I Will Teach You to Be Rich: No Guilt. No Excuses. Just a 6-…

Reviews

1. 

   C. M. Larsen – July 21, 2024

   Tim Ferris’ question…
   Book: I Will Teach You to Be Rich, Second Edition: No Guilt. No Excuses. No BS. Just a 6-Week Program That Works by Ramit Sethi.I’m a big fan of Tim Ferris and in many of his books and podcasts he asks people a really good question. It’s not “What is your favorite book?” or “What are you reading now?” Which are all good questions and bad questions. I mean honestly, if you are reading a book called Atheism for Dummies and the conversation comes up at church, that is kind of awkward. I would be tempted to not answer honestly.But Tim asks a great question: “What is a book that you’ve gifted frequently?” This immediately shows that you are a gift giver, generous person and thoughtful too, unless of course you are giving the gift of RL Stine books, then you should be flogged. But I digress.This is the book that I have gifted high school graduates the most. Over the years I’ve given at least 5-8 away to them. I don’t think they have read it and yet I encourage them to. But it’s one of those things that I know one day they will come to me and confess they never read it until now and then they would have to leave and make more money under duress due to the fact they didn’t read the book and their financial situation is a mess. But I will sit back and gloat in the wonderful knowledge that they SHOULD have listened but alas, many will not.The book is a blend of off-kilter, foul language (which is hilarious because these are church families) but overall very good solid financial advice. My wife and I look at the criteria in this book and we are happy since we have met most of the author’s suggestions/requirements.

2. 

   Allison – July 21, 2024

   My favorite book – nothing has compared so far!
   This is my favorite book that I return to over and over again. It is the one I gift the most frequently to friends, family, and recent grads. From my own experience, I disagree about this book not being for people under 20 (while simultaneously agreeing, so let me explain).I read most of the book when I was 18 as an undergrad and revisited a couple time till I graduated college and got my teaching credential at 25. I both read and scanned, sometimes without fully comprehending and without being able to implement, well, really any of the recommendations. And yet, the guidance was still super useful because I didn’t make financially unsavvy decisions that would delay my being able to set up a savvy, automated financial system upon graduation and earning an income.For example, I saw a lot of my peers making decisions such as buying a new car upon receiving their first paycheck or two because they could afford the payments (or even prior to graduation) – the payments that would put their fixed costs at 90% of their income and cause them to live paycheck-to-paycheck with a ton of stress!!This book gave me the vague and general understanding of what I was going to try to set up before I had the means to do so, before I was even earning a real income.It helped me determine and sort out my financial values and figure out how I wanted to live my life.It helped me choose a financially responsible spouse who also read the book. Ramit’s guidance helped us arrive at similar financial values and systems from the start. We’re so glad we have the tools to talk about money without stress. We’ve had many friends speak to us about how they have such a hard time talking about money with their partners because the partner just shuts down about it. We sympathize, and as a result of their transparency about their own struggles, we don’t take for granted how empowered we are because of this book. (And how brilliant of Ramit to supplement with his podcast of the same title to listen to couples have these conversations)The book is easy(ish) to follow. I would recommend just accepting that you won’t understand everything the first time through, but I realized later that I understood more than I thought and rereading sections really helped. I love the way it is organized into “weeks.”Each “week” has steps that are actionable and gave me *the* guide to set up my finances. What’s great is you can sort of “pause” at certain weeks when it takes longer to set up what you need to. For example, I graduated with about $4,000 in credit card debt. I read on so I know what was coming, but I had to pause after Weeks 1-3 as I prioritized paying off that CC debt (which I did within 4 months). I was able to create a debt payoff plan: I chose to use my student loan grace period to pay off the CC aggressively, then start paying off my student loan debt with minimum payments while building up the funds to open my Roth IRA at Vanguard, and so on.I automated everything and literally one day looked at my Roth and was like, “How did I get so much money?!” And that’s on a teacher’s and adjunct university lecturer’s low pay! I’m not kidding when I say it’s almost like it happened by accident – I set up everything immediately after college graduation and never felt like my life was limited or lacking from putting aside money each month. I was able to determine which order to pay things and how to allocate my paycheck. I’ve been able to keep my fixed costs low and build up a nest egg so I am under little financial stress, even through my periods of low pay and job insecurity.I just can’t say enough good things. Read it now even if you can’t implement. Read it even if it doesn’t make sense to you (yet!). It’s so worth it.

3. 

   Henrique Segundo – July 21, 2024

   This is a great book. I learned a lot and plan to re-read it in the future. Not everything is applicable in my country (Brazil) but it’s very useful, nonetheless.

4. 

   Ishika Shanai – July 21, 2024

   Not sure why there’s so much criticism for this book when it’s perfect for complete beginners (usually high school age folks) to personal finance. It teaches you the very basics which is still valuable information especially if you grow up in a family where talking about money is treated as taboo. After reading this book, I was able to ask specific questions about personal finance with my dad and actually ended up learning a lot more in depth about how the household finances were run through structuring my questions with the terminology I learned from this book.I have taught a workshop on personal finance based on the concepts in this book to high school aged folks to prepare them for university/college or other forms of higher education during a summer internship as well. Which helped them at least be introduced to these personal finance terms as schools rarely teach this material.3 years after initially reading this book, it’s still something I highly recommend to my friends looking to understand how to get a handle on their own finances, along with the budgeting app YNAB.Just simply getting hung up on the term “rich” does a disservice to yourself and others, as the point of this book was to define what “rich” looks like to YOU. Not the standard “make a lot of money and you’ll be happy” definition of it. The goal is to make your current finances work for you and to set up your current self for success by avoiding debt traps and investing in yourself.

5. 

   Felipe Pedroza – July 21, 2024

   Es un gran libro, tiene muchos tips financieros y que te ayudan en la vida real. Es lo mejor, que pones en práctica de inmediato.

6. 

   Same as ordered. Excellent material, delivered on time and with care. – July 21, 2024

   Excellent read, encouraging for those new to financial literacy

7. 

   mohammad tauquir iqbal – July 21, 2024

   nook has good content and good print