Many reviews for David's latest book say its the same old thing or he's plugging all his other products. But from the standpoint of only reading [b:The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich|621|The Automatic Millionaire A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich|David Bach|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320531618s/621.jpg|806311] and now this, I came away with a lot of great information to help reduce my debt. So for the cost to purchase this book to the savings I will be earning thanks to his tips completely earns the 5 star rating here. ( )

Many reviews for David's latest book say its the same old thing or he's plugging all his other products. But from the standpoint of only reading [b:The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich|621|The Automatic Millionaire A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich|David Bach|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320531618s/621.jpg|806311] and now this, I came away with a lot of great information to help reduce my debt. So for the cost to purchase this book to the savings I will be earning thanks to his tips completely earns the 5 star rating here. ( )

Rating: 2.5 of 5

There's *not* a lot of new information if you've read any other financial expert's books, especially David Bach's. But there were a few tips that I didn't know about, such as the ability to request a lower interest rate on your credit card from the issuer. And the brief overview of how much faster one's mortgage can be paid off was helpful as well. Those two points though left me needing a bit more analysis and explanation, which I sought online.

I did sign up and try out the Debt Wise system that Bach advertised throughout the book. It would probably be most helpful for those individuals who do not maintain "clean" books in financial software already. I'm a bookkeeper by day so much of the information presented in this book was common knowledge. I cancelled after the free trial period. ( )

David Bach walks you through easy ways to pay down your debt so you won't have that worry hanging over. He points out ways people have fallen into the trap "I need this!", when actually we don't. He shows how belt tightening can actually lead to wonderful new experiences that are free. Also, how forgoing a habit, Starbucks, can save you more than $100 a month that you can use to pay down a bill. He explains how paying just $25 extra dollars a month on your car can cut months off the length of your car loan and so on and so on. An excellent book for those people who are serious about getting out of debt. ( )

Debt Free for Life is by David Bach and is just one more in the long line of books that he's written. If you learn nothing else from this book it will be that. He never stops talking about his other books. Over and over and over. He includes a lot of content from them in this book, as a matter of fact. You know the joke about the hundred word essay? Where the kid just writes "word" one hundred times? It reminds me of that.

I’ve read some of David’s other books (The Automatic Millionaire, Smart Women Finish Rich, Smart Couples Finish Rich, others) over the years and enjoyed them, so I was looking forward to reading his new book. It was just so off-putting how often he mentions said “other books”. Oh, and did he mention that they're bestsellers? YES, over and over and over. He mentions the titles of his other books so frequently at the beginning of this book that I was annoyed and almost stopped reading (it felt like a commercial disguised as a book!). I soldiered on, however, lured by catchy phrases such as: “Pay down your debt; buy back your life.” Always asking, “Is this purchase really necessary?” before buying anything. The “Minimum Payment Scam” perpetuated by credit card companies. “All debt is bad debt”.

Soon thereafter, though, I was further annoyed. In addition to singing the praises ad nauseum of his prior books (taking the idea of “tooting your own horn” to new, heretofore unimaginable heights), he hawks the “Debt Wise” program (which, after an initial free trial period, will cost ya), powered by Equifax, but in which he also has a vested interest.
Hello? Does this seem like a conflict of interest to anyone besides me?

It kind of smacks of smarm.

Debt Wise isn’t free. It isn’t even cheap. What is worrisome about this to me is the way the author presents the cost. He says that it’s less than fifty cents per day when he first introduces the program. This reminded me immediately of how car salespeople will tell you the monthly payment instead of the actual cost of the car to make it sound cheaper and make the sale. Later in the chapter he says it’s $14.95 per month, plus a joining fee of an unnamed amount, but hey, here’s a coupon code to use online for the first month free, so you still don’t know how much it’s going to be costing you in the end. I was also confused about who actually created the program. Sometimes I heard him say that he did, and at other times he says that Equifax actually created it in 2009, and he partnered with them in 2010. I guess that I would feel better about him endorsing Debt Wise as a tool to get out of debt if either a) he didn’t charge for it or b) he didn’t profit from it.

As a matter of fact, the entire 6th chapter is all about selling this program Debt Wise to you, dear reader. Combined with the fact that he spends lots of time in every chapter talking about how great his other books (did he mention that they're bestsellers?) are, it gives this book the feel of a commercial. The writing is very redundant, and at first I thought that maybe he was trying to use this as a learning tool (repetition helps you remember, right?) but ultimately I decided that in this case, repetition was being used as filler.

I was also wondering why he didn’t read the audiobook to his readers himself (it's read by Erik Davies); David Bach is a public speaker, after all!

Bottom line: mostly a rehashing of material in his prior books plus a sales pitch for “his” new Debt Wise online venture with Equifax. You would probably do better to go back and read The Automatic Millionaire again. And cheaper. And less annoying. ( )