Spoiler: by living in Surrey BC, not downtown Vancouver like I thought from that tag line.
The Debt-Free Lifestyle is a bit of a misnomer. Most of the book is actually focused on mortgages and the power or prepayments. While interesting (especially since I have recently actually bought a house and am now dealing with a mortgage), I didn't feel like the book was very focused on a lifestyle. Conway's system is super straightforward: look at your paycheck every payday, make sure there's enough money going to the things you need (bills, mortgage, gas, food), and save the rest (probably putting it on your mortgage as a prepayment, but depending on where you are in terms of amortization schedule and time to retirement, you might want to be investing instead). As far as a system goes, it's not earth-shattering. I actually far prefer the approach that Shannon Lee Simmons advocated for in Worry Free Money (which is the system I still use today!)
But in terms of readability and information on mortgages, I did find The Debt-Free Lifestyle interesting. Like I said, I recently bought a house, so I am now actually interested in how mortgages work (I never planned on buying a house, so never paid much attention to mortgage talk in any of the other personal finance books I read). Conway breaks everything down well, showing several mortgage scenarios and how much different prepayments can change your timeliness and how much interest you end up paying. I also found the book a fairly quick read: it was interesting and I didn't really get bogged down anywhere.
If you're a new homeowner, I think giving The Debt-Free Lifestyle a shot is worth it. Conway gives you a lot of tools to help you think through what strategies you might want to employ while considering getting and paying odd your mortgage. But if you're looking for more help with debt or other more general finance topics, you're better off giving this one a pass in favour of other books.
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