Customer Reviews

Rich Dad's Retire Young, Retire Rich : How to Get Rich Quickly and Stay Rich Forever!

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(20)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

This is a great book, possibly the best of the series. If you think all there is to life is a college degree and a J-O-B, think again.Mr. Kiwosoki has written an excellent book that is right for the times. You can retire rich and you can retire young by following the principles in this book.I also recommend "The New Professionals" and "Turner Turner, Turner: The King of Network Marketing" for additional reading and insight.

This book deserves more than five stars for its exceptional clarity, authenticity, relevance and eloquence.

Those who love the Rich Dad, Poor Dad books will adore this one. I found it to be the best book in the series since Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

Mr. Robert T. Kiyosaki speaks with the authority of experience. He did retire young at 47 while his wife was 37. At that time, his expected annual income was between $80,000 and $125,000. Many people yearn for early retirement with wealth, mostly because they hate their work. Mr. Kiyosaki was soon back at work, establishing new businesses. Most of his wealth was created after he retired. "I keep working because there are so things that need to be done." So, he has clearly moved from earnings a living, to living a mission of self-expression. That's very wonderful, and I hope you will accomplish the same result!

Although the subtitle says this is "how to" book, it's really more of a "what to think" book. The fundamental concept is to leverage your mind, your plans, your actions, and your priorities to get wealth faster and more easily.

As usual, Rich Dad provides some wonderful quotes. Here are a few of my favorites.

"David could beat Goliath because David knew how to use the power of leverage."

"Cash flow is the most important word in the world of money. The second most important word is leverage."

"Leverage is the reason some people become rich and others do not become rich."

"Because leverage is power, some people use it, some abuse it, and others fear it."

"Getting rich begins with words and words are free."

" . . . do more and more with less and less."

The first books in the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series have been about cash flow. This one shifts over to leverage. Section 1 is about leveraging your mind, section 2 looks at leverage from a plan to retire, section 3 addresses leverage from actions. The book goes on to give you a final exam on your attitudes and a challenging thought to chew on to help get you focused properly: making lots of money with no money to start with.

Now, any book about leverage would normally have lots of pages on how debt leverage works. In fact, that is only a small part of what this book talks about. You will find that discussion in part of chapter 16, which looks at all of the forms of leverage in real estate.

One of the strengths of the book is a fine discussion of how to think about risk and reward. It's not how often you fail, but how big the costs of your failures are compared to the rewards of your successes . . . and your determination to keep trying until you succeed. For instance, 9 out of 10 new businesses fail. But the value of the 1 in 10 that succeed should vastly outweigh the costs of the 9 failures.

The book is excellent in warning you against the risks that you are unconsciously taking. Most people have 100% of their financial futures tied up in government pension and Medicare payments and the stock market. Mr. Kiyosaki correctly points out that this assumption is probably faulty, because there are far more Baby Boomers depending on these two resources than there are resources. One part of the leverage concept is to have more streams of cash flow. He also has excellent ideas on how to reduce risk in your current and potential sources of cash flow.

You are also given a list of good habits to pursue. And top tips from the prior books are repeated in a convenient section near the end of the book.

If you follow the advice in this book, it will be worth more to you and your family than all the other investment and retirement books that you read combined. But you have to take action! Thinking about taking action won't get you there.

I would describe this book as being a lot like Tony Robbins's book, Personal Power, except it is focused effectively on the emotional and mental disciples needed for financial security and investing.

By the way, I have known many people who have retired young with the assistance of being rich. They all embody the principles captured in this book. By contrast, at age 65 only 5 percent of all Americans will be able to afford to live a wealthy life style. Most will be looking for more income. Which group do you plan to be in?

Think and live the thoughts that will make you as rich as you want to be! The solutions are there if you look for them.

Robert Kiyosaki started with nothing and in less than ten years, retired financially free. He enjoys a lifestyle that we all wish we had. One of the first mindsets or mentality that he had to change was to succeed in a world without a paycheck. This is in a world that practically deifies a job and a paycheck.

Kiyosaki explains that most people have 50%-100% of their income is from earned income from a J-O-B. BIG MISTAKE! Those who retire young and retire rich do so from portfolio income. From passive income. From residual income.

How do you do this? You create a business. It can be network marketing or a franchise (if you have that kind of money sitting around or the ability to borrow it) Or it could be real estate (my choice--no downlines, uplines, sidelines, monthly quota's, sales volume requirements etc.) Or you could write a book. Self publishing is flourishing today because many people have excellent ideas and eager to disseminate these ideas in the form of a book.

