 | Debt Free For Life: The Finish Rich Plan for Financial Freedom By David Bach
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Product Description
GOODBYE DEBT—HELLO FREEDOM!
Most of us grew up with the idea that there is good debt and there is bad debt. Good debts are generally considered to be debts you incur to buy things that can go up in value—like a home or college education. Bad debts are things like credit card balances, where you borrowed money to buy things that depreciate or go down in value, like most consumer goods.
But as America's favorite financial coach, David Bach, points out, in difficult times there is no such thing as good debt. There is only debt. And all debt is too expensive—if what you desire is FREEDOM! In fact, Bach believes the best investment you can make today is to pay down your debt, faster and smarter than you have ever attempted before—starting today!
In Debt Free for Life, #1 New York Times bestselling author David Bach has written his most groundbreaking and important book since The Automatic Millionaire, giving us the knowledge, the tools, and the mindset we need to get out of debt and achieve financial freedom— forever! Offering a revolutionary approach to personal finance that teaches you how to pay down your debt and adopt a whole new way of living – debt free. Bach unveils the Debt Wise program that empowers you to pare down your debt automatically. You'll learn how to calculate your Debt Freedom Day – the actual date you will be completely free of debt. And you'll discover that when you are debt free, you need a lot less money to live on. You can retire, even with a smaller nest egg -- perhaps earlier than you expected.
David Bach has coached millions to pay off their debt and now he can guide you. Whether you have home loans, student loans, car loans, credit card debt—paying down your debt is truly a game you can win, if you know the rules. Debt Free For Life will teach you the rules and give you the tools to buy back your freedom.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #8849 in Books
- Published on: 2010-12-28
- Released on: 2010-12-28
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 288 pages
Features
- ISBN13: 9780767929868
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
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About the Author
DAVID BACH is one of America's most prolific and bestselling financial authors of our time. He has written ten consecutive national bestsellers, with over seven million books in print, translated in over 15 languages. His runaway bestseller The Automatic Millionaire, spent thirty-one weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was simultaneously #1 on the business bestseller lists of the New York Times, USA Today, BusinessWeek and the Wall Street Journal. He is also the author of the national bestsellers Start Over, Finish Rich; Fight for your Money; Go Green, Live Rich; Smart Women Finish Rich; The Finish Rich Workbook, and the number one bestsellers, Start Late Finish Rich, Smart Couples Finish Rich and The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner. Bach is a regular contributor to NBC's Today and has appeared a half dozen times on The Oprah Winfrey Show to share his strategies for getting out of debt and finishing rich. He lives in New York with his family.
To read excerpts of David Bach's books, and for more information, please visit www.finishrich.com or www.facebook.com/davidbach
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER ONE
WHO PUT CANADA INTO DEBT—AND HOW YOU CAN GET YOURSELF OUT
Once upon a time (in the decades after the Great Depression), Canadians desired a life of financial freedom. To our grandparents and great-grandparents, this meant staying out of debt. Living through the Great Depression, our great-grandparents learned the hard way that debt was bad, that owing money could destroy your life. So they paid for things in cash, they bought homes with big down payments, and they worked hard to pay their mortgages off as quickly as possible. They even had "mortgage-burning parties" in their backyards, where they celebrated their FREEDOM from the banks after the last payment was made. As a result, many of them were able to retire in their early sixties without financial worry. Retirement wasn't a dream for our great-grandparents (and often our grandparents, who learned prudent financial behaviour from their parents), it was a promise! For them, the dream was real—you went to work, you worked hard, you saved money, you paid down your debt, and then you retired with a pension and you lived happily ever after.
CANADIANS CARRY $1.4 TRILLION IN DEBT—WE DESERVE BETTER
These days, the dream of financial freedom—freedom from worry, freedom from living paycheque to paycheque—has become a nightmare. We bought the myth—or, I should say, we bought the lie and turned it into a myth. As I write this, Statistics Canada reports that Canadians are on the hook for more than $1.4 TRILLION in consumer and mortgage debt. This translates to an average of $96,000 of debt per Canadian household. At the beginning of 2010, credit card debt in Canada amounted to $78 billion—about $2,225 for every man, woman, and child in the country. The number of people in Canada who hadn't made a payment on their credit cards in three months or more rose by 50% between 2008 and 2009. At more than 2%, the delinquency rate in Toronto was higher than the Canadian average of 1.7%.
