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After 36 years, and 2.1-million copies sold in Canada, The Wealthy Barber is getting an update.
Published Oct 02, 2025 • 3 minute read
David Chilton, author of The Wealthy Barber, is shown in this file photo. (Colleen De Neve/Postmedia Network) Calgary HeraldArticle content
After 36 years, and 2.1-million copies sold in Canada, The Wealthy Barber is getting an update.
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David Chilton, author of the self-published book with a story built around money-management lessons by a Sarnia barber named Roy, is releasing an updated version Nov. 4.
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“I think it’s such a challenging time right now out there for the under-45 crowd,” with high housing and living costs making it tough to save, while there are many more financial products to choose from than in the past, Chilton said.
“When I wrote the original book, we had RRSPs (Registered Retirement Savings Plans),” he said. Since then, tax free savings accounts, home buying plans and others have appeared.
“It’s very difficult for people to know, ‘how do I prioritize? I can’t do all of that,’ especially with the cost of living being so high,” he said.
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“I think probably I should have written the update 10 or 15 years ago, but I was busy with other things,” Chilton said. “Better late than never.”
Along with publishing and public speaking, Chilton was part of the cast of TV’s Dragon’s Den for several years and recently created a successful Wealthy Barber podcast.
He started out after university working as a stockbroker and wrote for a local magazine which led to a change in career to providing financial advice to teachers and then writing The Wealthy Barber.
Manley’s in Sarnia was the first store he convinced to carry the book, Chilton said.
“My original goal was to sell between 5,000 and 10,000 copies,” he said. “We overshot that.”
Chilton believes the book’s story format takes away the intimidation some feel about personal finances and is one of the reasons it ended up being such a success.
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“By turning it into a story, using conversation, staying away from pie charts and graphs, that really seemed to resonate with people,” he said. “It really seemed like the right formula.”
Sales in 1989, the first year of its release, were solid “but nothing that would lead anyone to believe it was going on to become what it did,” Chilton said.
But by March and April of the second year, word-of-mouth was having an impact and sales were “starting to fly,” he said.
“It is a word-of-mouth book” that has had its success from “Larry telling Mary, telling Harry, telling Jane,” Chilton said.
The character of Roy the barber in Sarnia is back in the update, along with several new characters.
“It talks a lot about the city, mentions specific restaurants, obviously all glowing comments because nobody loves Sarnia as much as I do,” Chilton said.
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His great-grandfather, James Barr, was mayor of Sarnia when Canatara Park was created, and Chilton’s grandparents and parents were also from Sarnia.
Chilton’s family lived in Kitchener but spent summers in Sarnia while he was growing up. “I developed a lot of friendships, a lot of ties,” and he bought a place in Sarnia about a dozen years ago, he said.
“And now, I’m in Sarnia more than I’m in Kitchener by a fairly wide margin,” and makes a visit to the St. Clair River, beneath the Blue Water Bridge, each morning he’s in town, Chilton said.
“I love Kitchener too, but Sarnia is so close to my heart,” he said.
This week, he was recording the audio version, another in a long list of steps leading to release of the update.
“I do a tremendous amount to testing as I go,” which is one of the reasons the book has gone over so well, Chilton said.
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Folks in the target audience were reading versions as the writing went along, their concerns or suggestions were incorporated into the manuscript, he said. “It takes forever to write a book that way but the end result, I think, justifies that amount of time invested.”
“It was easier to do that when I was younger,” he said. The long hours and the editing process was “a lot, but I’m proud of the book and I’m glad we went that direction again.”
Like the original book, the update is self-published. It is being printed in Canada and will be available through Indigo, and in Sarnia at The Book Keeper book store.
“I’ll hand deliver the copies to (owner) Sue (Chamberlain) and team up there as soon as we get them at the start of November,” he said.
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