The Best Personal Finance Books for Learning the Basics and Beyond

I’ve read a lot of books about money, from the classics that are recommended in business school to the trendy Millennial lilac ones that focus on feelings and manifestation instead of compound interest.

Of all the personal finance books I’ve read, I’d recommend a few as non-negotiables on your personal finance journey – especially because they’re good for different reasons.

I like to think about beefing up your personal finance skills a little bit like sewing a quilt. When you start to learn the basics, that becomes the fabric skeleton of the quilt (can you tell I’ve never made a quilt before?). Then, you start to learn more in-depth stuff – and it adds some texture and fabric to the basics. You start to form your own opinions. Your own strategy evolves. Then, before you know it, you might pick up a book and realize that you know 90% of the information already (you may even disagree with the author at points, because now you know enough to have dissenting opinions! Look at you go!), but then you stumble into some small chunk that highlights a topic you’d previously neglected, and boom, that section in the quilt is no longer a blank hole. It’s patched.

Start with: I Will Teach You to Be Rich, by Ramit Sethi

I Will Teach You to Be Rich is a cross between a personal finance classic and a snarky Millennial manifesto. The more personal finance shit you read, the more you’ll realize each author has their own hot-take shtick that enables them to sell books that basically teach the same fundamentals as all the other books that came before it.

And I don’t say that critically – it’s hard to form a hot take about something like money, because the initial reaction from the masses is usually, “What? No.”

But Ramit’s hot take is that you have to stop asking $3 questions (the latte question) and start asking $30,000 questions. Stop sweating the small shit and start calling your credit card company asking for a lower interest rate.

He’ll teach you the basics, and he won’t apologize for hurting your feelings. I kinda like it.

What this is: The basics, with an emphasis on the power of automation and getting clear on “your rich life.”

What this is not: A focus on financial independence and early retirement.

Then, read: Financial Freedom, by Grant Sabatier

To me, Grant’s writing style is a little too “casual bro” for me – but I can’t deny the guy knows his shit. I learned the most in chapters 10-12 about investing and the “withdrawal” strategy in early retirement.

Grant focuses a lot on supercharging your income and spends a lot of time on topics like house hacking and side hustles, which I think is a little limited in its tactical helpfulness but really great inspiration if you feel stuck.

His strengths definitely lie in the solid math behind all of his ideas. He used math in a way that I hadn’t yet seen in a personal finance book, and his ideas influenced me a lot, especially when it came the logistics of financial independence – some of the questions I hadn’t asked yet, because I was so focused on build, build, build.

What this is: A focus on how to retire early, and a deep dive in the investment strategy that can get you there.

What this is not: A “basics” guide, or a Travel Rewards guide – I’d skip that chapter entirely, because it was inaccurate (as a person with airline employment experience, I know some of his tips were based on myth).

Last, read: Quit Like a Millionaire, by Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung

If you’re a writer, you might relate to this: Have you ever read a book or blog that reminds you so much of a better version of your own style that you’re almost kinda pissed at how good it is?

That’s how reading this book was for me: A combination of, “Holy shit, this woman writes EXACTLY like me,” and “Goddamnit, she’s so much smarter.”

The moral of the story is, if you like my writing, you’ll love this book. Kristy grew up in abject poverty in China (her family lived on 44 cents per day) and retired at 31 with a million dollars in the bank. She will make you second-guess every excuse you’ve ever made for yourself and consider both the way you leverage your own privilege and the way you spend money differently.

What this is: A graph- and math-driven how-to guide for setting up your investment accounts and tax optimization that will make you laugh out loud.

What this is not: A guide for beginners. While you probably could pick this up without knowing anything, there are a few places where I even found myself re-reading paragraphs because she slipped into “personal finance guru” mode a little too deeply.

I would save this one for last to cap off your journey.

I realize 2 out of 3 of my recommendations are related to financial independence.

Even if you don’t want to retire early, the financial independence community is the most progressive and shrewd subset of the personal finance community – these people literally read tax law for fun to find loopholes, and their philosophy is powered by the belief that your freedom and time is more important than your money. I don’t know about you, but that inspires me more than the Dave Ramsey approach to life which is “cut up your credit cards and start clipping coupons.”

Financial independence is a “smarter, not harder” strategy, and I think you’ll gain a lot from these books.

And together, we can patch up our faulty quilts and get rich – together.