Almost forgot, you can download a PDF copy of Debt Free for Life by David Bach over at direct download link (expired). If you’ve read his many other personal finance books like Automatic Millionaire, I don’t expect this to be radically different… but maybe he’ll surprise me. In any case, it’s free for today 1/5 only so download now and procrastinate about reading it later.
Thanks to readers Ryan, Andy, and Sri for reminders.
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I started looking through it.
Its very basic. ie: if you only pay the minimum on your credit card, it will take 20+ years to pay off.
Lots of references to his other books.
possibly good for a beginner.
however i only skimmed most sections, and am only through 40 some pages.
If anyone finds anything of particular interest please post.
I agree with Nuri, unfortunately. I’ve read through chapter 7, and this is the most basic of information. It reads more like an infomercial for a product, rather than the product itself. There really is no detail.
Have to agree with the first two posters…I’m through almost half the book and haven’t learned anything new. Well, other than the fact that David Bach would really like me to sign up for DebtWise so that he can get a referral payment.
Bach also projects the image that he invented the “snowball” payment method, which I highly doubt. The method (which he refers to as DOLP) is maybe good for beginners/undisciplined folks but certainly not the mathematically correct way to pay down debt. His examples are a bit disingenuous too.
He shows a debt example in which someone has $5k of debt and pays a monthly minimum of $175/MONTH. He then goes nuts about how paying JUST an extra $10/day you can save $7,300 in interest. Of course he doesn’t mention that an extra $10/day equates to approximately TRIPLING the monthly payment. I’m pretty sure even the unsaavy people out there know that tripling the monthly payment will have a huge effect. He intentionally chooses a “low-dollar” debt for the example. The numbers may be right but he’s picking and choosing when to use per-month numbers and per-day numbers.
For free, it doesn’t hurt to skim the ebook to remind yourself of some concepts and reinforce them but this book (at least the first half) isn’t worth more than its price for me.
Regardless of my comments on the ebook though I still appreciate you posting this, Jonathan.
Yep, a bit too basic and elementary. Don;t think I will read through the whole PDF.