Compared to the United States, Canada remains relatively unscathed by the global recession. Housing prices remain fairly stable, even if housing has become increasingly expensive in places like Toronto and Vancouver. Unemployment rates have fallen, and although many Canadians continue to live paycheque to paycheque, the number of personal bankruptcies in Canada has fallen, as well.
Canada's government incurred a $55-billion deficit in fiscal 2009 to shore up the nation's economy against the aftermath of a worldwide recession, but the government anticipates that it will balance this deficit within five years.
This doesn't mean that Canadians have clear sailing ahead. Housing prices have risen to five times the average after-tax income of Canadian households, and interest rates will likely rise by 2011. For every dollar of income, the average Canadian household carries $1.45 in debt. More than half of employed Canadians say they live paycheque to paycheque. If mortgage rates hit 5.25%, about 375,000 mortgage holders in Canada would have trouble making their payments. So perhaps we should all take a page from the government's book and figure out how to get rid of our debt.
HOW IS YOUR DEBT DOING?
So let's be honest. Do you have more debt than you want?
Chances are, you do—or you wouldn't have picked up this book.
Are you paying a huge percentage of your paycheque each month to just cover the interest on what you've borrowed for your home, your car, your student loans, your credit cards, etc.? Are you frustrated that no matter how hard you try to pay off your debt, it seems to take forever and you don't see any progress happening fast enough? Are you worried about your ability to retire someday because of your debt?
Or is it even worse than that? Are you unable to make even the minimum payments on your loans and find yourself falling behind, with your debt growing? Did you know that if you are carrying $10,000 in credit card debt and your card is charging you 25% interest, and you're making minimum payments, it will take you more than 50 years to pay off your debt—without borrowing another penny? Did you know if you have a $250,000 mortgage with a low fixed rate of 6%, paying it off over 30 years will cost you just under $540,000?
HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CANADIANS ARE IN DEBT AND WANT OUT
The reason I am sharing these figures with you not to be negative or to depress you. What I want to do is start this book and your journey to being debt free for life with the truth. And the truth is that HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Canadians are hugely in debt and want out!
A study by the Certified General Accountants of Canada says 20% of Canadians with debt think they have too much and have trouble managing it. These individuals want to improve their financial well-being through debt reduction. Indeed, in the recent rush to take advantage of low mortgage rates by refinancing, many loan applicants have been putting money into their homes—meaning they are reducing the amount they owe—rather than taking money out.
So you see—you're not alone! And like so many others, you can do something quickly to change your situation, reduce your debt, and become DEBT FREE FOR LIFE!
THE DEBT FREE FOR LIFE PROMISE: WHY YOU SHOULD READ THIS BOOK—AND ACT ON IT!
It's easy to get into debt. Getting out is another story. Some so-called debt-settlement companies will market to you and tell you "We can cut your debt in half in minutes and save you thousands of dollars." Sorry, but that's just nonsense!
This book is about the truth. It offers an honest plan that will work—if you work it! I know some of you are reading this book because you are really drowning in debt and are looking for a life preserver. If this is your situation, I believe this book can be the life raft that gets you back to dry land. But let me be clear: You don't need to be in over your head to benefit from this book or the Debt Free for Life Plan I'm about to share. This book is about a totally new approach to building financial freedom that stresses "paying down your debt" so you can buy back your freedom. I've been teaching my readers for years how to pay down their debt, and maybe I have taught you already—but the Debt Free for Life Plan is a revolutionary new system that that will make paying off your debt easier than it has ever been.
