Product Description

What’s the secret to becoming a millionaire?

For years people have asked David Bach, the national bestselling author of Smart Women Finish Rich, Smart Couples Finish Rich, and The Finish Rich Workbook, what’s the real secret to getting rich? What’s the one thing I need to do?

Now, in The Automatic Millionaire, David Bach is sharing that secret.

The Automatic Millionaire starts with the powerful story of an average American
couple--he’s a low-level manager, she’s a beautician--whose joint income never exceeds $55,000 a year, yet who somehow manage to own two homes debt-free, put two kids through college, and retire at 55 with more than $1 million in savings. Through their story you’ll learn the surprising fact that you cannot get rich with a budget! You have to have a plan to pay yourself first that is totally automatic, a plan that will automatically secure your future and pay for your present.

What makes The Automatic Millionaire unique:

You don’t need a budget
You don’t need willpower
You don’t need to make a lot of money
You don’t need to be that interested in money
You can set up the plan in an hour

David Bach gives you a totally realistic system, based on timeless principles, with everything you need to know, including phone numbers and websites, so you can put the secret to becoming an Automatic Millionaire in place from the comfort of your own home.

This one little book has the power to secure your financial future. Do it once--the rest is automatic!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7890 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-27
• Released on: 2005-12-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780767923828
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Despite its sensational title, David Bach's The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich is not a get-rich-quick guide. Rather, the book is a straightforward march through common-sense personal financial planning that suggests readers "automate" their contributions to retirement and investment vehicles. Bach, in fact, calls his model the "tortoise approach" to becoming wealthy by retirement age.

In the early part of the book Bach builds on ideas he established in Smart Women Finish Rich and other bestselling titles. His core principle is that, to succeed, you must "Pay Yourself First." In other words, he suggests using pre-tax retirement accounts (e.g. 401(k)s or IRAs) to set aside a fixed, monthly sum of money before considering what is left for living expenses. The "automatic" part of the title comes from Bach's emphasis on using automated payroll deductions to avoid the temptation of using the money to pay today's bills.

Bach insists that "regardless of the size of your paycheck, you probably already make enough money to become rich." But his claims that his plan requires "no budget, no discipline," is a bit disingenuous. His discussion of the "The Latte Factor" shows that, to find money to start a retirement plan, a person with a modest income needs to make an up-front commitment to stop accruing debt and to reduce spending on such "wasteful" items as lattes and cigarettes.

In the end The Automatic Millionaire does not offer much that is new for readers already familiar with personal finance basics like accelerated mortgage payments, "the miracle of compound interest," and the setting up of emergency funds. But, for those just starting with financial planning, Bach provides a host of resources to put recommendations into action. He walks his readers through such fundamentals as shopping for interest rates, creating a balanced retirement portfolio, and consolidating debt. And Bach's conversational style will make this quick read highly palatable for those daunted by more detailed investment and personal finance titles. --Patrick O'Kelley

From Publishers Weekly
Bach, author of several bestsellers including Smart Women Finish Rich and Smart Couples Finish Rich, offers a simple prescriptive plan for financial security. The secret: the astonishingly vanilla "Pay Yourself First," which, in Bach's words, is "the one proven, easy way to get rich." Instead of worrying about taxes, budgeting or investing, the key, according to Bach, is to set aside between 10% and 15% of gross income for savings the equivalent of one hour's worth of income every day. While this strategy may seem obvious, many people don't take this basic step. That's why Bach says everyone should write down their "Automatic Millionaire Promise," which spells out what percentage of their income they will start saving by a certain date. To insure that people carry through on their efforts, Bach says they should have deposits automatically made to a retirement account. Then, the next step is to capitalize on the power of compounding by contributing the maximum amount to, say, an employer's 401(k) account. To help readers navigate the maze of investment choices, Bach includes contact information for a number of mutual funds and Web sites offering authoritative financial information. Bach's key principle, along with such advice as buying real estate, paying down debt and making charitable deductions, is not groundbreaking; and regrettably, it may be unrealistic for many: tens of millions of Americans are in serious credit card debt because they can't make ends meet on their salaries; how, then, are they to save so much of their gross income? However, his easygoing approach, complete with real-life examples and clever phrases such as "Latte Factor," will appeal to the many money-challenged consumers who have made a New Year's resolution to get their finances on a firmer footing.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
When Bach writes in his introduction that "in just an hour or two I could share with you a system that would slowly but surely transform you into a millionaire," it sounds like he's peddling another one of those work-at-home schemes. In reality, what he's talking about is setting up your financial life in a way that takes advantage of simple savings concepts (such as direct-deposit deductions) to create an investment plan that works painlessly in the background. Trying to actively budget your savings doesn't work, Bach says, because it goes against human nature, which is to continue to spend what we have, no matter how much money we make. But by diverting just $10 a day to a long-term investment program, we can accumulate well over $1 million over a 40-year period. Using the concept of the "Latte Factor," Bach shows how to eliminate a few unnecessary daily expenditures for things like fancy coffee, bottled water, or fast food and use the savings to secure your future. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

So simple that it looks too simple
To many people, The Automatic Millonaire looks too simple to be believable. Nothing could be that simple right?Yes and No. It is simple. EASY TO UNDERSTAND AND EASY TO DO, BUT HOW MANY PEOPLE DO IT?Save 10% of what you make. Use biweekly mortgages. Make extra principal payments. Make extra payments on your credit cards. Is it really this simple? Absolutely.I am now giving this book away as an accessary gift at weddings and birthdays. Automatic Millionaire is also an easy read.

You either like it or hate it - mixed reviews
I saw Dave Bach on the Ophrah show a couple of nites ago. I agree that much of what Bach says is not new but that doesn't make it a bad read.

Sometimes the best advice is what we already know. Some people need to be reminded to pay ourselves first. That it is okay to invest while you are in debt. And that simple things like a bi-weekly mortgage which you can do on own (some unscrupulous companies charge $400 or more for this service + additional fees)can save you 5 years of mortgage payments.

Bach recommends no load mutual funds (no doubt this upsets commissioned brokers and advisors)and other advice that takes money out of the pockets of sales people and puts it right back in ours.

Some of what BAch says has been covered in his other books, but again, sometime we need to be reminded and what if you didn't buy those earlier books?

I highly recommend The Automatic Millionaire. Title is very appealing and the book really works.

Awesome book
After reading The Automatic Millionaire, I have come to the conclusion that the only person who can make money with this book is the one who first buys it. The reads it. And then applies the material.David Bach has written a good book here that will deliver results for you. But first you have to read it---not just the free overview here on the internet like that 1 star reviewer, but the actual book. And then you have to use it.Hey, it's working for everybodyelse. Why not you?