Start Late, Finish Rich : A No-Fail Plan for Achieving Financial Freedom at Any Age

Rating:
Summary: Some Good General Advice ...But, I crave MORE!!
Review: This book contains some helpful general advice on how to build your net worth. For example, Bach drives home the importance of eliminating wasteful spending by showing how that money could become a tidy sum, if invested instead. He not only stresses the importance of paying down credit card debt, but also includes ideas on how to get credit card companies to lower their interest rates. And, Bach talks about the advantages of using pre-income tax savings plans, such as IRAs.

However, most of this advice is pretty general...not exactly what I call "lightbulb moments". After all, don't most readers already know this stuff? The fact that Bach appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show may have helped catapult his work to rank amongst the best-sellers, but I personally found the book to lack the necessary specific detail to successfully implement a couple of interesting investing strategies.

For example in his discussion on the stock market, I was quite intrigued with Bach's mention of investing in exchange traded funds - he calls them ETFs. This part alone is worth the price of the book. I had never heard of ETFs before....But his brief description left me wanting more. After a search, I was able to find a uniquely focused guide to serve that purpose. "Create Your Own Hedge Fund" is chockfull of the exquisite detail I craved on the subject of ETFs and includes why they are so much better than ordinary mutual funds. Wolfinger's very hands-on material is a welcome compliment to the more global information in "Start Late, Retire Rich." I recommend both books for your self-help investment savvy.


Rating:
Summary: You really can Start Late and Finish Rich!
Review: After reading The Automatic Millionaire, I was unsure how David Bach could write another book to help me any more than he had already - but Start Late has done just that! Start Late expands on his previous books on paying yourself first, getting out of debt, buying a home and most importantly, living rich. I have found my "double latte factor" (expensive cable TV I never watched, etc...) and have now been able to increase my 401K contribution to 15% as well as buy my first investment property aside from my home - thanks to the advice in Start Late.

THANKS DAVID!

Rating:
Summary: good basic advice
Review: David Bach gives some good commom-sense advice on growing your net worth. The information on investing is helpful too. A good book to add to your financial self-help collection!

Rating:
Summary: Don't Waste Your Money!
Review: David Bach is in the business of making money, not of helping people. As soon as he has you figure out your "Latte Factor" (the way you overspend without realizing it -- like buying daily lattes), he draws you to his website where he tries to sell you more books, tapes, CDs, etc., directly threatening that Latte Factor. Please don't be fooled by this man's intentions.

If you're forty, in excellent health, live in an affordable neighborhood, and plan to spend your life making money, this book will probably work for you, although there is nothing here you won't find in a hundred other books on personal finance. Try "Rich Dad, Poor Dad." It's an easier read.

David Bach does not consider people on fixed incomes, those with health issues, people who are required to stay in certain locations because of work, and those of us who simply do not want to give up the treat of one movie a month in order to devote our existences to Making More Money.

Mr. Bach really doesn't intend this book for anyone over forty . . . maybe forty-five. If you're in your fifties or sixties, this book will most likely frustrate you and make you feel like a failure, unless you've got a prime job and a nice nest egg already begun.

The author sees the world of the middle-and-lower classes through rose colored glasses. His answer to credit debt is to just get on the phone, call your creditors, and "talk them into" lowering your rates so you can pay your cards off sooner. If any of you have tried this you know it's easier said than done. Mr. Bach denies the fact that he really does expect everyone to give up lattes, movies, dinners out, and other treats . . . except for his book. That's an "investment." The author also seems to think that everyone lives in a neighborhood where foreclosures are nice little homes in the suburbs rather than shacks built on gang turf. He gives false information about IRAs; he is simply wrong in his figures. The author further thinks that all of his suggested investments will bring you a ten percent profit. I've been watching a couple of his favorite funds, and they're not all that stable. He also expect those of us who're growing older and less energetic to take on second jobs, including franchises. And of course everyone must get into the real estate game. I don't know how many hours a day are on Mr. Bach's clock, but my middle-class clock only gives me twenty-four.

To shorten this up, please believe that there are many many assumptions and descrepancies in this book. People with any sort of limitations fall right through the cracks. So unless you are in very early middle-age, are in perfect health, and plan to devote your life to dying with the thought "Hey, at least I'm rich!", please forego this book for one that's easier on the ego and nerves.

I stood in front of our local bookstore and gave my copy of "Start Late, Finish Rich" to the first over-fifty customer who walked by. He said he'd pass it on.

Rating:
Summary: Every young adult should read this book
Review: I have read numerous books on how to get ahead and build your way to financial freedom, but this one actually gives practical advice that you can use. He shows that you don't have to be a real estate mogul to make money investing in property and actually has the advice and ideas to build your net worth.

Every young adult should read the section on how banks take advantage of credit card holders. Think that zero interest card is a good deal? David will show you how it may not be if you are even one day late on your payment.

I found this book very well written and could not put it down once I started reading it. The 2 star ratings here have me puzzled, because I think it's a very well written and thought out book.

Rating:
Summary: Beware This Book1
Review: If you've never read a book on finance, this one is all right, but take the advice with a pound of salt. I've never had to deal with money before, and at age fifty-one, coming out of a long term marriage, I jumped on every word the author said. It was a huge mistake.

