Debt Free For Life
The Finish Rich Plan for Financial Freedom
by David Bach
Crown Business
$19.95, hard cover, 266 pages, 978-0-2019-2986-8 (2010)
David Bach has written a dozen books on financing, and I reviewed “Start Late, Finish Rich” several years ago. I called that book “easy-to-read” and “filled with simple ideas about spending less, saving more, making more and living rich” even if you got a late start. It short, it was chock-full of common sense ideas about finances.
I’m happy to report that “Debt Free For Life” is more of the same. It’s not hard to see why more than 7 million books by this author are in print.
It used to be that financial planners advised people that there was “good debt” (debt used to buy your home or invest in a college education) and bad debt. Due in part to the current recession and the massive debt owed by many individuals, Bach now argues that there is no such thing as good debt.
As he says in his introduction: “The truth is that this recession has changed everything. Homes are going down in value and people with college degrees are looking for jobs…. The truth is that when you’re in debt, it doesn’t matter what you’ve borrowed the money for. The only thing that matters is whether or not you can afford to pay it back. And if you can’t, all debt is bad debt.”
Bach convincingly argues that the best investment you can make today isn’t the stock market, gold, bonds or any other venture that typically comes to mind. Instead, he advices that the best investment you can make over the next five years is to pay off all your debts.
This book explores all the major ways for folks to become debt free. Included are chapters on how to save on credit cards, college loans, mortgages and ways for people to get out of debt once and for all. If you’re really serious about reducing your debt, there is an excellent chapter on what Bach calls the DOLP (Done On Last Payment) method of getting out of debt. And for those who may be mathematically challenged, an on-line DOLP worksheet that does all the legwork is available on the author’s website at www.finishrich.com/dolp
Finally, Bach explains how he has partnered up with one of the nation’s leading credit reporting agencies, Equifax, to introduce the Debt Wise program which shows you how to pay down your debt automatically with the help of the information in your credit report. This program grabs all the information about your debts in your credit report and runs it through a DOLP calculator so you can see which debts to pay off first. You can get a free month trial of the program by using a code contained in the book (hint: it’s on page 81). It’s a nifty program, but at a cost of $14.95 per month, I wonder if it’s just a bit too pricey for those struggling to get out of debt.
This is a sound book with common sense ideas about getting out of debt. The DOLP method will certainly work in getting rid of debt as long as you are committed to stop increasing your debt by continuing to use credit cards and other ways to borrow money. I signed up for the free month of the Debt Wise program so I could evaluate it and it’s certainly slick. In just minutes, it calculates a debt reducing plan that will put you on the road to becoming debt free. I just question the monthly cost when the free DOLP worksheet will give you the same basic information.
If you’re serious about wanting to get out of debt, this book will show you how. My advice is to buy it now and read it from cover to cover. An even better idea is to head to your local library to see if you can take out the book for free. Put the $19.95 you save toward paying off one of your outstanding debts. Sweet.
Buy it on Amazon here.
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