Start Late, Finish Rich

A No Fail Plan For Achieving Financial Freedom At Any Age

by David Bach

I don't really think this book needs a 'from the flap' with a self-explanatory title like that!

Here are my flags...

pg 10 You may think this book is only about money, but you will learn that it's really about a lot more. My mission is to free you to be who you were put here to be - and my experience has taught me that what hold most people back from their purpose in life are financial challenges. Break the financial handcuffs of living paycheque to paycheque, worrying about debt, and losing sleep over how you are going to survive financially in the future, and you will be able to focus on what is really important to you. You are already rich inside - this book will help you reconnect with your born given gift.

This book may be called Start Late, Finish Rich, but I know that inside you are already rich in spirit. All we need to do now is help you become materially rich so you can live the life you were meant to live.

pg 15 The past will continue to be your future if you drag it along with you!

pg 29 Find your Double Latte Factor! It's not how much we earn, it's how much we spend! If there is one key concept on which everything else I have to say about finishing rich is built, it is this: how much you earn almost has no bearing on whether or not you can and will build wealth.

pg 74 Dead on last payment:

1. Make a list of the current outstanding balances on each of your credit-card accounts.
2. Divide each balance by the minimum payment that particular credit card company wants from you. This gives you the DOLP.
3. Once you've figured out the DOLP for each account, rank them in reverse order, putting the account with the lowest DOLP number first. You now know the most efficient order in which you should pay off your various credit card balances. Take half your latte factor savings and apply them to the card with the lowest DOLP rating. For each of your other cards, you make only the minimum payment.

pg 89 The question I'm asked most often about Pay Yourself First is, "How much?" I've always believed that to be fair to yourself and your future, you should Pay Yourself First at least one hour's worth of income every day. Say you make $50,000 a year. That works out to roughly $1,000 a week, or $25 an hour (figuring a 40-hour workweek). So paying yourself first an hour's worth of income every day means saving $25 per workday, or $125 a week, or $6,250 a year. With a 10 percent annual return, if you were to begin at 30, you'd end up with just under $2 million by the time you're 65.

pg 110 ... So knowing that you live in an insane world, what should you do with your money? ... I created the Perfect Pie Approach. ...draw a circle, divide into three equal slices: Stocks (mutual funds), Bonds (bond mutual funds), Real Estate.

pg 112 If you don't own a home - or the equity in your home doesn't equal one-third of your total assets - then you need to have real estate added to your portfolio. The single easiest way to add real estate to your portfolio is to invest in REITs. To be technical about it, a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) is a company that happens to be in the business of owning and operating real estate. First developed in Canada in 1993, REITs are generally publicly traded (though some are privately held) and they usually own income-producing properties such as office buildings, stores, hotels, apartment buildings, and shopping centres. There are also REITs that own hospitals and nursing care facilities, and some even own real estate loan portfolios. While there are more than 200 REITs in the US, there are only 20 REITs currently operating in Canada.

pg 11 I don't recommend that you buy individual REITs because it's too easy to pick the wrong one. The solution is simple: You should buy an index fund of REITs. (An index fund is a mutual fund that is designed to mirror the performance of a particular market indicator us as the S&P/TSX 60). In Canada, Barclay's Global Investors offers an ETF called the iUnits S&P/TSX REIT EFT. This REIT fund can be purchased through any brokerage and put into your RRSP; details are available at http://www.iunits.com/.

You can also participate in the REIT market through a real estate mutual fund, although you won't get the same benefit from one of these funds as you'd get by investing in the EFT. That's because... also invest in equities and other securities of Canadian companies that are involved in owning or managing real estate.

pg 285 Living to retire is not living... The fact is, you don't have to have a fully funded RRSP to have joy. What really matters is that you have consistent joy in your life right now, that you have some fun now, that you forget the idea that your supposed to wait until you retire to have those things.

pg 289 The purpose of your life is joy. This may sound far-fetched, but it's not. I believe you are here to have a life of meaning and joy - to do great things, to be a great person. To live rich. How do you find this fulfillment? You don't find it. You live it. Joy is not out there under a rock. It is not found in any one specific thing, like getting a new job, starting a new marriage, losing 30 pounds, or having a child. It is inside you waiting to come out. Joy comes from doing what you are meant to be doing with your life.

pg 292 If it's so easy to start late and finish rich, why do so many people think it's impossible? The answer is that most people are too busy to put time and energy into what matters most. We clutter up our lives with things we think are important instead of living what is really important. We major in minor things.

pg 300 (lessons to our kids) Lesson No 11: Teach them to dream big dreams. The world needs more dreamers. Let the adults be realistic. We need our kids to believe and know that they really can be "anything" and "anyone" they want to be. Our greatest purpose in life is to use the gifts our creator gave us to be who we were put here to be. For many of our kids, this means dreaming a life bigger than the one they are currently living.
Please, as an adult, be a dream creator and not a dream stealer. Your words of encouragement to a young person may shape not only the child's destiny but the world's. You don't know who you are talking to when you speak to a young person. You might be speaking to the next Dr. Martin Luther King, or Pierre Trudeau or Oprah Winfrey or Wayne Gretzky or Lance Armstrong. You don't know what the child you love can do. Only the child can know, and she or he might not know it yet. So encourage the dream!