Rating: 
Summary: like finding an accountant with personality
Review: Did you ever go on a class field trip - the zoo, a museum, a park, and find yourself learning more, simply because you were outside a stuffy classroom setting? Here the trip is to a barbershop, and the potentially intimidating and/or boring topic of financial planning is softened and simplified to make learning fun.
The Wealthy Barber has been written primarily for those who aren't fond of numbers, charts and graphs, and who usually shy away from learning about financial planning. While this may leave serious number-crunchers wanting more, it does present the basics of financial planning in a way that many people will be able to absorb and appreciate for the first time.
Written with a great deal of humor and believable dialogue, it explains the virtues of paying yourself first, wills, life insurance, retirement savings, purchasing a home and minimizing your income tax. If you or someone you know wants to learn more about financial planning but have lacked the confidence to proceed, here's the place to begin.
Larry Hehn, author of Get the Prize: Nine Keys for a Life of Victory
Rating:
Summary: Excellent beginners guide to financial planning
Review: This book was required reading as part of a Master's course on Personal Financial Planning. The book is an excellent beginners guide to financial planning. The format of the book can either be pleasing and interesting or wordy and rather boring, depending on the background of the reader.
Unlike many financial planning books, this book has a plot. The plot revolves around 3 people, the main character (Dave, a teacher), his self-employed, wealthy sister (Cathy, Landscape Business owner), and their friend (Tom, a plant worker). Dave goes looking for financial advice and after asking his father, he is pointed to Roy, the town barber. The 4 of them have monthly meetings as they get their hair cut, where Roy teaches them a tidbit on financial planning at each meeting. The topics covered include The Ten Percent Solution (fun money for retirement), Wills and Life Insurance, Planning for Retirement, Real Estate Investment, Saving, and Taxes.
The book is somewhat like giving an appetizer to a person who has not eaten in a week, it helps, but it is not enough. The book does cover many excellent points, such as compound interest, one of the most important concepts in saving. The idea of a Ten Percent Fund is outstanding and is something I would not have thought of. The book then does an admirable job explaining why a person should have a will. The book begins to trail off with the life insurance section. This is the first point in the book where the reader should be calculating numbers. However, there are no worksheets, poor and insufficient examples, several suggestions, and no equations to make your own calculations; in short, if I was not aware of how to calculate how much life insurance to get, I think I would have still been clueless after this chapter. The planning for retirement section does an admirable job explaining various retirement savings vehicles, but there is little or no mention on figuring out how much a person should save. Once again, there are no worksheets or equations to walk a person though calculating or estimating how much they should be saving for retirement. The chapters on real estate and taxes were informative and were definitely worth reading. The chapter on saving was ho hum; it covered some points, but was mostly common sense.
I think the book could have benefited from a chapter dedicated to changing your investment types as the date of a goal approaches, such as retirement. The information on asset allocation is spread throughout the entire book. I also think the book could also greatly benefit from some detailed examples, especially on the life insurance sections and retirement sections.
The book starts out making it sound like life could be good if a person could save 10% and invest is wisely. By the end of the book, the ten percent fund is separate from retirement savings and saving for your children's education. Though no numbers are used after introducing the ten percent fund, I estimate a person needs to save and invest 20% of their income to save for play money, retirement, and children's college education. I think most people would have difficulties saving that much.
The book is an excellent beginning point in the world of financial planning. I feel the book discusses the items most people would be interested in; however, I think the book could benefit from more detail. The plot makes the reading interesting, but slow and inconvenient to locate information in past chapters. I think the book is definitely worth reading for people who are inexperienced in planning their finances for the future, especially young people just getting out into the world. The earlier saving starts, the less painful it is.
Rating: 
Summary: All I have to say is get on with it!
Review: I almost didn't make it through the first part of the book.
The first two chapters are a waste of time unless you are a Detroit sports fan. (And I live in Detroit)
The next two chapters talk about wills and life insurance and have some useful information if you don't know anything about either of these two areas.
Start on Chapter 6 for retirement
If you are already a home owner, invest in a 401k or some other type of IRA, and have some idea of what you do with your disposable income then skip this book. IF YOU ARE JUST STARTING OUT, I must say this book has much more "real" concrete financial advice than a book like Rich Dad Poor Dad. If you had to pick between the two, select this one
Rating:
Summary: The Wordy Barber
Review: There are true gems in this book and even though they are buried in a lot of irrelevant drivel, they are there! Do not let the silly modern 'reader friendly' fad of making any topic "easier", ' idiot proof' and 'for dummies' by the use of a conversation that is utterly off putting and idiotic, stop you from gathering the gems of knowledge in this book. Rise beyond that and get the BENEFITS! Unlike some recent popular drivel that masquerades as ' a road to financial freedom' etc, after you have read this book you have a detailed blue print that you can follow immediately and get yourself on tract to a secure financial future. As I said.. wordy, so 4 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Idea Fails Miserably
Review: The 'basics' of financial well-being is an important subject matter to millions of people. However, the message is lost in the hundreds of unnecessarily words. The book (3rd edition) describes how the main character, who finds out his wife is pregnant, has an 'epiphany' and realizes that he needs to learn the basics of financial well-being (due to his growing financial responsibilities). The story centers on the main character, his rich sister, and a friend as they collectively seek the counsel and wisdom from a 'lowly' barber, who happens to be one of the richest people in town. Each month, while the barber applies his craft, he (and the associated peanut gallery) educates everyone (inclusive of the reader) on one important aspect of financial well-being such as saving periodically, the need for wills, how to determine the right amount of life insurance, etc. So allow me to cut to the chase without falling into the same drivel trap like the author. While the book does educate people on the important financial issues, it can be accomplished with 50 pages rather than 211 pages. By employing a story format, the book helps those individuals seeking entertainment value while gaining financial advice, but alienates those individuals that wanted simple, factual answers in a more commonsense approach. My recommendation would be to buy another personal finance book that communicates the fundamentals of financial well-being directly while covering more areas. The basics of financial well-being is living within one's means and investing wisely, i.e. the old tried and true concept of thriftiness and prudence.
Rating: 
Summary: Great for a college reading class
Review: My take on this book is a little different from others. I use it as a text in a developmental college reading course. I use the book to give weekly objective reading quizzes. But, I also use this book because I want my students to see reading as something that can affect their daily lives. My students do relatively well on the quizzes, but what's really exciting is hearing my students talk about mutual funds, insurance, and saving for the future. The book really speaks to students who otherwise might not give their financial future much thought.
Rating:
Summary: Good Book, Too wordy
Review: This book contained several gems of advice. Save 10%, make a will, buy the right kind of insurance, check out real estate investing. Good stuff. This information was unfortunatley jam packed into a story about a couple of barbers and some young people. I found myself desperately trying to find the important sentences in a sea of sports commentary and bad jokes. It was unfortunate. What I came away from the book with was a sense of validation. The advice in this book has been far better explained in other very good books, two of which I highly recommend. "The Richest Man in Babylon" and "Rich Dad, Poor Dad". This book made me feel like others I've read were right. Overall, good book, could have been smaller.
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