Reviewed by: Fibe Research Team
None of us are born as financial experts, but having some command over how to manage money is crucial for everyone’s lives. This pandemic has been further testament to this fact, and it has become crucial to learn everything you can about personal finance. In our opinion, personal finance books are an amazing place to start learning some basic principles to be utilized in our day to day lives.
In this post, we, at Fibe have curated a list of 5 Personal Finance books that is a must read for everyone looking to learn more about personal finance.
1. Why Didn’t They Teach Me This in School?
The author realized that schools ill-equipped their students regarding handling their own money. This is when he decided to undertake writing this book and therefore, sharing 99 principles of personal financial management. The good thing about the book, even though it was written for school children, anyone can master his 99 principles by reading this book, remember one is never too old to learn anything new.
The principles are divided into 8 broad chapters quite digestible under 200 pages encapsulating various ideas and tips. It covers topics including budgeting, housing, and investing presented in a painless way that even a high-schooler could grasp. It is not a textbook, but a story of his personal experiences. The basic question a young adult would have regarding personal financing is covered in the book.
2. Rich Dad Poor Dad
How can one miss this book while talking about personal financing? This book is more like a memoir with attached lessons for the readers on personal finance. The author walks the readers through his childhood reminisces talking about his not-so-wealthy father and one of the richest residents of Hawaii, the father of one of his friends. He compares to show managing money when you lack it, basically using the best of one’s means. It advocates financial independence, financial literacy, and building wealth by investing in real estate, assets all while increasing one’s FQ (financial quotient).
This book was initially published in 1997. Later on, on the 20th anniversary of the book, a newer updated version was launched which compares life today and 20 years ago, making it an insightful read.
3. I Will Teach You To Be Rich
The author Ramit Sethi while talking about personal finance outlines a six-week plan for living one’s ‘rich life’ as he would define it. This book is best for setting up systems that enable you to build wealth, make a plan, and also help with strategizing with your money.
The readers are walked through various steps like automating everything, starting investing, optimizing your credit cards to get maximum rewards, and starting a conscious spending plan. It is said to be one of the building blocks for learning about personal finance. It is an easy-to-read book and if you implement the ideas in your life, highly actionable too while gaining better returns.
4. Broke Millennial
This book is aimed at the millennials, people who are in their 20s and 30s, one of the initial pit stops of making personal financial decisions. The tone of the book is quite approachable and makes it easy to read and understand. It won’t scare you away while you are looking for solutions to pay off your debt or planning for the long-term future. It not only touches on several aspects for the target age group like investing and saving for retirement but also talks about the emotional relationship with money which the generation has in respect to having faced several financial hurdles like the 2008 crisis or the present pandemic of 2020-21.
The book is a step-by-step guide to smart and savvy money management. Going beyond just the basics, Erin Lowry tackles tricky money matters and most of the situations we face in real life. The advice given is quite simple with additional true and hilarious stories related to personal finance management.
5. Nudge
There are multiple decisions we take every day. And all these decisions impact our life and wellness in some or way, including how we use and spend our money. Therefore a couple of good choices would already mean better financial management. This book talks about that, how things work in the brain when it comes to making decisions. It acts like a manual helping you to do things differently, take better decisions which would help you with money matters. Behaviour is something which we can control, and Nudge helps us in correcting those controls.
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