The Best Personal Finance Books
Regardless of where you are in life, personal finance is a hot topic for everyone today.
The internet being what it is, is a great resource for personal finance. If you’re looking for ways to make money from home or effective ways to save money on groceries, etc., you’re sure to find a good list of articles with just the information you need.
If you’re in the market, however, for deeper information on a specific topic, nothing beats a well-written book.
Same goes for personal finance.
Some of the most successful people in the world admit to being avid readers, and especially, admit to being fans of personal finance authors.
Truth is, being a good writer, or a good blogger for that matter, does not necessarily qualify you as being a good personal finance expert – or vice versa. Finding a good balance between personal finance expertise and a beautifully scripted book, can make all the difference in the world.
Today, we will take a look at some of my favorites on the many lists of best personal finance books.
These are not just favorite authors of mine, these brilliant minds are favorite authors of thousands and thousands of fans in the personal finance space.
Finance YouTuber – Rose, shares her best 5 books in the video below. It’s an 18-minute video, fyi. If you are pressed for time, please come back and watch the whole video. In the meantime, keep on reading to see my personal fave 12 books below.
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1. Best Personal Finance Books For Beginners
Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By And Get Your Financial Life Together, By Erin Lowry
Broke Millennial by Erin Lowry, a personal finance expert, is a great place for beginners to start.
If you fall into the category of trying to figure out how to itemize all your debt and carve out a pay-off plan, this book is for you.
With this book, Lowry targets people in their 20s and 30s, who are in the early stages of adulthood and are trying to figure out how to manage this thing called debt.
The well laid out chapters provide a road map for millennials and even seasoned individuals beginning to take a serious look small steps toward financial freedom.
Chapter titles in Erin Lowry’s book include “Paying Rent to your Rents” (referring to moving back home and paying rent to your parents). Another witty title is “Retirement: Can It Ever Happen For Me?”
Broke Millennial is one of the best financial books for beginners. It is a cool and relatable book in that it is very easy for the reader to connect with the author and the message being passed on.
Rich Dad Poor Dad, By Robert Kiyosaki
Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad is definitely for you if you are relatively new to personal finance.
In his book Kiyosaki lays out ideas for building successful businesses. These businesses in turn create streams of passive income for you.
Rich Dad Poor Dad advocates that you establish your wealth in both investment and real estate assets as a way to build perpetual income.
Kiyosaki’s philosophy is that you do more on the front end to allow your money to begin working for you on the back end.
Check out Rich Dad Poor Dad on Amazon.
Rich Dad Poor Dad is not only one of the best personal finance books for college students and recent graduates, but is also, in by opinion, one of the best personal finance books of all time.
The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness, By Dave Ramsey
Dave Ramsey is best know for his financial advice on his radio show – The Dave Ramsey Show.
Ramsey’s book, The Total Money Makeover, provides a well thought out, but simple plan, for getting out of debt. He also offers ideas for retirement and emergency savings.
The book is one of the best personal finance books for people in their 20s, for younger individuals, and couples trying to navigate the very early stages of financial planning.
The Total Money Makeover is an integral part of the process, for anyone battling with debt, which in America today, would include most of us.
2. Best Personal Finance Books On The Mindset Of A Millionaire
Everyday Millionaires: How Ordinary People Built Extraordinary Wealth – And How You Can Too
Reportedly, Chris Hogan’s book is based on the largest study ever conducted on 10,000 U.S. Millionaires.
In Everyday Millionaires, Hogan shows how ordinary people build extraordinary wealth everyday, and aims to convince you that you can too.
In their research, they found that millionaires had some common traits they each shared with one another.
Some of the findings of Hogan and his team after successfully interviewing 10,000 millionaires indicate that they:
- Take personal responsibility
- Practice Intentionality
- Are goal-oriented
- Value hard work, and
- Are always consistent
The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy, By Thomas J. Stanley & William D. Danko
In their book, The Millionaire Next Door, authors Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko provides a description of what millionaires typically look like.
They specifically reveal the seven common traits they consistently found time and time again among millionaires they studied and interviewed in their research.
According to their findings, the majority of millionaires Stanley and Danko studied chose being frugal over living flashy or expensive lifestyles.
If you want to learn more about The Millionaire Next Door, including the seven common traits of millionaires, get a copy here.
3. Best Personal Fiance Books To Learn How To Retire Early
Your Money Or Your Life: 9 Steps To Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence, By Vicki Robin & Joe Dominguez
Your Money or Your Life is a book that pushes you to think of what your ultimate goals are – and envisage how much money you will need to get to said goals.
