"Start Late, Finish Rich" by David Bach

[Orange]

Has anyone read this? I just checked it out of the library as an audoiobook and am a few chapters into it. I just wondered if anyone out there had read it or any of Bach's other books (Smart Women Finish Rich and The Automatic Millionaire are two of his others). If so, what do you think about his ideas?

[catch]

I recently read The Automatic Millionaire and really liked it. It makes sense and the idea of it is totally do-able. His tone at times is a little annoying, I can't remember why...I just remember thinking that :D But it was a quick read, I understood everything, and I put some of his ideas into action already.

I hope you enjoy the book you're reading. I haven't read any of those Finish Rich books yet. I'd like to check out the Smart Couples one soon.

[craftyT]

Has anyone read this? I just checked it out of the library as an audoiobook and am a few chapters into it. I just wondered if anyone out there had read it or any of Bach's other books (Smart Women Finish Rich and The Automatic Millionaire are two of his others). If so, what do you think about his ideas?

I've read both of those books (but not Start late...) - I don't remember much from Smart Women I read it years ago when I was in debt up to my eyeballs but I recently read The Automatic Millionaire and DH and I took his advice by setting up an automatic money market acct with Vanguard & it's working. We have saved a good chunk of change by taking out the middle man (US!) - No longer are we tempted to just keep our savings for our purchases - now we have to make a conscious decision to take the money and we haven't touched a dime since we started.

Both books were a quick read - I did breeze through some chapters that don't apply to us but for the most part he has some really good points on how to handle your personal finances in practical ways.

ETA his website FinishRich (http://www.finishrich.com/books/automatic_brandhome.php)

[laura]

I read The Automatic Millionaire. It didn't really teach me anything I don't already know, but it's good to have the reinforcement. A little nagging voice screams "the latte factor!!" everytime I buy a latte (which is admittedly a lot recently), so that's a little annoying. ;) We have switched to paying ourselves first, though, and it has enabled us to double our savings/month w/ little to no other budgeting.

[Sabby12s]

I read "Smart Couples Finish Rich" and it definitely helped me out a lot! I opened up an ING account and a retirement plan so I have a good chunk of change in both because I've been "paying me first." My future mother-in-law just sent "Good Debt, Bad Debt" and I'm hoping it will help me help my FH.

[greenbunny]

I'm reading Automatic Millionaire right now. I just downloaded the Latte Challenge Worksheet, and now I'm on my way to the caf to buy Doritoes from the vending machine. I'm a fast learner, huh? :rolleyes:

I think the idea of small purchases adding up is common sense, really. At least I always feel guilty spending any bit of money. But I think this will kick me in the butt to start automating everything like he says. I'm going to move our joint accounts from my credit union to DH's bank so I can do auto bill pays, and look into starting a separate account to do electronic withdrawls for a mutual fund. I've been avoiding it because I'm a paranoid, old-fashioned, anti-electronic gal when it comes to finances.

[emmjay]

I like the way he writes - straightforward and his ideas are easy to understand/implement. Although "his" ideas are definitely just common sense. But I do like the automatic part.

Right now, we are saving 20% of DH's salary for retirement (we're using my entire salary to pay off cc debt :rolleyes: ) and we have a small emergency fund. Then once the debt is gone we'll be saving 20% of my salary to retirement, plus bulking up the emergency fund and saving for some big extras that aren't necessities, but are part of our overall goals.

This is all from reading his books - I liked the way he laid everything out. It gave us some direction and helped us to clarify our financial plans.

[MrsSmith]

I've read Smart Couples Finish Rich. It was a quick and easy read with mainly common sense, doable ideas. It's good to get you going if you're newly married or if you've gotten into a financial rut and just need a boost to get out of it.

In Start Late, Finish Rich, how long is late? Is that 40s, 50s, 30s? Just wondering?

[emmjay]

In Start Late, Finish Rich, how long is late? Is that 40s, 50s, 30s? Just wondering?
I think it was aimed at people in their 40s - I don't think he ever said specifically, but that was the impression I got. I haven't read it in a while though.

Although we are in our early 30s and I felt like it applied to us as well - in my mind we started pretty freaking late! (we had our reasons though ;) )

[greenbunny]

I'm totally impressed with your 20%, emmjay, I don't think I could pull that off right now. I've been doing 9% since I started working here two years ago (I'm 25 now, so 23 then) and I felt like I was really ahead of my game.

[emmjay]

I'm totally impressed with your 20%, emmjay, I don't think I could pull that off right now. I've been doing 9% since I started working here two years ago (I'm 25 now, so 23 then) and I felt like I was really ahead of my game.
Well, there are a couple of reasons for the 20% -

First, we had no retirement savings AT ALL before our trip. So we have to play catch up since we didn't start saving for until age 32 - starting so late is forcing us to take a bigger chunk. I'm sure you will be way ahead of us financially at retirement (damn you, compounding interest! :p )

Second, my DH got a new job this summer that paid upwards of 60% more (pretax) than his previous job - it was easy to take 20% out of that since we are still seeing a raise compared to before. Also we are lucky that we don't have a lot of expenses and we can live on just DH's salary if we needed to.

I am still freaking out about not saving 20% of MY salary. I know it makes more sense to pay off our debt first but it still gets me in a panic that we aren't saving 20% of our total pretax income (just DH's). Then again, I am kind of a spaz about this sort of thing. ;)

I didn't really bother with the one hour thing or the worksheets. I focused on his three "baskets" for saving, and when he said "if you want to be rich at retirement, save 20% of your pretax income".