CFO of Life #97: The 31 most helpful books about personal finance

Reading is good, doing is great, but doing both is the best!

But what should you read? What should you spend your precious time learning from? Who are the masters of this trade worth exploring?

Well, I had this exact problem 5 years ago when I wanted to start learning more about personal finances. And I guess that many of you have the same problem of finding good books to read.

And in today's busy market, there are more and more books being pushed to us as we are getting flooded with more articles and journal topics. That is why this week, I have put together a list of my favourite books on the topic of personal finance.

This will be presented in 4 categories of books and an explanation of why those books are worth it.

Category 1. Personal Finances

I will teach you to be rich - Ramit Sethi

The Psychology of Money - Morgan Housel

The Richest Man in Babylon - George Samuel Clason

Think And Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill

The Warren Buffet Way - Robert G. Hagstrom

Poor Charlie’s Almanack - Charles T. Munger

The Geometry of Wealth - Brian Portnoy

The Total Money Makeover - Dave Ramsey

Your Money or Your Life - Vicki Robin

The algebra of wealth - Scot Galloway?

The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham?

Category 2. Finance and Accounting:

Security Analysis - Benjamin Graham and David Dodd

Angel - Jason Calacanis

Category 3. Psychology and Life:

The 4-Hour Work Week - Timothy Ferriss

How to Think About Money - Jonathan Clements

Outlive - The scene & Art of longevity - Peter Attia

Solve for Happy - Mo Gawdat

Atomic Habits - James Clear?

Measure What Matters - John Deer

Nudge - Richard H. Thaler

Meditations - Marcus Aurelius?

Letters from a Stoic - Seneca?

Think fast and slow - David Kahneman

Hyperfocus - Chris Bailey?

Breath - James Nestor?

Misbehaving - Richard H. Thaler

Category 4. Business and Motivation to Succeed

The Millionaire Next Door - Thomas J. Stanley

Million Dollar Weekend - Noah Kagan?

Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki

Tribe of Mentors - Tim Ferris?

Zero to One - Peter Thiel

If you were here for the list of the best books to read on the topic of personal finance, that is all of them. Now it is time to share my thoughts on the list and why the psychology part is almost as big as the one about personal finances.?

While this is not a complete list, it is a great starting point. It is also the list that I recommend to any one of my friends. I know there might be a lot of great books missing from the list, but do let me know about any other honourable mentions and I will add them.

Also, you can see that there are two categories that have the bulk of the recommendations “personal finances" and “psychology". And that is on purpose, as 40% of your time should be spent on learning about the theory of personal finance. As those are the building blocks on how to budget, how to deal with debt, how to value your house or how to know if you have enough savings and investments.

The 40% that you should spend on psychology is important as you need to understand “What makes you tick!". As sticking to your habits is essential to achieve your goals. But you need to understand why people fail to do so and what the money myths that stop you from realizing your full potential are. Or the ways that you can trick yourself into doing the right thing.

Last but not least, it is great to spend some time reading up on finance, general business and motivation as it will show you all other aspects of life that are tangential to your personal finances.?

The way you run your personal finances could also be compared to the way a company would look at their finances. And for some of you, learning more about business would show you how businesses make decisions, how they choose what product to sell or even give you the idea to start your own business.

There is no right or wrong when it comes to reading on the topic of personal finances. Beware as most of the personal finance books would have 70-80% overlap. But that one new concept will open your eyes, it will show you how you can do something small and greatly improve your life. It will be that WOW moment that makes the book worth it. And some books will give you more than 2-3 of those.

That’s why reading is important, it will make you think, it will push you to improve and it will introduce you to a lot of new ways of interpreting the world.

“Reading a book is like looking at the world through the eyes of the author and living a day/week or a month of their life.”

Thank you for reading! All comments and topic suggestions are highly appreciated. Post #97 in the series CFO of Life #si #personalfinance #CFOofLife