Debt Free for Life: The Finish Rich Plan for Financial … (2024)

Short and sweet review for this: it's not a terrible book considering it does have a few tips that are helpful for financial management, but most of it is not worth the cost of buying the book. I'm very glad that borrowed it from the library. I felt like this book was mostly product placement (for Equifax's DebtWise program), self-positioning for the author's other books (which probably had the meat and potatoes that this book lacked - this was my first read from the author), and testimonials. Not very much about managing personal finances, which was the reason I picked up the book in the first place. I think I may try one of the author's other books, but this is one I would say skip if you want a comprehensive guide or reference to refer back to on the topic.

Overall score: 1.5/5 stars.

This book 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.

If you know anything about personal finance and are not currently suffering under crushing loads of credit card debt, do not read this book. You do not need it.

This is an excellent book. My wife and I have been completely debt free for over 7 years and only had mortgage debt for some 7 or 8 years before that. We had to "discover" on our own many of the things that are explained in detail in this book. Being debt free is truly liberating, and this book will definitely help you to be so if you actually do what it says.

The action steps David Bach recommends aren't difficult to do, and require only the will to do them. He provides a lot of information on how financial institutions operate, and what you can do to avoid falling for situations that just increase your level of debt - and enslavement. There is a detailed explanation of credit reports and credit scores and what they really mean to you. Throughout the book, Mr. Bach refers to credit scores and how they relate to the various aspects of debt.

This book is not designed to help you get out of paying the debts you willingly incurred, although there is a chapter on bankruptcy. If you want to take responsibility for your debts, and pay them off quickly, as well as maintain a debt-free life, then this book is for you.

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 The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich 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.

It was decent.

Ok, this book is just the same common sense personal finance info rehashed. I can't give it more or less than 3 stars simply because if someone hasn't read as many personal finance books as I have, there is plenty of good advice as far as taking a look at your spending habits and really working at paying down your debt. No matter how
Many times I read the same personal finance info, it is helpful because it puts me in focus to pay down those debts and to think about paying down my mortgage faster. Paying just one extra payment a year can save over $100k over the years. If is sh*t like this that I personally need to read over and over again in order to make sure I will do it even though I'd rather spend the money on dresses and fancy dinner and co*cktails. Challenge yourself to have as many $0 spending days you can in a week. Try it. I haven't bought a new dress in weeks and it is killing me but I just paid off a huge chunk of the medical debt that has been looming over us. Feels almost as good as when I put on a new dress. ;)

Audiobook. Picked this up at the library thinking I could probably get inspired or learn new ways to think about my finances. I found this book to be pretty much a complete waste of time. It was full of so much fluff that I could hardly stand it. This book could easily be cut in half by taking out a few things:
- the author telling you what he's going to tell you later in the book;
- the author trying to get you to a website;
- the author talking about how he wrote some other book or was on a show like Oprah or something.

Perhaps if you're struggling with debt this book could be helpful. For me it was not.

I thought that this book was really great! It was a very easy read, and had very easy explanations of the principles discussed. Great book for people of all amounts of debt, large or small. Some things weren't applicable to me right now, like mortgage, but they will be. I even learned how to talk to my credit card companies about lover APR's and find money that I didn't even know that I had. Great book that everyone should read!

Not his best book. Most of it is hawking Debt Wise, his new endeavor that he makes even more money off of. For someone who coined the term latte factor, it seems kind of ironic that he's trying to get you to spend *only* 50 cents a day to sign up for a program that you can implement yourself for free.

Nothing that hasn't been written before. Plus a pitch for another service.

Debt Free for Life: The Finish Rich Plan for Financial Freedom by David Bach
266-page+ Hardback

Genre: Personal Finance

Featuring: Goodbye Debt, Hello Freedom!; Who Put America Into Debt-- and How You Can Get Yourself Out; Debt Math: How Lenders Keep You Broke; The Debt-free for Life Mindset, If You're in a Hole, Stop Digging; The DOLP Method: How to Pay Down Your Debt in Record Time; Get Out of Debt Automatically With Debt Wise; Negotiate Your Debt Down: How to Lower the Interest Rates on Your Credit Cards; Your Credit Report and Score: What It Is and How to Fix It Fast; Mortgage Debt: How to Protect Your Home and Pay Off Your Mortgage Early; The Student Loan Diet: Nine Great Ways to Crush Your Student Debt and Sleep Well at Night; Erase Your Debt With Three Simple Words: "Time-barred Debt"; How to Get Non-profit Credit Counseling-- and a Professional to Guide You Out of Debt; Debt Settlement: Solution or Scam; How Bankruptcy Works, When to Use It, How Long It Will Take You to Recover; Make It Automatic!: the Automatic Millionaire 2.0; Find the Money! : 7 Simple Ways to Find Hundreds of Dollars (maybe Thousands) in Less Than An Hour
A Final Word; Index

