This book has come with so much hype that I feel like it doesn’t even need a preamble. David Chilton is back with a sequel to his massively successful 1989 best seller The Wealthy Barber, making it officially the longest anyone has ever had to wait for a sequel ever. I’m willing to forgive this since, like so many other Canadians, I was introduced to the world of finance by Chilton.
A background story: I was 14 years old and in the basement of my parents house. (I would continue to live there for another 11 years! Yikes.) I had to go to the bathroom, and being too lazy to go upstairs to mine, I stayed downstairs and used the purple one that my sister used. It had a purple toilet AND carpet. That’s just pure class right there. So I sit down and see a copy of the Wealthy Barber sitting on the floor, a bookmark in about 9 pages. Literally with nothing better to do, I pick it up and start reading.
And the rest, as they say, is history. I was instantly hooked. I read the book cover to cover. I loved the story. I was anxious to go out and get a job so I could invest my money and watch it compound. I was ready to buy a rental house like one of the characters did. I continue to recommend it to people just starting out on their financial journey. Real life friends can attest I’ve bought the book as a wedding gift. (I also stuck a gift card inside of the book, since I’m not THAT mean.)
Plus, it continues to rank high on the Uproar Reads list, which I’m pretty sure is the ultimate compliment.
Knowing the background story, you can imagine I was pretty excited to hear about the Return of the Wealthy Barber. Let’s look at a picture of the cover.
More than 2 million of the original sold? That’s quite impressive, considering the average best seller in Canada sells approximately 842 copies. I read somewhere the original was the best selling book in Canadian history. But wait, I think I see something odd on the cover of the book. Can we see another shot of that, blog fairies that magically do this stuff?
THAT’S INAPPROPRIATE LANGUAGE DAVID CHILTON! WATCH YOUR TONGUE!
The Actual Review
There aren’t many personal finance books that I find myself laughing as I read them, but this one was definitely an exception. This book is legitimately funny, not just finance funny. By the way, finance funny is kind of like hot chick funny. As long as a hot chick isn’t miserable, guys will believe she’s funny. It’s the same principle with finance books.
It’s not a story like the first one. In fact, it reads a lot like a blog. Each chapter is only a few pages long. It explores a topic, makes a couple of jokes and moves on to the next one. Considering how short my attention span is, I enjoyed the setup.
The book doesn’t delve too deep into the topics it covers. And, in a refreshing turn, Chilton readily admits at times he really has no idea what the right answer to certain financial topics that the blogosphere has wrestled with for years. He makes convincing arguments in favor of index investing, as well as not having tens of thousands of dollars tied up in emergency funds. Chilton also rallies against the large debt load that afflicts a large number of Canadians.
There’s all sorts of other great things in The Wealthy Barber Returns as well. But you don’t care. You just want to know how you can win one. You’re so impatient.
How To Win A Copy
Great news everyone! I’m going to be giving away the actual copy of the book that I read. This book spent some time in bed with me, meaning it’s the closest many of you will get to sleeping with me. It’s probably the closest you’ll want to get to sleeping with me.
Usually giveaways go a little something like this. You get x entries if you follow on Twitter, x more if you RT, and so on. Aside: you definitely should be following my Twitter feed, because it’s filled with stupid jokes all sorts of relevant information. And while I’d appreciate you spreading the word to your followers at least 31 times, it’s not a necessity for this contest. I’m going to do something a little different this time around. This is a skill testing contest. But don’t worry, it’s not that hard.
As you can see by just scrolling up a little, I have a slogan for my blog right under the title. For those of you reading via your RSS feeds, the slogan is “I can’t hear you. I’ve created too big of an uproar.” It’s a solid slogan, but it could be better. That’s where you come in.
In the comments section, I’m going to give each and every one of you two shots to come up with my new slogan. All you have to do is leave just one comment with your two new slogan attempts underneath this post, and that’s it. You’re entered. Let me show you an example:
1. Financial Uproar: Making all of your non-sexual dreams come true.
2. Financial Uproar: Bad attempts at jokes since 2010
And so on. That’s how easy it is to enter.
And so you can’t accuse me of bias, I will be getting a independent third party to choose the winner. The winner will get the satisfaction of seeing their slogan at the top of this very blog, until I get bored with it and go with another. Oh, and they’ll get a copy of the book. The contest will run for almost 2 weeks, I’ll announce the winner during the Saturday link dump on October 22nd. Americans are free to enter, but be advised this book probably won’t be too applicable to you. Overseas entrants should probably just go away now.
That’s it. Enter now dammit.
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