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Rating: 
Summary: Some new ideas but very repetitive
Review: Good thing the book was over 500 pages because many of the ideas were reiterated over and over. There really were 2 main ideas: #1. Keep your home mortgaged for as much as possible and utilize your equity in a side fund that will earn more than your mortgage interest, and #2. Use a complicated life insurance policy/strategy with that money to make far more than you could with an IRA or 401K. At the end of it all, I might agree with some of the reasons for keeping your equity out of your home and in a separate side fund, but the life insurance information was a little too complicated and relied on too many variables for me to trust (and you'd better have a lot of money to begin with for these strategies to work). An interesting read and I couldn't begin to explain how the strategies work in this short review but I wish I had checked the book out at a library. Worth the read if you want to hear about an investing philosophy that isn't mainstream.
Rating: 
Summary: Some new ideas but very repetitive...ditto
Review: I got this book on the recommendation of a Financial Planner. The idea of not pouring your wealth into your house equity made a lot of sense. But it droned on for several chapters.
Then when he got to the Insurance. It just did not add up. Some of the examples were confusing at best. Contrived at worst. Figure 18.3 on Page 350 just did not make any sense. I could never get my numbers to match his, which never breeds confidence.
He had the results of a $6000 investment in a mutual fund after 1 year at a 10% yield equal to $6029. Even when I took into account some of his assumptions. (Sales charge of 5% and Management fees of .75) I could never get close to that number. And as I extrapolated this problem over 35 years, the difference became larger and larger.
Rating: 
Summary: Top - Notch !!
Review: I have been an active participant in the financial services business for over 15 years. I've sold millions of dollars of life insurance and have had $54 million dollars of client moneys under my direct management. If I had thought about some of these concepts myself, or knew of them earlier, my clients-past & present- and myself would have been much, much richer. Heck, on residuals alone I wouldn't be working anymore!! Having said that, I am instituting these ideas into my practice whnever applicable. I think it's a great book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent concepts I never knew existed!
Review: I really enjoyed this book! In fact I drove my wife crazy trying to explain all the concepts that are in here! I agree with some of the reviewers that the author repeats himself again (and again), but I believe he does this to emphasize the fact these concepts do work in the real world...you almost need to hear it several times to sink in...
The bottom line is that after digesting this book I intend to take out an equity line of credit to max out my mortgage (forever); I will invest this in a safe, liquid side fund; I plan to reduce dramatically my 401K contributions to just benefit from employer matching (not a penny more); I will save $800 a year from term insurance; my wife will have a difficult time sobbing at my funeral after seeing my new insurance portfolio (which by the way will grow tax advantaged and will last me my entire lifetime for retirement income also!!!!)
Thanks Mr. Andrew
Rating:
Summary: I learned quite a bit from this book
Review: I stumbled unto this book and I only browsed the first couple of chapters while I was at the bookstore. For now, I'll write an incomplete review, because this is such a good book, I was kind of surprised it only had one anonymous Amazon review thus far. This book, or at least the little that I've read from this book, is truly outstanding. It takes the common sense financial practices of the average financial investor/homeowner, and it tells us why they're a bad idea. A couple of juicy tidbits: - Overpaying on your mortgage paiment will increase the risk of losing your property.
- In a real estate downturn, bankers like to take over equity-rich properties, not equity-poor properties (it's less work for them).
- In a real estate downturn or in an emergency, it's better to have your money in a side liquid fund, than to have it tied up in your property.
- And in case your bank tries to repossess your property, you'll have more leverage against the bank and you'll have more room to maneuver if your money is out the property. Now again, I haven't read the book fully, these are just the couple of ideas that I remember at the top of my head, but those ideas were very thought-provoking (to me at least). I intend to buy this book, read it fully, and come back here to give a better review.
Rating:
Summary: Missed Fortune: Dispel the Money Myth-Conceptions
Review: I wish I had read a book like this years ago. This book change the way I think about money. I can't thank Douglas Andrew enough for sharing his insights. A must read for anyone with a mortgage!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Missed Fortune: Dispel the Money Myth-Conceptions
Review: I wish I had read a book like this years ago. This book change the way I think about money. I can't thank Douglas Andrew enough for sharing his insights. A must read for anyone with a mortgage!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely amazing
Review: If you are in the financial services industry or even just looking to have a safe and secure retirement, you need to read this book! It is absolutely amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Some good ideas, way way oversold...
Review: There are two lessons in this book worth considering:
1. Paying down your mortgage lickety split may not be a great idea as your equity assets aren't very liquid, aren't particularly safe in your house, may actually increase the likelyhood you get forclosed on, and in some environments might not be the best return on your money.
2. Universal life insurance has various tax benefits that may make it a good alternate or supplement to 401K/IRA plans depending on your investment and estate transfer goals.
I give Mr. Andrew one star for each idea. The rest of the book is oversold hype and downright intellectual dishonestly, not untypical of many "finacial planning" books. He constantly says to not pay close attention to the numbers, but rather the concepts. Unfortunately many of his concepts completely fall apart when you look at the numbers, and in some cases his numeric examples are down right dishonest.
First, the good part. The first five or so chapters make a very good case for storing money in a interest bearing side account instead of paying down your mortgage fast. You hear many people say they do this to make more money than they'd save on thier interest. Mr. Andrew makes some excellent points why one would want to do this even without any additional return, or to my mind even a little bit of loss. Namely, extra payments to mortgages are nearly impossible to get back out of the house when you need them. These chapters are definately worth a read in the library, or given the quantities of money involved in a mortgage even purchasing the book before you start extra principle payments on your mortgage. He over hypes a few points in this part of the book, but on the whole very good advice worth one's serious consideration. Where he fails is by making a false case that it is always trivial to find an investment to put your saved money into that will beat the mortgage interest. If it was that easy no idiot would sell mortgages in the first place. Again, to my mind he makes a number of points worth considering even if you only just barely match the mortgage interest rate.
Now the bad. The last half of the book is about using a universal life insurance policy instead of a 401K/IRA for retirement savings. Mr. Andrew does a good job, though a bit long winded, explaining the concept here. He also points out some of the important benefits that life insurance would have over 401K/IRA. Unfortunately he frequently uses very dishonest math to show that life insurance will greatly outpace a 401K/IRA. In one case he doesn't account for life insurance contributions being after tax. In others he double counts tax deductions from mortage interest. In others he assumes one finds the cheapest life insurance and yet doesn't comparatively shop for an IRA plan. To me this is where the book falls apart. The life insurance concept was unknown to me and I'm glad I now know about it. But it was so oversold and the math done so poorly that I had to go do numerous scenarios in Excel, and what I found was that he made very unrealistic assumptions on both sides of the equation and when those imbalences were removed 401K/IRA and life insurance came up about the same. Again, there are situations in which one would be more advantageous than the other, but Mr. Andrew makes no effort to illustrate these. He mearly oversells insurance as a panacea that is for everyone.
In summary, I guess the book is worth its money just for the first five chapters, but I'd check in the library first. And I'll have to give Mr. Andrew for having more content and more sound advice than that "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" garbage - but that isn't much of a complement.
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