Rating as a movie: PG

My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💰

My thoughts: 📖 Page 69 of 266 Ch. 6 Get Out Of Debt Automatically With Debt Wise - Dare I say it? This is pretty much Dave Ramsey without Proverbs. You have grandma's advice; instead of baby steps and snowballs, you have DOLP, instead of Gazelle Budget/EveryDollar you have DebtWise. It's the same script, but a different cast. The main difference between Debt Free For Life and Financial Peace/Total Money Makeover is David focuses on reducing interest paid and arguing with lenders while Dave goes straight to getting rid of debt and only argues to afford payments. Some of the information is dated, but it's from 2010 and has been on my TBR for several years.

This book features debt stacking (snowballing), Life Success Stories (Testimonies), and Debt Wise tools (Baby Steps app). If you like Dave Ramsey but you love your credit score, this is the book for you. The biggest issue I have is he constantly reminds you that he has given contradicting advice in the past but he doesn't apologize for it nor does he say it's incorrect, just that he has realized there are some issues with it. This was published in 2010, and a lot of the "new advice" hasn't aged well. If only he had a crystal ball 🔮 about Student Loans and Mortgages. He's well-versed in navigating bankruptcy, debt negotiation, and unclaimed funds. Overall there is a lot of information here many that you won't find in other debt payoff books, but ultimately the book is more about dabbling with debt while you pay some off than being debt free for life.

Recommend to others: Yes. There is a lot of good information here; just educate yourself before you use it.

So, why do I want to be debt free? Including mortgage free? Because I want the freedom to come and go, volunteer, work, relax, without the obligation of a specific income level having to be met. My husband and I bought a house, a big, beautiful house, which we still owe on. And, which we now realize is too big for what we really need. It was a quantity versus quality decision.

Thus, I was anxious to read Bach's book, because unlike most planners, who tell you that mortgage debt is "good debt", Bach believes that debt is debt. There's no good or bad distinction to it. I was also anxious to read if he had some new trick that would help me to eliminate my mortgage faster than I already am.

His advice however boiled down to this: come up with $10 a day and apply it to your debt. Hmmm...OK....I'm in fact already doing this, but I was curious, what did Bach recommend I do to come up with the additional $10 a day? The answer....well, there was none. Perhaps that information is in one of his other books, which he markets throughout this read.

In fact, much of this book was devoted to pitching an online calculator system, mortgage refinancing, debt consolidation, and a number of government programs that have been made popular by the recent economic crisis.

I’ve read and enjoyed some of this author’s other books, but this book had very limited substance to it. I felt that he mostly talked (over and over and over again) about his other books... and “his” program called Debt Wise (that TransUnion actually made and David partnered with as soon as he thought he could make some money off it). In fact, there’s a whole chapter in this book that is dedicated to selling you the benefits of this program. I even felt like he was saying exactly the opposite of his original teachings about looking at the small purchases because they really add up over time, by writing “and it only costs you 50 cents a day” which, by the way, comes out to almost $200 a year (which, in my opinion, would be better spent paying down your debts).

I wouldn’t recommend reading this book. It’s a waste of money (even though I bought it for $3 from a second hand store), and it’s a waste of time. There’s just way too much of him talking about his other books, seminars, coaching sessions, debt free (paid for, for his profit) programs. I feel like the whole book is designed to inflate his ego (I mean his books ARE bestsellers), and to get you to purchase any number of his other books/self help seminars/etc.

Over-promising sh*t book that will teach you nothing a Google session of an hour can't teach you. Most of the book is a statement of someone who read his previous books on becoming debt free and paid off their debt. I can conclude to you what the author says in all of this: If you can pay a debt, pay it. Pay more than the minimum for the card that makes most sense. Divide total amount by minimum required amount to see how many months you have left, and pick that one to double or triple your payments on while you pay minimum elsewhere. This is a common tactic also declared by anyone who knows anything about finances, but this author claims it's a thing he came up with. No, sir, you cannot claim common sense is your idea. In that same logic, he also claims DebtWise, a program designed by Equifax, is "his" and "uses his idea!!!" as if it's a miracle and they stole it. No, again, you cannot copyright common sense. There, I saved you reading time. Stop spending, and pay off your debt.
Signing off, someone who's never had debt in her life and therefor can see through the emotional bullsh*t the author tries to throw at you. Wouldn't you love to be debt free?!

