Ready to Take Control of Your Money? Start Here.
I was fortunate enough to grow up in a family where talking about money and investing was commonplace. That initial exposure served as a launch pad for me to continue expanding my own financial literacy.
As a kid, it seemed so simple. All families talk about money, how it works, and investing. It’s just something everyone knows.
Now that I’m 30, I now realize how far off that thought was. I’ve learned that very few families openly talk about money which ultimately contributes to financial illiteracy. Furthermore, our public education system spends little to no time on the topic.
The end result, unfortunately, is that in one way or another many people have a misunderstanding of investing and end up not participating.
I’ve read, listened to, and watched personal finance content over the years. These three books are my absolute favorite of all of the media I have consumed, and are the exact books I would want myself to read if I was just starting out.
If you’re just starting out on your journey, I would strongly recommend you read these three books in the following order: The Millionaire Next Door, The Simple Path To Wealth, and Millionaire Mission
1. The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy by Thomas J. Stanley
Two sentence summary: The book focuses on learnings gathered from studies on real American millionaires. The results from the study dispel many misconceptions we have about wealth in America and we learn that many millionaires have had modest incomes and don’t live the lavish lifestyles that we think of.
What you’ll gain from reading it:
- Recalibrate your understanding of what wealth is
- The realization that becoming wealthy is more heavily driven by your ability to save (reduce expenses) and manage lifestyle creep rather than your income
- The realization that becoming wealthy is largely driven by habits and behaviors– not financial knowledge
- An understanding of the difference between income and wealth
2. The Simple Path to Wealth: Your Road Map to Financial Independence and a Rich, Free Life by J. L. Collins
Two sentence summary: The book shines a light on the fact that the path to becoming wealthy is actually extremely simple, you essentially invest in broad market index funds and let time and compound interest do the heavy lifting. The book introduces the concept of financial independence (The FIRE movement), portfolio strategies, and exposes that complex financial instruments largely exist to benefit their creators.
What you’ll gain from reading it:
- Introduction to the concept that investing can be a means to an end to achieve independence
- An appreciation for the power of compounding over time
- Explanation of index funds
- Introduction to key terminology, concepts, and portfolio strategies
3. Millionaire Mission: A 9-Step System to Level Up Your Finances and Build Wealth by Brian Preston
Two sentence summary: The book is centered around explaining the FOO (Financial Order Of Operations) framework created by Brian Preston (Host Of The Money Guys Show). FOO is a clearly laid out, tactical approach that makes sure your dollars are being allocated in the correct order in order to achieve wealth.
What you’ll gain from reading it:
- An actionable and easy to follow framework that tells you how to use your dollars depending on where you are within your wealth building journey
- An introduction to The Money Guys, who put out a substantial amount of free content including podcasts and resources to further financial education
- Reinforcement of key concepts
