Financial Book Review – The Latte Factor: Why You Don’t Have To Be Rich To Live Rich

If personal finance books make your eyes glaze over, but you can never say no to a page-turning novel, this book was written for you.

In The Latte Factor, best-selling author David Bach and co-writer, John David Mann, present a personal finance book that reads like a novel. It tells the story of Zoey, a young woman in her 20s who is perpetually struggling to make ends meet. Like many of her contemporaries, Zoey is weighed down by staggering student loan and credit card debt.

Though she’s working in New York City at her dream job, she can never seem to get ahead of her expenses. When Zoey’s boss suggests she get acquainted with Henry, the barista at the coffee shop Zoey loves, she has no idea how significantly this connection will change her life.

Henry is an elderly gentleman who is working at a relatively low-level job, but has built himself a comfortable cushion of savings. He shares his three primary principles of financial freedom with Zoey, which she immediately dismisses as nonsense. Soon, though, she comes to appreciate that small but significant changes in her daily routine can make a huge difference in her finances. She learns to adapt Henry’s principles: Pay yourself first, make savings automatic and live the life you want today. Slowly, she makes the changes she needs in her life to achieve financial freedom.

Bach draws on his decades of experience counseling clients through debt and toward a life of responsible money management to build a realistic story that is both engaging and enlightening. You have to believe he’s helped many “Zoeys” along the way.

Some readers are uncomfortable with the fact that Zoey is portrayed as a caricatured female who does not know how to handle her money and that the book is essentially badly disguised “mansplaining” in a way that talks down to women. Others, though, have found The Latte Factor to be a fun book that leaves readers with lots to think about.

Do you have to be rich to live rich? Read The Latte Factor and find out today!