Retire Young Retire Rich is an excellent book for anyone who regardless of their present income or level of wealth, wants to retire financially free and financially independant within 10 years or less.

Great book. Maybe his best to date.

Just got the book (on order since June!)and I dived in to it straight away. If you liked the other books in the "Rich Dad" series, you are going to love this one. At first I was worried that it would be a rehash of the other books, but my fears were quickly put aside as I read on. "Retire Young" adds a new dimension to the information already shared in the other 3 key "Rich Dad" books by going in to more of the psychology of being rich. Robert shares more insights of his life - adding new levels of details to te stories we heard in the first books, plus new information on the way he and his wife have developed their fortunes from the time that they had zero.

This book is a MUST READ for anyone wanting to get the full impact of the "Rich Dad" way of being. You are left in no doubt of the things you have to stop doing -- or do more of -- in your own life in order to retire young and retire rich.

I've read almost all of the Rich Dad series, and I continue to give each one of them mixed reviews.
On the one hand, these books stress that people are NOT going to become 'rich' by saving and investing for retirement. The truly rich DO think different and have different options, primarily because they own their own business.
The information provided is, on the one hand, so obvious you wonder "why bother". Then, you realize that Mr. Kiyosaki is the only person out there putting together books like this, and then you have to wonder "why isn't anyone else saying this!?!"

The RD,PD books form a cornerstone of my personal finance library, NOT because of the depth of information provided (as one other reviewer mentioned, specifics are THIN), but because these books are designed to make you THINK, to make you expand your potential, and to find out the rich person in you. That sounds esoteric, but the reason each book repeats earlier books is because the messages need to be repeated, repeated, repeated until you finally _realize_ what he's trying to say!

Yes, this book is a rehash of the previous books. Yes, it does provide a few new insites that make it worthwile. BUT, the fact that Mr. Kiyosaki finally goes into a little bit of detail of HOW he raised himself up, how he APPLIED the lessons he's been teaching, and a bit about some deals he worked. The series isn't about specifics; remember that. It's about changing your CONTEXT.

Read the book and you'll understand.

I read thru the reviews on this site for this book and it's interesting to apply the perspectives of this book to the reviews. The reviewer who agrees with the principles but says that it's only for people who have disposable income is viewing the book within the context of most people. If you believe the authors, they started their financial plan from a position where they didn't have jobs or money, yet they succeeded without getting full time jobs or entering the employee mentality. And the reviewer who states that money isn't everything is missing the point as well. Money isn't everything but it enables you to do things you WANT to do rather than having to do things to survive. The point of the book is not to get rich at all costs but do understand that being rich doesn't mean necessarily that you had to give up your soul to get there. As I see it (not having read the other books in the series), the biggest flaws of the book is that (1) he repeats himself a LOT and (2) he doesn't really go into detail about HOW he and his wife managed to work on his plan without getting full time jobs and where they found the money to learn all that he said he learned in the first two years of their plan without getting full time jobs. The relationship of content and context is a great thing to point out however, since our context does limit our ability to absorb and process content. It's an interesting read but the real applicaiton of his advice is a bit vague.

I agree with the more negative reviews of this book. The writing is wordy/slow/redundant which makes the little information that is provided all the more frustrating. This thing could have been summed up by:
1) Think about how the government taxes different types of income.
2) Start a business.
3) Buy investment real estate.
The rest is just filler or misleading. Flip through it in a book store. Ignore any information on trading options etc etc. Options are a very complex instrument and other books are far far more useful than this little "intro" (come on R.K. do you really think Mr. and Mrs. Wanna Be are going to start trading options with that little bit of information ? Dangerous at best)
Better yet buy "Fooled by randomness" for a reality check on investment concepts.
I would have given the book one star if it did not make the reader feel a little "better". So one star for content and one for "feel good".

Save your money .....better yet save your time. The original Rich dad/poor dad book is pretty good. The rest Rich dad/Poor dad are permutations on the same theme.

I read Rich Dad Poor Dad and loved it. This book however is a lot of fluff. He regurgitates the same ideas and words 5-10 times throught the book. A lot of self-praise for himself (and Kim). Not enough original work to justify a whole new book. Looks like the "Rich Dad" product name is getting extended a little too much.

Do yourself a favor and just stick to the original book. For the first time ever, when I finished this book I immediately threw it into the trash.

I browsed the book in the bookstore and thought it would be a great one. However, I was pretty disappointed after buying it and ploughing through 335 pages. As many of the other reviews have stated, There are both good (not great) points and bad points.

