I’ve covered the best free personal finance apps before, and it seems like these days, that’s the way most people (people in my generation, anyway) manage their finances. When we spend so much time on our phones, even doing most of their reading on there in the form of news articles or ebooks, it’s easy to forget the value of a traditional book. I’m taking it old school this time and listing some great reads that will help you learn about how to manage your personal finances. When there are so many technologies out there that can do things for us to simplify our lives, it pays to know how to do some things for ourselves and pick up some valuable skills along the way. Being a busy college student, I don’t get a lot of time to read for fun, so I definitely plan to add these to my reading list:
1.The Millionaire Next Door: Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko (1996)
You may think that, being over 20 years old, this book would be a little outdated, but it contains some expert advice backed by more than 20 years of research into the key characteristics of America’s millionaires, explaining how you can become rich if you master the basics of personal finance. The book teaches valuable lessons that are simple to implement into your life to develop better money habits.
2. All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan: Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi (2005)
This book, written from Dr. Phil’s personal finance guru Elizabeth Warren and her daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi, is a practical financial guide for the everyday person. The authors deliver a step-by-step plan that will help you get your finances in check and maintain control of them for the rest of your life.
3. I Will Teach You To Be Rich: Ramit Sethi (2009)
Wouldn’t it be great if some nice, rich person could teach you their ways and help you get rich? Well, that’s just what Ramit Sethi does in his light, informal guide targeted at 20-to-35-year olds. Sethi offers readers a 6-week personal finance plan based around the four pillars of personal finance (banking, saving, budgeting, and investing) that will set them on the path to better money management.
4. The Behavior Gap: Simple Ways to Stop Doing Dumb Things with Money: Carl Richards (2012)
If you’ve ever felt that you blow through your paycheck way too quickly and are wasting money on things you don’t really need, you wouldn’t be alone. Luckily, there’s a guide out there written by financial planner Carl Richards that will help you make smart financial decisions and stop making the same mistakes. Using simple illustrations to demonstrate “the behavior gap” (the distance between what we should do and what we actually do), Richard’s book is easy to follow.
5. Money Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom: Tony Robbins (2014)
Tony Robbins is a life coach and philanthropist we’d probably all aspire to be- he was hailed by Oprah Winfrey as “super-human.” Unfortunately, we can’t all be Tony Robbins, but we can read his book and learn his ways. Robbins gives an expert seven-step guide to financial freedom based on extensive research and interviews with some of the most renowned financial experts in the world, including Warren Buffett and Steve Forbes.
6. The Investment Answer: Daniel Goldie and Gordon Murray (2011)
It’s smart to start investing in stocks at an early age, and this book teaches how you can do that in a way that is not all dry or boring. It explains, in simple terms, the basics of investing by focusing on five key decisions every investor must make. The author, Gordon Murray, wrote this book with his friend Daniel Goldie just months before passing away from brain cancer to impart his Wall Street wisdom on the world.