The Automatic Millionaire, Expanded and Updated: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich

What’s the secret to becoming a millionaire?
 
For years people have asked David Bach, the national bestselling author of Smart Women Finish Rich, Smart Couples Finish Rich, and Start Late, Finish Rich what’s the real secret to getting rich? What’s the one thing I need to do?
 
Now, in the newly revised The Automatic Millionaire, expanded and updated, David Bach is sharing that secret.
 
The Automatic Millionaire starts with the powerful story of an average American couple–he’s a low-level manager, she’s a beautician–whose joint income never exceeds $55,000 a year, yet who somehow manage to own two homes debt-free, put two kids through college, and retire at 55 with more than $1 million in savings. Through their story you’ll learn the surprising fact that you cannot get rich with a budget! You have to have a plan to pay yourself first that is totally automatic, a plan that will automatically secure your future and pay for your present.
 
What makes The Automatic Millionaire unique:
 
·        You don’t need a budget
·        You don’t need willpower
·        You don’t need to make a lot of money
·        You don’t need to be that interested in money
·        You can set up the plan in an hour
 
David gives you a totally realistic system, based on timeless principles, with everything you need to know, including phone numbers, websites and apps, so you can put the secret to becoming an Automatic Millionaire in place from the comfort of your own home.
 
This powerful little book has the potential to secure your financial future. Do it once–the rest is automatic!
 
#1 New York Times bestseller with over 1.5 Million Copies Sold
 
The Automatic Millionaire is one of the most popular financial books of our time.  It was a runaway hit when it was first published in 2004, spending thirty-one weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and appearing at at number one simultaneously on the New York Times, USA Today, BusinessWeek, and Wall Street Journal business bestseller lists. It has sold over 1.5 million copies and been translated around the world in over a dozen languages.  This is the first update since 2005 and includes updated information on taxes, investments, technologies and apps to automate your financial life as well as David’s latest systems for making the entire process even easier.
Despite its sensational title, David Bach’s The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich is not a get-rich-quick guide. Rather, the book is a straightforward march through common-sense personal financial planning that suggests readers “automate” their contributions to retirement and investment vehicles. Bach, in fact, calls his model the “tortoise approach” to becoming wealthy by retirement age.

In the early part of the book Bach builds on ideas he established in Smart Women Finish Rich and other bestselling titles. His core principle is that, to succeed, you must “Pay Yourself First.” In other words, he suggests using pre-tax retirement accounts (e.g. 401(k)s or IRAs) to set aside a fixed, monthly sum of money before considering what is left for living expenses. The “automatic” part of the title comes from Bach’s emphasis on using automated payroll deductions to avoid the temptation of using the money to pay today’s bills.

Bach insists that “regardless of the size of your paycheck, you probably already make enough money to become rich.” But his claims that his plan requires “no budget, no discipline,” is a bit disingenuous. His discussion of the “The Latte Factor” shows that, to find money to start a retirement plan, a person with a modest income needs to make an up-front commitment to stop accruing debt and to reduce spending on such “wasteful” items as lattes and cigarettes.

In the end The Automatic Millionaire does not offer much that is new for readers already familiar with personal finance basics like accelerated mortgage payments, “the miracle of compound interest,” and the setting up of emergency funds. But, for those just starting with financial planning, Bach provides a host of resources to put recommendations into action. He walks his readers through such fundamentals as shopping for interest rates, creating a balanced retirement portfolio, and consolidating debt. And Bach’s conversational style will make this quick read highly palatable for those daunted by more detailed investment and personal finance titles. –Patrick O’Kelley