24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Terrible waste of paper, July 4, 2007
This review is from: The Rules of Money: How to Make It and How to Hold on to It (Paperback)
This is the worst nonfiction book I have ever read. There is absolutely no useful information in here unless you are a complete idiot. If you are, (1) don't get yourself into debt, (2) put money aside to earn interest, and (3) don't waste money. That is all this book really says, repeated and reshaped in order to make 100 rules and to cover a couple hundred pages. Each rule also has a sentence repeated and emphasized in a gigantic font and all caps to drive the point home, except the sentence often sounds idiotic out of context.
Examples:
"A BALANCE SHEET HAS TO BALANCE."
"I WOULD COOK A THIN AND SICK-LOOKING CHICKEN WITH CHEAP WHITE WINE AND SHE WOULD PROVIDE LOBSTER AND CHAMPAGNE."
"I REALLY HOPE MY SONS DON'T READ THIS, OR I'LL BE CORNERED IN MY HOME LIKE A RAT"
"I'VE ALWAYS HAD MY DOUBTS--AND THIS IS ENTIRELY SUBJECTIVE, ENTIRELY PERSONAL--ABOUT SUPPORTING A PENGUIN."
That's right, you get all of those gems plus 96 more, each surrounded by a box that fills up half of the page.
Besides the book being 90% filler, it feels rushed. The author must have been just writing whatever came to mind as he went even if he was repeating a previous point, without doing much editing, and he repeated himself a lot too. However to break up the monotony he did make sure to add plenty of bulleted items. Those had the added benefit of filling more space with very little writing! There were also some obvious typos and an entire paragraph that was duplicated that somehow nobody noticed.
Besides the book being 90% filler, it feels rushed. The author must have been just writing whatever came to mind as he went even if he was repeating a previous point, without doing much editing, and he repeated himself a lot too. However to break up the monotony he did make sure to add plenty of bulleted items. Those had the added benefit of filling more space with very little writing! There were also some obvious typos and an entire paragraph that was duplicated that somehow nobody noticed.
Seriously, that's how bad it was. The only thing that kept me reading was to see if it could get any more terrible, see how many rules he could reuse by just changing the wording, and just to read something to help me fall asleep at night.
Don't waste your money unless you're an idiot with money anyway and you need a book to motivate you to get your act together.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome Book, February 5, 2008
This review is from: The Rules of Money: How to Make It and How to Hold on to It (Paperback)
OK, I don't know what's up with the other reviewer but I found this to be a pretty awesome and informative book. I've read a lot of personal finance books so yes some information will repeat itself. But this didn't really bother me I did find some other good bits. The other reviewer is nit picking and taking quite a few things completely out of context. And what was mention were not rules but were bits out of the chapters. The rules go something like this:
Rule 1: Anybody Can Make Money - It Isn't Selective or Discriminatory
Rule 2: Decide On Your Definition of Wealth
Rule 7: Understand That Wealth Is a Consequence, Not a Reward
Rule 9: Decide What You Want Money For
Rule 11: If You See as the Solution, You'll Find It Becomes the Problem
Rule 17: Don't Envy What Others Have
Rule 40: Pay Off Your Loans and Debts as a Priority
Rule 56: Pay Attention to the Details
Rule 59: Control Spending Impulses
Rule 63: Carry Out a Finance Health Check Regularly
Rule 70: Don't Try to Get Rich Too Quickly
The list goes on. The book is also wisely divided into 5 parts:
Part I: Thinking Wealthy - Rules 1-18
Part II: Getting Wealthy - Rules 19-62
Part III: Getting Even Wealthier - Rules 63-79
Part IV: Staying Wealthy - Rules 80-88
Part V: Sharing Your Wealth - Rules 89-100
I personally like the author writing style, it's not the funniest stuff on earth but he funny enough (at the appropriate moments of course) to keep you entertained and not bored with the book. Personally I dig this kind of writing. The book kind of reads like 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad', 'Who Moved My Cheese', and some other books that I just can't think of right now.
I suggest that you check it out at your library or read a few chapters in the book, which I did before I brought it and don't regret a moment of it. My favorite bit from this book is from Rule 11, which I alreadly noted, "Money isn't - and never will be - the cure. It is the oil that smooths the wheels. It isn't the engine." There are also quite a few typos in this book but nothing I couldn't get over.
I brought this book last year and have been doing my best to be a Rules Player. Let me tell you the hardest thing is changing your thinking. I can now say I am almost debt free (I'm shooting for end of Feb.), I am finally in the black nonetheless (I took Rule 40 and 59 very seriously)not by much but I'm still proud of it. Rule 63 I definitly do everyday now.
You can take this book and called it simple crap like the last reviewer, which is fine, everyone has there own point of views and whatnot. But to me if it's so simple and you are still stuck in the same rut you were before, obviously it's not the information that's the problem. In the words of Bruce Lee "Knowing is not enough, we must act, Willing is not enough, we must do". "Your attitude determines your altitude" that's what I say. Got that off a NASA poster.
Sorry the review was so long, but I thank you for reading it. T.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good book, May 12, 2008
This review is from: The Rules of Money: How to Make It and How to Hold on to It (Paperback)
This is an excellent book. It's nice & simple. Though I am very financially literate, we must remember that most people who have a poor or middle class upbringing (like I did) have no idea how money works. They just spend their lives working for money --- they never learn to have money work for them. They live under the old & false ideas that "it takes money to make money", "I will never be rich because I was not born rich", etc. Ha. Those are things negative people say, and they are not realistic. Anyone can become rich if are smart & try hard enough. Period. Take it from someone who is very successful in business & life already --- this book is good. It's nothing more than a list of 100 facts that people who are already financially successful already know, so for some people this will sound like a repeat of just common sense information. For other people it will be new & exciting information. If you are part of the latter group, I highly recommend you buy many more financial books in addition to this particular one so that you too can learn how to make your money work for you. Again remember that books like this, Rich Dad Poor Dad, etc are purely basic educational books on money which can still be very interesting to read...and most importantly these books will NOT show you step by step how to get rich, but they will function as guideposts to help you along the way.
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