The good:
Discussion of "Context" - How you perceive money, risk, etc can limit or enhance your ability to make money.
Discussion of Leverage - Relying on growing your personal equity (ie savings or salary) is not nearly as powerful as responsibly weilding debt in your favor, especially in the area of real estate investments.

The bad:
As other reviewers have already noted, the book is very repetitious, particularly when it comes to the author's anecdotal stories and philosophy. The book also lacks anything resembling a "game plan" since it provides VERY superficial coverage of real estate investing, stock market investing, and starting a business (and I mean THIN). He makes frequent references to other books, authors for details.
I also agree with the reviewer who said the content could be reduced to a pamphlet. And the "money is everything" attitude that seems to infect the author is somewhat annoying...even if most of us fall prey to the temptation to think that way (which is probably why it's a best seller).

If you are looking for a book to give you some "idea-seeds" on where you can make money (ie real estate, stock market, starting a business), then this isn't a bad book to skim through. I would have given it 4 stars if it had been 50 pages rather than 335.

If you are looking for a book to really give you practical advice on HOW to get there you'd be better off looking for a book that is more focused on the particular area of interest.

I more than anything want to retire young and retire rich myself, which is why I picked up a copy of this book and read it twice, cover to cover with an open mind. My conclusion: I got conned into making the author richer by buying this book.

There's a few points that I will give this book: the concept of leverage is an important one to learn and yes, it does work when used wisely and after you've done your homework. It is motivational - you do want to get rich fast even more after you read this book.

However, this book seriously lacks credibility and details. By taking a storytelling tone (which I admit makes the book easy to read) the author avoids offering any solid evidence that his approach to retiring rich works. After doing some research, I found that "poor dad" is Ralph Kiyosaki, a PhD and was the head of the Hawaii dept. of education. However, "rich dad" was never named - why not? The author says he started several businesses - what were they? Where did the startup capital come from? What did they sell and to whom? I see no reason why this information is not revealed, it should be a source of pride, unless there is some kind of shame associated with it that the author wants to mask. I really want to see the author quote and cite some sources, name some names, show me some real numbers, and build a case to convince me that his method works. I'd really like to see some accounts from some real people who have tried the different techniques he sells/tells. He's going out on a limb with comparatively new/radical techniques but he's trying to convince the reader to believe him just on faith. If you doubt him in the book, he just says that "you haven't learned how to leverage your mind to handle risk yet." I don't know about that - the way I manage my risk is by learning more about the problem and applying some form of logical/methodical/reasoned approach to mitigate the risk.

The writing of the book is repetitive and sounds like a sales pitch for the authors' other books and products when he constantly refers the reader to the other books for more information. There is already a listing of the other richdad products both at the beginning and the end of the book. Why keep promoting the items inside the text of the book? When the author tries to sell things while trying to teach things, it really blows his credibility. In addition, the author very rarely suggests other reading materials or sources besides his own books and products - why is that? If these techniques work, why isn't there any other literature out there the author can point readers to for more information?

One of the biggest problems I have with the book is he makes everything sound way too easy. Residential real estate is something that is fairly manageable, although where do you all of a sudden get enough money to take out a loan to rent an apartment building? That initial capital has to come from somewhere. Where? Trading stock options can give you limitless returns, but why is it that 90% of the people who trade stock options lose all their money? There are no citations for the reader to go and find out more about trading options successfully (if that is possible). Specifically on one point in the book: why in the world would you ever buy a put option to bet against a stock that you own? Any decent investor would want to research and buy stocks that will perform, not sink. If you have a feeling that the stock will sink badly in the near future, don't buy a put option, sell it now! The author makes business building sound easy - I know many successful CEOs, moderate self-starters, and devoted people who have poured their hearts out trying and not making it. None of them are retired and living filthy rich like the author described. I'm a business owner myself, and I'll tell you one thing, you work your tail off just to make ends meet.. to come out rich like the author tells it is not a piece of cake.

More or less, the point of the book boils down to, "if Kiyosaki can get rich, so can you, but Kiyosaki's just gonna sell (not tell) you a vague notion of how." As the cliche goes, "the devil is in the details." This book really steers clear from any details and evidence and it is way too easy to overlook this fact because we all want to retire young and retire rich and that can easily put blinders on people (myself included). If you buy this book, really sit down and try to evaluate and analyze it on its merits - you'll find there really isn't much there below the philosophical surface.

I try like crazy to take a step to make it big every day of my life, but if the secret formula to get rich is in this book, there sure as heck better be a serious increase in the number of rich people in this country in the next five to ten years to prove my assessment wrong. I'm looking forward to hearing some success stories and talking to those who made it - at least that way when I am wrong we will all know there is an easy way to get rich quick after all.