Fellow finance guru Torabi is quoted as saying Vicki Robin is “the O.G. who put the ‘personal’ in ‘personal finance’. She was among the first to inspire us to create a financial road map that aligned with our core values and goals”
The idea behind the book is answering the question of how much money you are willing to trade your life for.
Once that question is clearly answered, you have a clear picture of your “why”.
This drives your decision-making on saving and investing for an early retirement. It is truly one of the best personal finance books for the career-minded individual.
Approaching Personal Finance in the way Vicki Robin does, no doubt, makes Your Money or Your Life one of the very best personal finance books out there today.
Set For Life: Dominate Life, Money, And The American dream, By Scott Trench
In his book, Set For life, author Scott Trench, lays out a blueprint for making savings a priority, even over investing and making more.
Trench places great emphasis on figuring out what your values are as an individual, especially if still young, and how you really want to spend your time and money – essentially your life.
For all of us, that could look vastly different, from one person to the next.
For some, it could mean buying a tiny house rather than a single family home, or choosing to ride the metro over buying a car.
With any of the aforementioned ideas or methods, we we can towards a goal of early retirement, as encouraged in this book.
4. Best Personal Finance Books To Motivate You
Think And Grow Rich, By Napoleon Hill
This is one of the oldies, but goodies, of personal finance.
Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill was first published in 1937.
Inspiration for Think And Grow Rich stems from a blend of interviews with the most successful people of that era, woven into everyday lessons for us to live by.
Napoleon strives to teach you to go after your biggest and most unimaginable dreams, with, dare I say, reckless abandon.
Warning – It will take guts to heed the advice in this one!
I Will Teach You To Be Rich, By Ramit Sethi
Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You To Be Rich is one of the best personal finance books ever penned.
I put this book as motivational because Ramit urges readers to set aside excuses and to grab the wheel in building your own financial future.
Sethi devotes a large part of the book to a six-week action plan intended to form the bedrock of your financial plan.
A brief look at each of the six weeks is shown below:.
- Week 1: Takes a look at your credit and improving your history
- Week 2: Focuses on reducing banking fees
- Week 3: Covers the basics of 401k’s, IRA’s, etc
- Week 4: Help you in understanding your spending habits
- Week 5: Provides guidance on building out your new financial outlook
- Week 6: Introduces you to investing
5. Best Personal Finance Books For Investing
The Simple Path To Wealth: Your Road Map To Financial Independence And A Rich, Free Life, By J.L. Collins
The Simple Path To Wealth is a book which began, according to J.L. Collins, as notes he wanted to share with his daughter.
Ultimately, and fortunately for us finance buffs, it turned out to become something much bigger.
Collins teaches avoiding debt, saving rather aggressively, and investing your savings in low cost index funds.
Furthermore, he encourages you as an investor to learn how to invest and manage your wealth by yourself. He pushes you to gain the confidence to self-invest, rather than seeking out someone to do it for you.
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way To Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns, By John C. Bogle
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing is authored by none other than John C. Bogle, founder and former CEO of Vanguard.
Throughout the books’ eighteen chapters, Bogle consistently drops little nuggets of advice on investing.
These little nuggets are not just about any investing however, but about investing in low-cost index funds.
Some of the topics Bogle covers in the book includes:
- How to select the right funds
- Selecting long term winners
- ETFs
- Taxes
He holds your hand in bite-size lessons all throughout the book so you know exactly what to do as an investor.
Just so you know, Bogle’s book does not teach tricks on how to beat the stock market. It does however teach you how to go toe-to-toe with the fluctuations of the market and come out either breaking even or just slightly ahead.
It is definitely one I would recommend for first time investors trying to slowly understand the monster that is the stock market.
The Bogleheads’ Guide To Investing, By Mel Lindauer, Taylor Larimore, And Michael LeBoeuf
The aforementioned John C. Bogle, over time, attracted a dedicated following. This large following apparently refer to themselves as Bogleheads.
Bogleheads are investors who have essentially adopted Bogle’s investing philosophy. It’s such a large group that they have a rather successful website that attracts thousands of visits daily.
The Bogleheads’ Guide To Investing covers a wide array of topics including saving money, insurance, and index funds.
I find the book is an easy read and takes away the anxiety of thinking about investing as some complicated thing. Worth checking out.
Wrap-UP
When it comes to personal finance, there are tons of blogs to help get you on the right path (mine better be #1 in your book).
Sometimes, to get deep into certain topics like investing or money management, nothing beats a good book with the right authority on the topic.
I hope you find one or more of these books to be as helpful in your personal finance journey as I have.
