The Wealthy Barber: The Common Sense Guide to Successful Financial Planning A Book Review by Andrea Charanduk Canadian Roy Richardson, better known to his friends as The Wealthy Barber, educates three financially illiterate individuals, Dave, Tom and Cathy on how to obtain a successful financial plan by using common sense. The setting is a barber shop owned by Roy himself. Dave, Tom and Cathy visit Roy once every month to become better educated about a simple way to financial planning. Roy, the expert in this subject, has become successful and wealthy by using the same practical guidelines and procedures he teaches his “students” over a 7 month period. During these 7 months Dave, Tom and Cathy become experts in many aspects of financial planning including: pay yourself first theory, mutual funds, wills, life insurance, RRSP’s, compound interest, mortgages and amortization to name a few. At the end of the seventh lesson Dave, Tom, and Cathy are no longer financially illiterate and they are well on their way to completing a successful financial plan for themselves. The Wealthy Barber: The Common Sense Guide to Successful Financial Planning is an All-Time Canadian Best Seller and has been critically acclaimed by The Financial Times of Canada, The Education Forum and many more. The Ottawa Sun states, “David Chilton has done what no other author has done. The former-stockbroker-turned-writer has made the dull and often intimidating topic of financial planning entertaining and readable.” This quote rings true, many people see financial planning as intimidating and confusing, but Chilton explains the ins and outs of financial planning through a novel like story and makes understanding easy which decreases the intimidating factor. The Wealthy Barber is an easy, nice, relaxing read about financial planning and what all comes with it. You get engrossed with the characters involved and are able to
relate to these characters situations in one way or another. This makes reading this book more entertaining and appealing then some dry text book explaining financial planning. It explains to the reader how to successfully save your money and then how to accumulate it. Most texts will only talk about how to accumulate your money, they may not necessarily tell you how to save this money, this is the key difference between The Wealthy Barber and any other text or book talking about financial planning. The Wealthy Barber: The Common Sense Guide to Successful Financial Planning is an easy, entertaining read about a topic that in the past has been known to be dry and boring. It tells a story while along the way teaches the reader about common sense financial planning, it contains humor and sarcasm, it has Canadian content, it teaches how to have your money work for you. If the reader is completely illiterate of the basic financial terms or content they may want to research some of the terms used in the book to get a full understanding, that may be the only downfall of this book, but these days it is rare not to know even the basic financial terms. That being said this book will not lose you or make your mind drift off. It is successful in keeping the reader’s attention right till the last page, which can make The Wealthy Barber hard to put down. In the first couple chapters of The Wealthy Barber it is mentioned how that the lack of knowledge about finances among Canadians is due to our previous generations not being knowledgeable in the area and therefore it was not passed down to current generations. It was also mentioned that the poor teaching of finances in the education system is the reason Canadians have a low level knowledge about their own finances. This is relevant to the Accounting Curriculum in Saskatchewan, there should be more
content on personal financial planning, something everyone will need to know when they graduate. The book discusses important aspects of how to manage your money and how not to manage your money. The Wealthy Barber gives simple, easy to understand instruction to all types of financial aspects which could be a tool or reference for a teacher who is teaching an accounting course to high school students. The teacher of the accounting class could take ideas of how to explain the importance of a will, of insurance, of RRSP’s to their students from this book. The book states many times that the earlier a person starts their financial plan the better off they will be later in life and during their retirement years, so why not teach high school students what Roy Richardson was teaching his “students” Dave, Tom and Cathy. The Wealthy Barber also eliminates any myths of financial planning and what is dangerous to invest in and when it is smart to invest. The Wealthy Barber: The Common Sense Guide to Successful Financial Planning should be read by every high school student, if not, every Grade 12 student. It would be wise for any teacher who is teaching a high school accounting class to have their students read this book. It will allow them to get their foot in the door to learning the keys to financial planning. Every one should have the knowledge that is obtained from reading The Wealthy Barber and the earlier the better. The teacher’s accounting students may not thank their teacher at the time but when they go to begin their financial planning they will know how to do so successfully. So when they are sitting on their deck of their lake front cabin they will be thanking their high school accounting teacher who made them read The Wealthy Barber: The Common Sense Guide to Successful Financial Planning.