Most people who apply the Debt Free for Life Program I will share in the pages that follow will be able to get themselves out of debt an average of 15 years faster and save themselves at least $30,000 in the process. Some of you will do this even faster than that and be out of debt in as little as seven, five, or even just three years. (I've even seen people get out of debt using these tools in less than a year.) How quickly you can do it will depend on you—on how much debt you have, how much you can cut your expenses, and how fast you want to make it happen.
Some of you have debt that is so long overdue that you can no longer be forced to pay it, and you don't even know it. (You will once you read this book.) Some of you can save six figures by simply applying one idea in this book (you'll find it on page 102 in Chapter Nine).
The fact is that the math of debt is not complicated. You simply need to apply the principals I will share and then, like the Nike slogan says, "Just Do It."
Now don't get me wrong—I am not promising you overnight freedom from debt. But what I can promise is that the moment you start on this plan, you will begin to feel better. Just knowing that you have a plan in place to pay down your debt in the right order, the right way—a plan you can carry out yourself that will save you thousands of dollars in interest fees and cut years off your indebtedness—will truly lighten your burden, however light or heavy it may be.
I also promise you that having less debt will feel GREAT.
Debt creates fear. Not having it creates peace of mind. This may sound like a cliche, but it's true. When you have less debt, you will feel more FREE. You will have fewer worries, less stress, less tension, fewer fights at home. In short, your life will have less fear and more serenity. Not only that, but you will also be able to build wealth faster.
A DEBT FREE FOR LIFE SUCCESS STORY
I cannot express my gratitude for what your books Start Late, Finish Rich and Smart Women Finish Rich have done for me. They've helped me change not only my financial life, but my physical life as well. My "latte factor" (the way I wasted money) was food! I could not believe how much I was wasting on "occasional" snacks. It was atrocious—and so was my waist line! The one major thing you said that stuck in my head and changed my actions was, "Is this purchase really necessary?" I now ask myself that question every time I think about spending money—and doing this has truly changed my life. I have saved over $6,000 in six months and I have lost 21 pounds. David, you are a lifesaver, in more ways than one! Thank you for everything!
Nicole D.
Yuba City, CA
HOW THIS BOOK WORKS: THE FINISH RICH PLAN TO ACHIEVE FINANCIAL FREEDOM
We're going to start the process of achieving financial freedom by learning how to change your mindset, cut your expenses, and live within your means. Next, I'll shoe you how the credit card companies i...
Customer Reviews
Repear information
Very similar from all of his previous books. This book felt like a sales pitch for his previous books and debtwise throughout. Not much new information to offer. I really enjoyed his book, Smart Women Finish Rich. This book didn't add anything new to my basic personal finance knowledge. Definitely not worth your time if you have read any of his previous work.
Same as the others ...
I like David Bach and have purchased several of his other books but this one is not any different from what he has offered in the pages of all of the others. This was a total waste of money to me because I already have read this same advice in his other books repeatedly. This book seems to have been written primarily for the chapter on Debt Wise which is his partnership with Equifax. I wouldn't advise you purchase this book if you have any of his others, there is nothing new.
Financial expert shows how to get out of debt and live debt free
I had never read anything by this author before and not sure I'd even heard of him. But I read this book and found it quite good. It's a valuable resource and has numerous helpful ideas. Unfortunately, the author spends a lot of precious space promoting some of his money-making ventures that, while no doubt helpful and useful, can be a bit expensive to already strapped readers. I have no major issue with this. Certainly we can't nor should we expect anyone to provide valuable information for free. Yet when we pay for a book, we sort of expect that to pay for the information. Having said that, the author has made this and at least one other of his books available free online. So I guess he uses it to promote himself and his businesses.
I found that a lot of the information and tools are available free online. His website is a bit of a pain to navigate, with popups and other annoying things.
He didn't answer the question that Suze Orman left in many people's minds about getting an emergency fund prior to paying off debt. But he certainly does help a person gather all he needs to plan a real attack against debt and if nothing else is garnered from the book, this is worth the price.
It is a helpful book and some areas will concern the reader perhaps more than others. But if you're looking for help in getting out of debt, this is a great place to start.
Highly recommended.
-- Susanna K. Hutcheson
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