Ive read the Rich Dad/ Poor Dad book series. Do these books offer good wisdom about handling money from an individual perspective and building wealth? What are some other resources that offer wisoom on handling money…correctly? Like personal cashflow.
thanks
I read the first one but I can’t remember much from it. The Millionaire Next Door is another book kind of like this that I really enjoyed.
What is the point of trying to build wealth when the government steals all of it? I myself have recently decided to stop tracking our finances. Those kinds of books would work great in a free market, because then one would have predictability. Also, one would get to keep one’s accumulated wealth. But nowadays, who knows what the dollar is going to be worth, who knows what taxes are going to be, and who knows what new regulations will be imposed?
I have read several of them.
The first thing the author does is try to convince the reader that “going to school, getting good grades and then getting a good job” is not a formula for wealth, but instead a formula to trap yourself into living paycheck to paycheck for the rest of your life. He uses this saying, “earn to learn” to describe the concept of working to learn about businesses so that later, you can create your own business. He defines being wealthy as being in the position where you don’t have to work for a living, your investments and properties make enough money for you to live.
The rich dad/ poor dad is a contrast between his own father, a big wig in the state education system, with his best friends father, who is a college dropout and self made millionaire.
So, for the most part, its a very general guide for showing the reader how to develop the mindset of an entrepreneur.
The advice is good or bad depending on how you see the dollar going. If I remember correctly the focus is to generate passive income. This is my personal strategy as well dividend paying stocks and rentals to be specific. However, if you take what would be a ridiculously good dividend payout on a stock, say 10% apy. This means you will take 10 years to receive in passive income what you invested in the stock price. Do you think the dollar is going to last 10 years? If you do then after 10 years you will have an honest passive income source. With a rental property either you get passive income from it because you got a good deal right away, or you get passive income only when the mortgage is paid off if you got a bad deal. The absolute best way to get rich is to produce a product people want, this is very good advice he gives. I would recommend a service based product because then your product is tied partially with your expertise and because of this a competitor cannot simply copy your product.
It’s mainly valuable if you want to be rich. I’m not sure that’s a reasonable goal anymore in our economy that punishes the entrepreneur, and where property is never safe. He recommends having income-producing assets, like real estate - although, to be fair, he did predict a real estate bust many years ago and said not to buy it until the bust. But what if I hold those assets in an IRA, which he thinks is a good move - and the government seizes IRAs? What about the tax exposure on my apartment building, or the risk of it being seized because a tenant smoked a joint?
He very sensibly recommends against an S business, where you get a job plus you have to pay all the expenses and don’t have a reliable income.
My impression is that he built his business on the fact that he retired young and rich. At some point, he seems to have run into money troubles, and could not admit it, so he sold his good name and began pushing horrible pyramid scheme type businesses like Quixtar. I’d be very careful not to invest in something on his recommendation, as a result.
I have heard that he is one of those shoddy scammers masquadering as a guy who really know how to get rich. Where as in reality, he got rich by writing a book about getting rich.
Here’s one compliant.
Beware of where you got your financial advices from and alway stick to common sense as a guide to navigating bullshits. (Saving good, debt bad, be frugual, etc)
I don’t know what Kiyosaki has to say about this but I think right now, being diversified into emerging markets, foreign currencies, foreign debt and gold is probably the best bet for maintaining purchasing power in the future.