I am a huge fan of David Bach. I have read a handful of his books, and The Automatic Millionaire changed my life so much that I have read it twice cover to cover plus, since the audiobook is free on YouTube, I listen to it again annually. This book, however, I cannot rate very high. Pretty much all of the useful [to me] information is covered in his other books that I have already read, and the other information, thankfully, isn't applicable to me because I am mostly financially responsible. Honestly, if you read his other books and you implement the ideas he has in those about paying yourself first, identifying your latte factor, snowball your debt, buy a house, build your emergency fund, invest, etc then this book isn't necessary. As other reviewers pointed out, Debt Free For Life is basically just a commercial for his other books. I think he just wanted to write a new book and didn't have any new content to be honest. This is, as he points out, his 12th book; the previous four or five I read were wonderful, but I see no reason for me to read this one again and wouldn't recommend it to anyone really. Better books have same information.

This book provides a very helpful plan to help people get out of debt. However, I wouldn't say it was mind-blowing or life-changing. I picked this book up from the library in an effort to get out of my own mound of credit card debt. And the DOLP (Done On Last Payment) plan that he lays out is easy to understand and follow. I implemented the strategy right away and I was immediately excited and hopeful about reducing my debt.

The debt-reduction strategy is described in chapters 1 through 5. I found these chapters to be the most informative. The rest of the book mostly applies to people who are really in over their heads. The last two chapters are worth reading since they deal with things other than debt.

Some minor drawbacks to this book include websites that are no longer in service and a debt-reduction tool that costs money that the author devotes an entire chapter shamelessly advertising.

My number one take away from this book is how terrible an idea it is to get into debt in the first place. He gives some good advice for how to prioritize paying off debt when you already have it, along with some other good advice about student loans and many other subjects, but the book really fails to address or emphasize the fundamental fact that people would be so much better off in the long run if they would discipline themselves and not get into debt in the first place. I really felt that was lacking.

This book does not give any practical advice for getting out of debt. Yes, you can call your creditors and ask for a lower interest rate, but that doesn't change your situation unless you apply radical action to change your life. The book offers some credit hacks, and statistics that are proven to save you money in interest payments. However, I think it glosses over the most important advice, which is budget your money, and spend less than you make.

This was a quick read for me, I’m part because I Kindle-swiped through the sections that didn’t apply to me, like mortgages, student loans, and bankruptcy. The rest of the book was pretty heavy on a service called Debt Wise, that charges a monthly fee, and numerous mentions of his other books.

Now, I’ve read most of his other books, and enjoyed them. So, I’d recommend one of the others first (or instead).

This is my first David Bach book and I thought it’s a very straightforward look at what debt is and how the accumulation of it is so damaging to many Americans. Also he gives excellent resources and tips on how to become debt free hence the title.

Great information from Bach he does mention his other books and products, but that’s to be expected. He gives out websites and tips about getting your financial house in order.

Debt Free for Life Mindset! Seven Important Questions:
1. Why do you want to get out of debt—or be DEBT FREE FOR LIFE?
2. Why are you in debt?
3. How much debt do you have?
4. What percentage of your income goes to pay interest charges on your debt?
5. Who would you need to help you?
6. What is the worst thing that could happen if you don’t get out of debt?
7. When will you start?

Moderately inspiring, I’m looking at my mortgage a new way. What I thoroughly enjoyed was his research on Canadian finances and laws. Unexpected but appreciated. This book is for folks painfully deep in the hole but those who aren’t can still enjoy new snippets of advice and information.

It’s a quick read because there’s a lot of cheerleading by Bach going on.

Thus book is very US-centric, but most of it is relevant to other countries. You just have to look up the equivalent bodies and companies in your own territory. Part of the book reads like an advert for Equifax, but there is plenty of interesting content and I learned a lot about how credit scores work.

A lot of the advice was common sense or had already been discussed in the author's other books such as automating one's finances. That said, this book would be very helpful for people with a lot of debt. The chapters on bankruptcy, credit counseling and debt settlement firms, and unclaimed money were informative. I liked the reader-submitted success stories.

A good book, full of useful and practical advice brought down by a little too much preaching and self aggrandizement. Also, there is an entire chapter dedicated to product placement. I won't spoil it but it's a bit too on the nose that the author has something he wants to sell you.

does contain some useful tips. feel like his target readers are the ones who stuck in heavy debt, specifically with credit.
I am wondering if the banks do allow you to make bi-weekly mortgage payment?
overall not bad, need something like this from time to time to remind me of organizing my finance.

He has some good tips and advice once you get past self-congratulations and self-promotion. Most of this book didn't apply to me since I don't have a mortgage or credit cards, but I knew someone who retired early and she said she read these books, so I thought, why not.

Great info! I was able to get the APR on one of my credit cards lowered and I found some unclaimed money.

Plenty of promising and powerful principles presented in here.
Plus...who doesn't wanna be debt free???