I’m starting a new series on the books that have shaped me most. For this first post, I’m focusing on money. These ten books have brought both insight and inspiration to me through the years. Rather than listing them in order of most formative, I’m listing them chronologically, from when I first encountered them.
First up is Financial Peace, by Dave Ramsey. After graduating from college I moved to Nashville. My first job was a boring desk job, but I was able to listen to the radio while working. One day I found Dave Ramsey’s show, and I listened to it just about everyday. I bought a copy of the book and devoured it. It was from this book, and the radio show, that I learned to budget, to stay of out debt, and to invest in mutual funds. I opened a Roth IRA after reading it.
Next up is Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki. It was 1998 or 1999, and I was working for a financial services company selling mutual funds. The lady who was training me gave me a copy of this book. At the time my mind wasn’t ready for the radical vision of business that this book laid out. However, more stuck with me than I realized. This became clear as I began investing in real estate. One of the big ideas of this book is that you should buy assets that produce cash flow. For the past fifteen years or so Mandy and I have been buying rental properties (assets) that provide cash flow. At the moment we reinvest that cash flow back into the business, but at some point down the road (around nine years from now) we will start living off that cash flow.
Free: Spending Your Time and Money on What Matters Most, by Mark & Lisa Scandrette, is a wonderful book. I actually brought Mark in to teach on this at my church sometime after he wrote this book. It might have been the first book I read that equated time with money. You’ll see that theme repeated in a few other books.
I’m listing these next two books together. The Big Short, by Michael Lewis, and Too Big to Fail, by Aaron Ross Sorkin, both tell the story of the 2008 global recession. I have been fascinated by what happened a little over a decade ago. And has been said before, the best way to know the future is to study the past. A lot can be learned by what happened during this time. Both of theses books were made into great movies as well.
Money: Master the Game, was Tony Robbins’ first book in two decades, and, as Steve Forbes mentions on the cover, it is “a goldmine of moneymaking information.” It’s a thick book, but very readable, and totally worth the effort. The interviews at the end are absolutely incredible. His followup book, Unshakable, co-authored with Peter Mallouk, is also great, especially the final chapter.
I first heard about the FIRE Movement close to three years ago. FIRE stands for Financial Independence Retire Early. It has been a game changer for me. Playing with FIRE, by Scott Rieckens, is a great overview. The author shares his journey of learning more about this movement. He also made a great documentary that Adam and I went to see (back when we went to movie theaters).
Quit Like a Millionaire is Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung’s story of retiring in their early thirties. They’ve been traveling the world ever since. Or at least until COVID. It is both inspiring and very practical.
Finally, JL Collins’ The Simple Path to Wealth is a book that I’ve now read twice. I’ll continue to come back to it. He believes that we often make finances way too complex. Collins originally wrote this book as a series of blog posts for his daughter. I’ve found the content very helpful.
Lifeonaire, by Steve Cook, is a recent find for me. I first heard about this book on the BiggerPockets podcast. It’s another fictional story, and as you can probably guess, it’s a play on the word “millionaire.” Adam and I are reading it together right now. There’s so much in this book that I want him to understand as he prepares to go to college.
I hope that you find some of these books as helpful as I have.