عيوبها و كيفية التخلص منها
-التصدق و فوائده
-كيفية صنع اسلوب ملفات خاص مكون من 13 ملف لكل معلوماتك المالية لسهولة الوصول اليها

اكتشفت ان كل اغلب نقط الكتاب و التى تنطبق على اقتصاد بلدى "المهترىء" ب الاساس و يمكن تنفيذها انا انفذها ب الفعل
و الحمد لله
- لا ديون و لاا قروض
- لا بطاقة ائتمان
- لا تأجير و انما امتلك منزلى الخاص
-لا latte factor من الاساس و انما اعيش فى مستوى معقول
- اتصدق و الحمد لله
-لا يوجد لى حساب طوارىء :(

بينما النقاط الاخرى و التى للاسف فى بلاد ��لاقتصاد القوى - لا يمكن تطبيقها هنا على ارض الواقع-و التى تتيح لك بضائع بنكية اكثر و متنوعة للاختيار منها و باسعار متفاوتة و شفافية فى اسعارها و شروطها
و هو ما لا يوجد ف اقتصاد بلدى المهترىء
فى كل خطوة كان يقول يمكن الوصول ل موقع كذا به كل تلك المنتجات البنكية و الاعتمادية او الاقراضية للاختيار من بينها وب اقل سعر فائدة و احسن شروط و و و و
مبادىء التنافس الشريف و تكافى ء الفرص
و هو ما يعيدنى للتفكير فى كلام felix dennis فى كتابه
i want you to be rich
عن ان اول خطوات سعيك للثراء هو ان تكون بالاساس فى بلد ذو قاعدة اقتصادية سليمة تشجع الادخار الفردى و الاستثمار وا نشاء المشاريع و التنافس الشريف و الكسب
بيئة رأسمالية صحية باختصار

وهو ما لا يوجد فى اقتصاد الجنرالات

و لعدم انطباقية تلك النقاط على واقعنا او واقعى فقدت الاهتمام بتلك الاجزاء مما افقد الكتاب - لا لعيب فيه و انما لعيب فى انا - تلك النجوم

الكتاب التالى : ملهمون

While most of the ideas in this book aren't groundbreaking I found it motivational and I loved all of the specific resources he lists throughout the book to help you get started.

A quick and easy read which is what the author said it would be. I don't think any of the information provided is groundbreaking but it covers the major things one can do to build financial security, but all the info could also be found on YouTube or Reddit. Helpful advice nonetheless

Some good tips. I definitely need to start investing toward retirement, and now I know some great ways to do so.