The Bank On Yourself Revolution: Fire Your Banker, Bypass Wall Street, and Take Control of Your Own Financial Future

I gave "The Bank on Yourself Revolution" 5 stars because I strongly believe that it is the best life-long safe and guaranteed wealth building strategy everyone could employ to actually, really become wealthy. This verdict is based on my personal experience and personal research, many other books I read on the subject.Nowadays, when banks, investment banks, mutual funds companies and self touted "financial experts" are flooding the media, cable, print and Internet with brainwashing information, it has become extremely hard to cut through all the propaganda and find good, healthy financial information to base your financial decisions on. Pamela Yellen's book feels like and is a breath of fresh air among all that pollution.Among other things, I liked the fact that in her second book Pamela Yellen is comparing most other wealth building vehicles to the "Bank on Yourself" strategy and "Bank on Yourself" comes out as the clear winner. I liked Pamela's clear explanation of the fact that "Investing" is not equal to "Saving", which many of us have been conditioned to believe as truth. Well it's not. After you read the book you realize that "Investing is more equal to "Gambling" and "Speculating". And if you want to gamble and speculate on the stock market that's fine, but would you want to do that with money you can not afford to lose, like your retirement account?I would recommend this book to anybody from the middle class (or lower) to read and reread. The wealthy are already doing this! In my opinion, "The Bank on Yourself Revolution" should be required reading in high school and university because this generation's outlook will be significantly different than the outlook of the Baby Boomer generation. It should also be required reading when you open a business, because business owners could do miracles with this.If you ask yourself the "If it's too good to be true, bla, bla, bla", question, ask yourself a better question: WHO says that this is "too good to be true"? And I would respectfully submit to you that, most likely, the detractors are people that have no clue what they are talking about, i.e. they do not use "Bank on Yourself" personally. I am a user of Pamela's "Bank on Yourself" strategy and I do know what I am talking about. The people that are using the "Bank on Yourself" strategy and see the benefits of it in their lives know that THIS (Bank on Yourself) IS NORMAL!ABNORMAL for them is to pay tens of years into the new Defined Contribution Pension Plans and have no clue what are they going to have in that account on the day of their retirement.ABNORMAL for them is to maximize their 401K (R.R.S.P. in Canada) contributions every year without a clue or guarantee regarding the results in those government sponsored plans, lose access to that money for a few decades and increase their tax liability in their old age every year.ABNORMAL for them is to maximize their 529 college funding plan (R.E.S.P. in Canada) contributions and not be able to touch that money for a couple of decades d finally be able to use it only if the child actually goes to college!?!ABNORMAL to them is to gamble your hard earned money at the "Stock Market Casino", hope and pray to get ahead, while the people that own that casino are making money every year, regardless if you are making money or losing money in your account.ABNORMAL for them is to go and grovel at the feet of the bankers for a loan, having to provide unbelievable amounts of information and paperwork, wait for weeks for a decision and after all of that to be rejected for that loan, because they do not have a perfect "Credit Score". Bank on Yourself users can get a loan in a few days, with 1 (one) page of paperwork filled.I do not want to be a spoiler, so the above "ABNORMALS" are just a few you'll be learning about when you'll read "The Bank on Yourself Revolution".Enjoy!

The book is an excellent description of how a dividend paying whole life policy from a mutual insurance can transform how a person manages their finances and builds personal wealth. Since 2009, I have owned a whole life policy with New York Life. After 6.5 years, it has a cash value equivalent to 4.33 years of premiums. I love that as nowhere else can that be experienced with auto insurance, homeowners insurance, and especially the stock market. I have borrowed money from the policy, and the dividends in the policy continued to earn interest. Originally, a New York Life agent turned me onto the "Infinite Banking" or "Bank on Yourself" process and ensured me the policy he sold me met those conditions. He was right.That said, it wasn't until I read this book that I realized I could have been maximizing the benefits of my policy for several years now. I had small sums of money in a bank account and investment account not working for me. Since reading this book, I have transferred the money into my policy. My credit limit for borrowing is now $13,000. This gives me access to a nice line of credit that I can use for major purchases and which can be repaid on my terms. I also have policies on two of my children and will open others as my finances allow.The negatives I found from the book are that it is used as a plug for her website and agents that sell these policies. While I am okay with the author using the book to build her business, why hide from the readers the names of the insurance companies that offer these policies? She explains why in her book, but I did not agree with her reasoning on that point. The insurers offering these types of policies are:MassmutualNew York LifeOhio NationalMet LifeLafayette LifeI believe readers of the book will be sufficiently empowered to purchase policies on their own. If they choose to use the author's website, they should do so with all the information disclosed to them up front. Also, the author says policy loans are charged a variable interest rate. This is true with one exception: New York Life. My policies have a fixed 5% interest rate. This is exactly the way whole life policies worked up until the high inflation of the 1970s forced most insurers to offer variable interest rates on new policies. I appreciate that New York Life has remained immutable during this whole time. Quite likely, New York Life does not allow their policies to be sold by anyone other than their own agents which is why the author says insurers of "Bank on Yourself" policies charge variable interest rates. It would be more accurate to say that the insurers she deals with charge variable interest rates on policy loans. Again, I believe people should be given a full disclosure of details in order to make the most informed decision possible.In summary, the book is excellent and will give you the knowledge needed to make this important decision for yourself. While I believe you can use the knowledge to buy your own "Bank of Yourself" policy, her website is a good resource as you would work with people experienced in this matter. I just believe the author held back on some juicy information in an overzealous ploy to drive readers to her website. The ultimate purpose of the book should be to fully empower readers as opposed to enticing them to visit her website.

Arrived as advertised then gifted.

The book is great and best option if you want to be away from banks and Wall Street. However, the strategy doesn’t apply to people in Asia.I realised that I wasted time and money on this book as I am not from USA

This book algae some very valuable information. That said, there is so much repetition it was difficult to get through even though I love reading and am passionate about the topic. Another crucial problem with this book is the focus on consumer debt. I realize it is written for an American audience, but if the greatest benefit the book suggests is consuming more it has completely missed out on how good these policies can be for the average individual. Pamela consistently hammers on other investment vehicles. This may not be unfair for the most part, but there are investment vehicles either Pamela doesn't understand or simply lambastes for her own purposes (an example is how she consistently degrade real estate investing but then claims she owns a ton of real estate herself). Lastly, in the entire book there was only one clear example of how much a person's policy grows over time. There were other examples, but if I truly only make a tiny amount of money for my ROI it robs these plans of any value apart from savings vehicles. While I believe they make excellent savings vehicles, Pamela suggests they are an investment vehicle as well.

It's terrible. It's just a sales pitch and they take the whole book to spit it out. The spent the first 6 chapters telling you they were going to tell you something. Horrible. Don't waste your money.

Only valid in USA

It was soft copy not the book page