Comments on: David Bach’s Find the Money Seminar

By: Canadian Capitalist » David Bach Interview

Canadian Capitalist » David Bach Interview — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 02:44:51 +0000

[...] But soon enough, Mr. Bach was once again recommending his goofy asset allocation strategy (he suggested the same strategy in one of the ScotiaBank seminars last year): It’s called the perfect pie approach. It is one third stocks, one third real estate, and one third guaranteed investments. Whatever you have to invest, your whole portfolio, your net worth, should be divided. One third real estate. [...]

By: David Grant

David Grant — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 21:40:18 +0000

One thing I just remembered about Bach’s automatic millionaire. I remember reading the “latte factor.” I didn’t really agree with it 100%, because for a lot of people getting a latte every day brings them happiness which is important. I think of it this way: if you are putting away money every month for all the things you want to save up for, paying the bills, and are putting away enough for retirement, and you have enough money leftover every month to buy a latte every day, then nothing should stop you.

By: Mortgage Calculator

Mortgage Calculator — Sun, 20 Nov 2005 18:18:13 +0000

Disagreeing With David Bach

A second look at wealth building schemes based on real estate acquisition….

By: Canadian Capitalist

Canadian Capitalist — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 23:56:08 +0000

Good points Dave. What bothers me is David Bach’s implication that it is all oh-so-simple because there is no discipline involved. People want to hear that but I hope they don’t believe it. Saving money, of course, involves discipline.

I can buy that budgeting every minute thing is tedious and probably won’t work. At a minimum, everyone should roughly budget at least the fixed expenses (rent/mortgage, property taxes, auto & home insurance, phone, water, hydro etc.).

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 22:48:51 +0000

You will find the “don’t budget because it doesn’t work” argument in the Wealthy Barber by David Chilton as well. Although I have only skimmed Bach’s books, I think perhaps Bach is using the term “budget” to refer to forecasting all your expenses for the coming month/year and sticking to it, similar to the federal budget. Chilton calls this a budget which keeps track of “needs” and “wants.” I buy the claim that this doesn’t work.

So they recommend this pay-yourself-first method, or automatic methods, where you take out certain amounts out of your account automatically every week/month for various things. Maybe Bach doesn’t call this “budgeting.” Chilton calls this a budget which just keeps track of “needs” (ie. rrsp, insurance, mortgage, savings, rent, etc…). For anyone who hasn’t read it, see here: Wealthy Barber page 161-165) at amazon.com (see especially bottom of page 163).

I totally agree that Bach’s advice that everyone should buy a home is totally ridiculous. And quoting that survey makes it even more ridiculous! The only type of person who should probably follow that advice is the type of person who is completely incabable of saving. For them, a house is a forced savings program. Chilton’s chapter “Home, sweet home” and is not as absolute as Bach’s “everyone should buy a home” philosophy and is a good read.