Money and Finance
Rich Dad, Poor Dad ; Book Review
A humble review of this book by me! :)
Throughout my time that I read this book, I was also testing his theories in my head wondering if I could apply them to real life situations.
Some of his theories remain unclear to me, others however gave me a better understanding of his perspective.
I would advise all potential readers to have a certain level of knowledge about investments and how they work so as to better understand the second half of this book.
This book gave me a clear view of 2 very different men and what they were doing with their lives. On one hand, you have the highly educated man who surprisingly turned out to be the "Poor Dad" and the less educated but adamant on taking a different path from the rest a.k.a the "Rich Dad".
What do I find interesting about this book?
Robert Kiyosaki talks about the education system which is largely focused on creating "Employees" rather than "Employers".
The long-surviving mantra of
Go to school, get good grades, get a good job is something that has been passed on from generations to generations as everyone listens and complies with as little as 1% of the people out there actually asking"Why?"
In addition, he also shoots down many beliefs by the mass community out there including
"Your House is NOT your Asset"
This book got me to think outside the box, but I wouldn't recommend taking the book word for word. However, that being said I felt that there were several notable quotes in his book worth sharing. Call them life lessons if you will.
"Life is the best teacher of all. Most of the time, life does not talk to you. It just sort of pushes you around. Each push is life saying, 'Wake up, There's something I want you to learn.' If you learn life's lessons you will do well. If not life will just continue to push you around. Some just let life push them around. Others get angry and push back. But they push back against their boss, their job, husband.wife. They don't know that it's life that's pushing.
"Most spend the best years of their lives working for money, not really understanding what it is they are working for."
"Each human being had a weak and needy part of their soul that can be bought, but he also knew that each human being had a part of their soul that was strong and filled with a resolve that could never be bought. It was only a question of which one was stronger."
"Most people have a price. And they have a price because of human emotions named fear and greed.
"A job is really a "short term solution to a long term problem"I was quite inspired as I read this book, but it was only at the last few pages that got me wondering... How can I apply this to my current situation? His advice of keeping your day job, work hard and build your assets.
Essentially, I believe he's talking about building a portfolio that gives a steady stream of dividends which would one day match your expenses therefore giving"Financial Freedom". Something like that.
But readers should understand this takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. I don't know if it's just me but reading it initially gave me the sense of inspiration to go out there and start doing something, anything.
The early part of the book was very captivating, but as it proceeded it became more focused with investment issues that I feel were not suitable for people my age.
Lastly, what this book lacks is perhaps it's suggestions for actions. It gives the reader a instinct to act, but no knowledge / plan of action.
Some things I took away from this book, and you can too includes:
- Try to have "assets" that pours money into your pockets instead of taking away.
- Don't be a wage slave.
- Financial knowledge is very important and cannot be emphasised enough.
- Don't let fear and greed be an opportunity cost.
- Keep a healthy balance between your Assets and Liabilities.
- Keeping expenses low
- Invest in learning about investing (Agreed, haha)
One thing about the book is that it did not state the risk involved when accumulating your "assets" therefore do invest with caution.
That's it! Of course there are much more that I feel / learnt from this book that cannot be expressed by a blogpost itself, you would have to read to understand!
Signing off,
Teenage Investor
Posts you might be interested in:
1. Truth of World Ventures & Passive Income
2. 80% of Young Singaporeans have little to no savings at all
3. Dividends from Investing
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