Best Money Books to Read All the Time: There are so many books on saving money and investing money. From the classic books that cover the fundamentals like Rich Dad Poor Dad to the psychology-focused ones like Think and Grow Rich, to the books that go into investing like One Up on Wall Street. So, in this article, I’m going to break down the key things I have learned and taken away from all the books I’ve read. Some of them really surprised me because they contradicted what I learned from.
Best Money Books to Read All the Time
- Rich Dad Poor Dad: Mastering the Basics
- Cashflow Quadrant: Exploring Financial Freedom
- The Four Hour Work Week: Working Smarter
- The Millionaire Fast Lane: Understanding Financial Paths
- Think and Grow Rich: Mindset Matters
- The Psychology of Money: Understanding Financial Behavior
- Navigating Investments
- The Girl that Invest: Books for Beginners
- Common Sense Investing: The Road to Financial Success
1. Rich Dad Poor Dad: Mastering the Basics
So let’s start off with the basics and the most popular one, and that is Rich Dad Poor Dad. This is the classic of classics, and I can definitely see why it’s so popular. It covers the foundations for finance and money that aren’t taught to us in school. The premise of this book is based around the author’s Two Dads: his biological father, who recommends getting a secure job, taking the traditional path, and retiring with a pension; and then there’s a second dad, who is his best friend’s father. He was a high school dropout, built a business empire, and was all about independent thinking and buying assets that make money for you. This book is what introduced me to the concept of assets and liabilities. Assets, as it explains, are things that put money into your pocket. This could be anything from investments like stocks and shares, real estate, side hustles, or businesses that bring in extra income. On the other hand, liabilities are things that take money out of your pocket and lose value over time. These are the things you want to avoid, especially in the years that you’re trying to build yourself up. He says that when you think of your home as a primary investment, you end up paying more for it and buying more house than you need, and that sucks up a lot of your money in monthly installments that could have been used more profitably somewhere else. So, this is a really good book to begin your personal finance journey. It explains the core concepts in a very digestible way and emphasizes the importance of giving each pound or each dollar a purpose and viewing it as an employee that is constantly working for you. So, this mindset clarifies the trade-off between present expenses and future income because every dollar or every pound spent today is one that ultimately won’t be able to work for you later down the road.
2. Cashflow Quadrant: Exploring Financial Freedom
Then he has a follow-up book, which is The Cashflow Quadrant. So, there are hundreds of ways to earn money beyond the conventional nine-to-five job. Most people think that a stable job is the only legit and realistic way to financial security, but this book will paint a whole new picture. It makes you really understand the limitations of an I25 job and how you don’t have to be tied to a desk for the rest of your life in order to make money and be financially free.
In fact, it takes that one step further and says how relying purely on your job might just be the worst thing you do when it comes to making money and seeking financial freedom.
The cashflow quadrant that he discusses represents the four ways to earn money: being an employee, so working a nine-to-five job; being self-employed or having a small business, so for example, if you’re a dentist, a freelancer; and then there’s being a big business owner; and then finally, being an investor. And in this book, he talks about how you can use this concept to achieve financial freedom and which of these paths are most likely going to lead you down that road. It’s a good book to get your mind ticking with ideas. [Best Money Books to Read All the Time]
3. The Four Hour Work Week: Working Smarter
When it comes to actionable takeaways and things you can implement, I would recommend this book, and that is The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. So, when I read this or even when I saw the title, I was initially quite skeptical. I mean, a four-hour work week sounded too good to be true. But as I got deeper into the book, I realized it wasn’t at all about working less; it was purely about working smarter.
He talks about how anyone can live a retired millionaire lifestyle by building their own business, automating it, and then collecting their income as they go and live their best life or the life that they would usually wait for years and years and years to live when they retire.
When you read the book, it illustrates how something that is initially very far-fetched and seems like it’s completely out of reach is actually a lot more achievable than you think. So, these two books go hand in hand. Cashflow Quadrant opens your eyes to the possibilities of earning money outside the traditional job setup, and then The Four Hour Work Week gives you the tools to make that happen.
4. The Millionaire Fast Lane: Understanding Financial Paths
Then we have The Millionaire Fast Lane. The point that the author makes in this book is that there is no such thing as get-rich-easy, but there is such a thing as get-rich-quick, which is really interesting because you don’t hear that very often. He talks about the three paths in financial life.
The first path is the sidewalk, and it is one where you spend more than you earn repeatedly, which keeps you trapped in a cycle of being paycheck to paycheck. The second part that he talks about is the slow lane, and it’s about taking the safer path in life: getting good grades, getting a good job, saving a portion of your paycheck every month, and then putting that into investments, and eventually being able to retire at 65 plus years old. And the issue with this is that it is the slow game, and you’re ultimately trading your time for money. And then there’s path three, and that is the fast lane, and that is leveraging your time to create passive income.
