The Automatic Millionaire

The Automatic Millionaire - David Bach
Rating: 5/5

80/20 Summary:
               Pay yourself first, automate the process, own your house, and live debt free. Paying yourself first means investing in retirement accounts with pre-tax income. Automate this process with direct deposit and automatic contributions to retirement accounts. Your goal is to save at least 10% of your pre-tax income. Owning your home and paying off the mortgage early will increase your wealth. Automation applies here as well. Finally, the author gives a strategy for eliminating credit card debt. In total the book illustrates how to live debt free while fully funding your retirement.        

Reader thoughts:
               The summary explains so much that you might question why it was worth a whole book. In fact, one reader commented at the end, “It’s very repetitive.” The concepts are so simple and practical I wonder why they aren’t common knowledge. Every person on the planet should understand these concepts. The Automatic Millionaire gives practical, actionable guidance. Unlike many self-help books that ask you to change your life and implement unintuitive models to deliver marginal improvement, this book gives strategies that you can realistically implement in one hour with life-changing impact. I'd already implemented many of these strategies, but Bach gave deeper insight and pushed my thinking further on this subject. For example, consider his suggestion to invest 10% pre-tax to retirement accounts. This is the only way to pay yourself first, legally. If you don't do this, the government gets first dibs on every dollar you earn. Previously, I thought it sufficient to hit the company match on my 401(k) and the annual IRS limit in a Roth IRA. After reading this book, I maxed out my pre-tax and after-tax retirement contributions. Annual limits exist for both categories of accounts. In a 2016 update, Bach gave statistics to address the topics of investment returns and recessions such as 2007-2009.
               Near the end of the book the author provides an excellent summary. It could replace the rest of the book with minimal impact on a reader's financial results. Here are the steps to become an automatic millionaire. Pay yourself first. Deposit your paycheck. Fund your "rainy day" emergency account. Fund your dream account. Pay your credit card bills. Pay all your monthly bills. Give to charity. Just add 'automatically' to the end of the last seven sentences and you have Bach's summary minus explanatory notes. Before you skip most of the book in favor of the quick summary, at least consider that Bach is an experienced financial planner. He gives many practical details throughout. My main criticism is how repetitively he talks about automation and paying yourself. But considering that's the central message he is trying to impress upon the reader, repetition may be justified. Look at our debt-ridden society. People clearly haven’t got the message. In the author's own words, "The purpose of this book is not just to share the secrets with you. It's also to get you to put them into practice." Read the book. Do what it says. Have a better life. Move this book to the top of your reading list and you’ll thank yourself later.

The Joy of Work

The Joy of Work - Scott Adams
Rating: 4/5

This book is 60% Adams' twisted and often dated humor, 40% well-delivered practical advice on being creative and funny with solid, specific examples. The split is physically distinct with most of the practical advice falling in the last 40% of the book. The first 50 pages are funny and provide some insight that could be used professionally. The next 100 pages are often funny but just as often dated. The last 100 pages were my favorite and the most valuable if you're looking for more than just laughs. I wanted to love this book. I almost didn't make it to the good part. Perhaps if I was ten years older and read this book ten years earlier, it would have been painfully funny and relevant. As it stands in 2018 the world has become so politically correct and technology changed our social norms to such an extent that much of the work place shenanigans Adams describes are simply irrelevant or impossible. The pranks induce more nostalgia for obsolete technologies and social norms than provide ideas that can be implemented. If anything, Adams highlights how fortunate he was to get ahead of the curve on understanding and leveraging the internet age. Much of humor is timing.  And while I enjoy Adams' sense of humor and the way he dispenses it, the time has passed for many jokes in this book. Fortunately, many of the jokes are still funny.

I put this book on my reading list but forgot why. I bought the book at the end of last year and recently got around to reading it without conscious expectations. On page 158 I had such a distinct impression of a change in tone that I made a note. I wrote: this is the page where I started to get what I came here for. It suddenly hit me that I was reading Adams' genuine opinion and advice on creating humor and being creative. Adams includes practical frameworks for doing both through writing and other methods. I added the book to my list for the writing tips. Throughout chapters four and five I questioned the value of continued reading. However, the last 40% of the book was excellent. I believe this part of the book is timeless advice. I made numerous highlights and notes and will be returning to this practical and logical approach to humor as an ongoing reference.

It's interesting that Adams wrote this book when he was about 38 years old. He was only a few years into his career as a full-time cartoonist and yet he had clearly studied his craft before going pro. His provided frameworks and clarity of thought showcase an underrated intellect. His ability to rationally examine situations helps him both identify the humor and draw meaningful insights.

For anyone thinking of reading this book to gain practical insight on writing, humor, and creativity you could safely read pages 1-58 and 157-259 and ignore everything else. Of course, if you were born before 1980 that middle part may be exactly the laugh therapy you need.