Episode #60: 5 Personal Finance Books To Go From Broke To Beginner Investor
While the internet is an amazing place to gather information and learn new skills, when it comes to learning personal finance skills sometimes it’s better to start with the tried and true classic finance books before you dive into the world of e-learning. I learned everything I needed to know about personal finance from books, and today I’ve put together a list of 5 books to start working your way through if this is the year that you’re ready to start getting your financial ducks in a row.
The Wealthy Barber - David Chilton
The very first book I recommend you read is called ‘The Wealthy Barber’ by David Chilton. It’s a Canadian classic, it’s short, it’s written as sort of a cheesy story that’s actually very friendly and makes the information very accessible and approachable to basically everyone. It covers everything from explaining compound interest really well, to talking about insurance you should have at different stages of your life. If you’re feeling like a total beginner when it comes to managing your money, start with this book because it will give you an overview of the most important personal finance topics that you’ll eventually need to dive a bit deeper into.
Financial First Aid - Alyssa Davies
Once you’ve read that I recommend taking a look through ‘Financial First Aid’ by Alyssa Davies. This book is a deep dive into all things emergency fund, and how to protect your life against potential financial disasters that may try to derail you from your plans. I’m a huge believer in emergency funds, I think that every individual person should strive to have an emergency fund of their own, and I think a huge amount of financial problems that people encounter could be solved or avoided in the first place by having an emergency fund. This is such an important topic, it’s really the first thing you want to work on to create financial security for yourself, and I love that Alyssa has written an entire book about emergency funds and protecting yourself financially. She’s another Canadian finance educator, the book is filled with her beautiful art which makes it a lighter and easier read, and it’s a relatively new book which means it just reads as being more up to date than some of the other finance classics that are out there.
You Are A Badass At Making Money - Jen Sincero
The next book I recommend picking up and reading is ‘You Are A Badass At Making Money’ by Jen Sincero. This is another finance book written by a female author, and while this book isn’t going to teach you any hard finance skills, it dives into the idea of money mindset and understanding your fears, blocks, and limiting beliefs around money in a way that’s really helpful for a lot of people to maybe unpick some of the less helpful money lessons you may have absorbed as a kid. This book is a great palette cleanser between some of the more dense personal finance books, it’s uplifting, inspiring, and really helps make light of learning to manage your money, because it really doesn’t have to be so serious and dull all the time. I keep this book on my shelf of go-to personal finance books and literally just read a random chapter here and there sometimes, because it’s probably the only personal finance book out there that will actually make you laugh. Just wait until you read her story about taking inspiration from the goats, trust me.
Smart Women Finish Rich - David Bach
Next we’re going to dive back into learning some of the hard finance skills you need to know, and the best book for this in my opinion is ‘smart women finish rich’ by david bach. There’s a canadian and an american edition , so make sure you pick up your country appropriate copy, and don’t be turned off by the fact that this is a man writing a finance book specifically for women, I promise there are no ‘icks’ in this book, it’s really great. This covers all of the topics touched on in the wealthy barber, but in more detail and with some more graphics and numbers to illustrate examples. If you simply follow the chapters outlined in this book and directly implement it into your life, you’ll be able to build a financially successful life without any other input really, this book has that much good information packed into it.
The Simple Path To Wealth - JL Collins
Finally the last book I recommend putting on your personal finance reading list this year is ‘The Simple Path To Wealth’ by JL Collins. This book is going to take you deeper into the world of understanding investing and wealth building, without becoming a scary and information heavy investing book. It’s a great way to start developing a better understanding of the blueprint to follow towards building your wealth over the course of your life, so you can take all the skills you’ve learned from the wealthy barber and smart women finish rich, and feel more confident using these skills to start preparing for your future. There are countless other fabulous investing books to learn from after this, but I recommend starting here for a great introduction to the topic.
These 5 books together should help you get an overview of all the most important personal finance topics you need to understand to start building a financially successful life. They should provide you with inspiration and motivation to keep going and keep learning more, as well as teaching you the important theories to understand about everything from creating financial safety nets to investing. I’m constantly reading personal finance books to be able to recommend more to you, so make sure you subscribe and hit the like button if you want more recommendations in the future, and also drop your favourites in the comments below if there are any you’ve read that you really love.
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