Book Review: The Automatic Millionaire

The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich by David Bach may not be what you think at first glance. That is a good thing. My first impression by title and subtitle alone was that this would be a get-rich-quick book. I had never read any of his other titles (Start Late, Finish Rich and Smart Couples Finish Rich) but those titles are much more straightforward.

Despite the perhaps misleading title, The Automatic Millionaire is a very easy read with straight-forward advice that is easy to follow and carry out. There are a few important points hammered home that ANYONE is capable of:

-Pay Yourself First

Exploring how much you work for yourself vs. how much you work for your creditors and service providers.

-Make All of Your Savings Automatic

If you have a retirement plan, use it!! And make sure that your contributions are as much as you can spare. Use an automated system so that you never see the money in your hand (or your account).

-Take a Look at Spending

If you are spending $5 dollars a day on coffee, could you go without that coffee and set it aside for retirement? It could pay off HUGE over time.

Although much of this title pertains to long term savings for retirement and many people under 35 don’t think about retirement much or at all, The Automatic Millionaire takes that into consideration and introduces ways to force savings using an out of sight, out of mind approach. If you make savings automatic, you will not see the money and therefore will not miss it.

Recommendation:
Not essential for everyone, but if you have little to no working knowledge of retirement accounts and how they work, The Automatic Millionaire can teach you volumes.

Tagged as: Pay Yourself First, Retirement, Savings, The Automatic Millionaire