My "latte factor" (mindless overspending) amounted to a few books, CDs, salads with the girls at work, etc. Not much. And there was the thirty-five cents I threw in the coffee fund at work each morning for my half cup of coffee. After reading this book, I stopped the morning coffee. I began taking tap water to work, but because I'm front desk, I had to have a proper commuter cup. It cost me sixteen dollars. (You're beginning to see the problem, aren't you? No coffee for me, and already I've blown a bundle.)

I closed down my online investments. To bail out cost me over two hundred dollars. I put my money into one of the author's recommended real estate stocks. I've already lost another seventy-some dollars.

I opened an IRA. The authors figures on IRAs are wrong, but I didn't learn that until it was too late. Now it'll cost me money to close the IRA, but if I keep it open, it throws off my financial plan.

And because the author insists that everyone make more money, I took on extra work doing technical writing at home. Now I'm exhausted during the week, am doing a mediocre job at this tech writing job, and am stuck in a six-month contract. It's taken me two weeks to get online to write this review.

I won't bore you with more examples of how a good thing can go bad. Just please be aware that this book is definitely not the be-all and end-all of personal finance books. A friend recommended another "saner" book, which I'll read, digest, and then possibly work with.

Don't make the mistake I did! If you're older and haven't dealt with finances before, start with a simpler and less demanding book!

Rating:
Summary: Good information, except when discussing mutual funds
Review: Let me start off by saying that Bach is a good author. He has some really good common sense points about saving money. Most people out there have no concept of the actual amount of long-term money it cost to buy something needless. Okay so with all that being said I am disappointed in Mr. Bach's interpretation of investments. He touts the power of mutual funds and then goes on to claim every dollar you save is going to generate 10% interest.

Yet he never discusses how he expects you to generate the 10%. Of course he claims the same thing that the SEC allows the mutual fund companies to claim, annual returns of 10% by investing in mutual funds. However, as many people do he mistakes 10% "GROWTH" with 10% compound interest. Growth is not compound interest.

The biggest error in all of history was mutual funds are allowed to advertise their annual % gains. The bottom line is simple. You buy a share of a mutual fund at $7.00 it goes up to $14.00 over 20 years. That does not in anyway calculate to 10% compound interest. It is 50% growth divided by 20 years of time which equates to barely 2% and still not compounded.

Compound interest only works when you receive interest on interest. You can not use compound math when attempting to determine how much a mutual fund will be worth 10 years from now. The mutual fund will be worth what the share price is PERIOD! It will not be worth some %, because you have to sell it to realize the gain.

So subtract the mutual fund hype and growth instruments comparison to compound interest and you have a massive amount of other information. All of which is very helpful. Is it worth $15.00 sure it is.


Rating:
Summary: Unrealistic
Review: My wife and I consider ourselves average fiftysomethings. I'm a Vietnam vet, and have taught school for thirty years. I have some minor heart trouble. We've got an IRA and a money market account, but never played the stock market. My wife was a magazine editor, but can no longer work due to medical problems. We have two grown kids. We live in San Francisco. Average, normal people.

We read Mr. Bach's book together, and found nothing new in it. Our latte factor is virtually nonexistent because we budget (something Mr. Bach disapproves of), and keep running expense envelopes in our dayplanners. Even with the help of the V.A., we can't afford a house here; we'd have to move North and I'd lose my job. It would be impossible for us to buy and sell real estate, because it would require me to leave my wife at home alone on weekends. Besides, I'm too darned tired to work a second job.

To sum up, we bought this book because it claimed to be written for us older folk. It wasn't. We have financial and physical limitations that make Mr. Bach's utopian ideas impossible for us. (The friends we loaned the book to agree with us, because they're in the same boat.)

Mr. Bach just doesn't realize that as time runs out, so do financial, energy, and other resources. If you've ever read a book on personal finance, don't waste your money on another one full of the same darned stuff.

Rating:
Summary: Hello
Review: Pssst...ain't nottin here u can't find in some other personal- finance book for a few coins

Rating:
Summary: SOLID ADVICE, BUT THE COMING CRISIS IS MISSED
Review: This book, as others have pointed out, is full of good basic advice. For someone who has reached middle-age without yet discovering most of David Bach's commonsense advice about money, the book should certainly be read, as such individuals most likely need help badly. The critical missing piece of advice though concerns the nearly 100 million strong baby-boomer demographic tidal wave. In just a few years, it is going to absolutely unavoidably plunge us into the greatest depression in our history, upsetting everyone's best laid money management plans. Such an event, although a great reason to save and wisely manage money for, will undercut all efforts by middle aged people who don't know this catastrophic depression is coming. By all means read and take the solid advice of David Bach in this book, but for heaven's sake also buy and read The Great Bust Ahead by Dan Arnold (www.thegreatbustahead.com) to get a shocking reality check on the bigger picture. If the middle aged group (baby-boomers) are worried about social security and Medicare, they will hardly give them a thought after reading The Great Bust Ahead, which hits us years before and dwarfs these two crises.