Whether 2022 is the year you’ve resolved to manage your money better or you have an adult child or grandchild you’d like to learn some personal finance basics, have I got some books for you.
Actually, they’re 13 money book recommendations from my “Friends Talk Money” podcast co-hosts Pam Krueger, Terry Savage and me and come from our most recent episode (you can hear it wherever you get podcasts.) They’re an eclectic bunch of books — some newly published and others that are classics. But I promise that all are helpful.
As Kruger said on the podcast, these are “books that might actually help you realize that goal of making yourself financially stronger” and “can be life-changing when it comes to how you approach your personal finances.”
Incidentally, Krueger, Savage and I are all personal finance authors and we’re voracious readers of this ilk. So, we know a thing or two about money books that are worth the price.
That leads me to two caveats about personal finance books that I shared on the “Friends Talk Money” podcast.
1. If the book has advice about taxes or retirement planning, check the publishing date. You don’t want to purchase a book with outdated financial advice.
2. Read the author’s bio. Some personal finance books are little more than cleverly disguised sales come-ons for insurance and annuities from authors who sell them.
Savage’s advice when selecting a money book: Ask yourself “what profound attitude adjustment can this give me towards money and what new ways of thinking about money and financial topics are there that it makes it worth my time to read?”
Now to the 13 books (some with the longest titles you’ve ever seen), starting with five Krueger said she’s “actually tried to live by” and has “read and reread.”
“The Little Book of Common-Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns” by John Bogle. The author is the late founder of Vanguard mutual funds, the father of the low-cost index fund (typically a mutual fund that buys shares of the entire stock market) and the man known as champion of small investors. First published in 2007, Bogle’s seminal, plain-English investing book was updated in 2017. Said Krueger: “It slices through the Wall Street noise, getting to the heart of how you and I as investors can do the little things to prosper.”
“The Millionaire Next Door” by Thomas Stanley and William Danko. First published in 1996 and reissued in 2010, it’s all about ways to spend frugally to save more — the way modest small-business owners often do to help …….