Recently I received a copy of the book The Money Coach's Guide to Your First Million by Lynnette Khalfani to review. At first glance, the book seemed tailor-made for me. And upon inspection, there were lots of parts I liked. But I'm getting ahead of myself -- let's start at the beginning.
Book Summary
The Money Coach's Guide to Your First Million is built upon a "Millionaire Success Formula" that is represented by the word "M-I-L-L-I-O-N" as follows:
- M -- Make a personal prosperity plan.
- I -- Invest first, last, and always in your reputation.
- L -- Live like a lender, not a borrower.
- L -- Leverage the power of property.
- I -- Increase your fortune with proven methods, not shortcuts.
- O -- Overcome setbacks and minimize risks to your financial health.
- N -- Never forget the next generation.
The rest of the book details these suggestions and gives Khalfani's advice on how to approach each one to make your first million.
My Thoughts and Rating
Here's my take on each part of the Millionaire Success Formula:
- Make a personal prosperity plan -- This is basically "have a budget," and I'm in 100% agreement with her on this.
- Invest first, last, and always in your reputation -- This section deals with having a great credit rating, which is an "ok" tip, but certainly doesn't seem worth listing as a major part of making your first million. I think she missed an opportunity here to talk about the value of your career. That topic would have been much more meaningful in helping you get to $1 million.
- Live like a lender, not a borrower -- Get rid of debt. I love getting rid of debt! (especially credit card debt)
- Leverage the power of property -- I'm fine with owning your own house, but I'm not a big fan of investing in real estate to get rich (though I do have a plan to make some money off it).
- Increase your fortune with proven methods, not shortcuts -- Buy stocks and don't go for get-rich-quick schemes. Good stuff! She even endorses index funds!
- Overcome setbacks and minimize risks to your financial health -- Discusses the need for insurance. Lynette has some good information here -- stuff that's often passed up in other financial books.
- Never forget the next generation -- Creating wills and planning for your family's financial future. Again, good stuff here.
As you can probably tell from the topics above, this information is best-suited for financial newbies, people who don't understand the basics of financial planning. That's not to say more seasoned people could benefit from being reminded of solid financial principles (I always learn something new or am reminded about something I need to be doing when reading a good book like this), but money novices will get the most out of it.
The one glaring omission to this book is the importance of your career and how it impacts your financial well-being. As I said above, she had the perfect opportunity to discuss it in point #2, but she skipped right over it.
That said, I liked the book and as such, the Free Money Finance rating for The Money Coach's Guide to Your First Million (based on my 0 thru 10 rating system) is: 7 Stars.
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