So, in other words, investing your time in work that generates passive income by creating a product or a system that’s capable of earning an income long after your original time investment has been put into it. And it expands your income potential.
So, what I really like about this book is that MJ, the author, while saying there is such thing as getting rich quick, which can sound a bit scammy, he keeps it very real in that it isn’t possible without a lot of hustle, a lot of hard work, and a lot of discipline. You need to be incredibly committed, and even though it might be or might look like that you get rich really quick, it’s actually an accumulation of years and experience and knowledge that gets you to that point.
5. Think and Grow Rich: Mindset Matters
Next, we have Think and Grow Rich. This is one of the books that tends to have different opinions; you either love it or you hate it. There’s hardly a middle ground with this book. I’ve come across people who felt that this book was all fluff and didn’t really deliver on what it promised. They expected a clear actionable roadmap to wealth, and so they were quite disappointed when they didn’t find that. And on the other hand, there are people who credit this book with transforming their mindset and their financial lives. [Best Money Books to Read All the Time]
For them, it was like this lightbulb moment that helped them unlock their limiting money beliefs and figure out what was holding them back. So, what’s my take on it? When it comes to success, I believe mindset is everything. If you approach life with a scarcity mindset, thinking that there’s never enough and that money is hard to come by, then that is what you’ll experience. Whereas, on the other hand, if you believe in abundance and that you’re capable of achieving wealth, your actions will align with those beliefs and lead you towards success.
But, and there is a big but, mindset alone is not enough. You can have the most positive, abundance-orientated mindset in the world, but if you’re not taking any action, you’re not going to get very far. It’s like having the best tools in the world but never using them to build anything. You need both the right mindset and then also consistent, focused action.
6. The Psychology of Money: Understanding Financial Behavior
Next, we have another classic, which is The Psychology of Money. So, I have a whole video dedicated to this book and the lessons I’ve learned, so I’ll link that over here. Ultimately, money is as much about psychology as it is about maths. It’s about how our minds perceive and interact with money, our feelings towards money, our past experiences with money, and these things often overshadow the raw financial knowledge that we have. The most interesting part of this book for me is in relation to the fact of how often we misattribute the role of chance or luck in our financial lives. So, the author talks about how most of us learn what to do and what not to do about money by studying the most exceptional financial success stories, like the Bill Gates of the world, and we think that we can replicate her.
But the more exceptional the story, the more likely it is that luck played a bigger role in the outcome, and so the fewer lessons you can actually take from it and implement into your own life. So, he actually recommends paying attention to the patterns and not to the people. [Best Money Books to Read All the Time] So, if one person took route A to get success but 10 people took route B to get success, chances are route B is what’s going to work for you because it’s more likely that chance or luck played a role for the person that took route A. When it comes to money, there are some key patterns and fundamentals that can apply to absolutely everyone, and it doesn’t require a whole amount of chance or luck.
These are the things that have been proven time and time again by investing experts that have trodden the path before us and things you need to consider. Again, that guide is completely free if you want to check it out. It’s in the description box below.
7. Navigating Investments
The Intelligent Investor is a book Warren Buffett read when he was 19, and he still calls this the best book on investing that has ever been written. The principles of this book are timeless, and it illustrates how investing over the long term does not require any specialist knowledge.
It doesn’t require being super intelligent or having really deep insight on anything. It just requires two things: one, a rational framework to make a decision; and secondly, not letting your emotions override your rational framework. He covers how the market behaves, the basic fundamentals of finance, and how to maintain control of your psychology.
Also Read: How to Achieve Financial Freedom: 10 Money Rules for Financial Success
8. The Girl that Invest: Books for Beginners
Then Girls That Invest is written by a friend of mine, Sim. Another really good book for the ultimate beginner who wants to understand why they should invest, the basics, and the terminology of investing, and how to find your investing personality type and create a portfolio that matches that.
9. Common Sense Investing: The Road to Financial Success
Then there’s a little book of Common Sense Investing written by John Bogle, who is the CEO of Vanguard, and he invented index funds. So naturally, he argues how the winning strategy for beginner investors is simple: invest in index funds and do it indefinitely. [Best Money Books to Read All the Time]
He talks about why index funds outperform primary alternatives and talks about the ideal asset allocation of stocks to bonds depending on your age. I personally think this book is a little bit outdated for a number of reasons, and I think that Bogle, who is a bit conservative when it comes to asset allocation. So a good follow-up to this book is The Dando Investor and One Up on Wall Street. They both follow similar principles when it comes to the best investments, and it’s that the best investments are often right under your nose in the sense that they align with what we already know and engage with in our daily lives. And based on this, we actually have a huge advantage over Wall Street pros.