Your Money or Your Life


Vicki Robin - 1992
    Your Money or Your Life is even more relevant today than it was when the book first hit the stands, and a great publicity campaign will bring this already strong-selling book to a whole new audience.

The Simple Path to Wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life


J.L. Collins - 2016
    You'll never find a wiser advisor with a bigger heart.” -- Malachi Rempen: Filmmaker, cartoonist, author and self-described ruffian This book grew out of a series of letters to my daughter concerning various things—mostly about money and investing—she was not yet quite ready to hear. Since money is the single most powerful tool we have for navigating this complex world we’ve created, understanding it is critical. “But Dad,” she once said, “I know money is important. I just don’t want to spend my life thinking about it.” This was eye-opening. I love this stuff. But most people have better things to do with their precious time. Bridges to build, diseases to cure, treaties to negotiate, mountains to climb, technologies to create, children to teach, businesses to run. Unfortunately, benign neglect of things financial leaves you open to the charlatans of the financial world. The people who make investing endlessly complex, because if it can be made complex it becomes more profitable for them, more expensive for us, and we are forced into their waiting arms. Here’s an important truth: Complex investments exist only to profit those who create and sell them. Not only are they more costly to the investor, they are less effective. The simple approach I created for her and present now to you, is not only easy to understand and implement, it is more powerful than any other. Together we’ll explore: Debt: Why you must avoid it and what to do if you have it. The importance of having F-you Money. How to think about money, and the unique way understanding this is key to building your wealth. Where traditional investing advice goes wrong and what actually works. What the stock market really is and how it really works. Why the stock market always goes up and why most people still lose money investing in it. How to invest in a raging bull, or bear, market. Specific investments to implement these strategies. The Wealth Building and Wealth Preservation phases of your investing life and why they are not always tied to your age. How your asset allocation is tied to those phases and how to choose it. How to simplify the sometimes confusing world of 401(k), 403(b), TSP, IRA and Roth accounts. TRFs (Target Retirement Funds), HSAs (Health Savings Accounts) and RMDs (Required Minimum Distributions). What investment firm to use and why the one I recommend is so far superior to the competition. Why you should be very cautious when engaging an investment advisor and whether you need to at all. Why and how you can be conned, and how to avoid becoming prey. Why I don’t recommend dollar cost averaging. What financial independence looks like and how to have your money support you. What the 4% rule is and how to use it to safely spend your wealth. The truth behind Social Security.

Quit Like a Millionaire: No Gimmicks, Luck, or Trust Fund Required


Kristy Shen - 2019
    Learn how to cut down on spending without decreasing your quality of life, build a million-dollar portfolio, fortify your investments to survive bear markets and black-swan events, and use the 4 percent rule and the Yield Shield--so you can quit the rat race forever. Not everyone can become an entrepreneur or a real estate baron; the rest of us need Shen's mathematically proven approach to retire decades before sixty-five.

Work Optional: Retire Early the Non-Penny-Pinching Way


Tanja Hester - 2019
    But what if you could escape the traditional path and get on one that doesn't require working full-time until age 65? What if you could wake up every day without an alarm clock and do the things you love most? Tanja Hester and her husband Mark left their crazed careerist lifestyle to live their dream life in Lake Tahoe, retiring early from high-stress careers. Now Tanja will help you map out a customized plan for freedom and make it easy to succeed, whether you're good at math and budgeting -- or not! Work Optional is more than just a financial plan: it's a plan for your whole life -- designed by you, not by an employer or clients. Tanja walks you through envisioning your dream life, accounting for variables such as health care and children, protecting yourself from recessions and future unknowns, and achieving a purpose-filled early retirement, semi-retirement, or career intermission with completely doable, non-penny-pinching steps. You can live a happier, more meaningful life, free from the daily grind. Regardless of where you are in your career, Work Optional will get you there.

The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness


Dave Ramsey - 1994
    There's one sure way to whip your finances into shape, and that's with "The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition".By now, you've heard all the nutty get-rich-quick schemes, the fiscal diet fads that leave you with a lot of kooky ideas but not a penny in your pocket. Hey, if you're tired of the lies and sick of the false promises, take a look at this--it's the simplest, most straightforward game plan for completely making over your money habits. And it's based on results, not pie-in-the-sky fantasies. With "The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition," you'll be able to:Design a sure-fire plan for paying off all debt--meaning cars, houses, everything Recognize the 10 most dangerous money myths (these will kill you) Secure a big, fat nest egg for emergencies and retirement!

You Need a Budget: The Proven System for Breaking the Paycheck to Paycheck Cycle, Getting Out of Debt, and Living the Life You Want


Jesse Mecham - 2010
    A guide based on the tenets of the award-winning financial platform, "You Need a Budget," argues that a well-planned budget does not involve deprivation and counsels readers on how to prioritize financial goals, reduce stress through strategic cash flow allocations and meet the challenges of unplanned expenses.

Meet the Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living


Elizabeth Willard Thames - 2018
    But the couple had a dream to become modern-day homesteaders in rural Vermont. Determined to retire as early as possible in order to start living each day—as opposed to wishing time away working for the weekends—they enacted a plan to save an enormous amount of money: well over seventy percent of their joint take home pay. Dubbing themselves the Frugalwoods, Elizabeth began documenting their unconventional frugality and the resulting wholesale lifestyle transformation on their eponymous blog.In less than three years, Elizabeth and Nate reached their goal. Today, they are financially independent and living out their dream on a sixty-six-acre homestead in the woods of rural Vermont with their young daughter. While frugality makes their lifestyle possible, it’s also what brings them peace and genuine happiness. They don’t stress out about impressing people with their material possessions, buying the latest gadgets, or keeping up with any Joneses. In the process, Elizabeth discovered the self-confidence and liberation that stems from disavowing our culture’s promise that we can buy our way to "the good life." Elizabeth unlocked the freedom of a life no longer beholden to the clarion call to consume ever-more products at ever-higher sums.Meet the Frugalwoods is the intriguing story of how Elizabeth and Nate realized that the mainstream path wasn’t for them, crafted a lifestyle of sustainable frugality, and reached financial independence at age thirty-two. While not everyone wants to live in the woods, or quit their jobs, many of us want to have more control over our time and money and lead more meaningful, simplified lives. Following their advice, you too can live your best life.

Invested: How Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger Taught Me to Master My Mind, My Emotions, and My Money (with a Little Help from My Dad)


Danielle Town - 2018
    The daughter of a successful investor and bestselling financial author of Rule #1, Phil Town, she spent most of her adult life avoiding investing—until she realized that her time-consuming career as lawyer was making her feel anything but in control of her life or her money. Determined to regain her freedom, vote for her values with her money, and deal with her fear of the unpredictable stock market, she turned to her father, Phil, to help her take charge of her life and her future through Warren Buffett-style value investing. Over the course of a year, Danielle went from avoiding everything to do with the financial industrial complex to knowing exactly how and when to invest in wonderful companies.In Invested, Danielle shows you how to do the same: how to take command of your own life and finances by choosing companies with missions that match your values, using the same gold standard strategies that have catapulted Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger to the top of the Forbes 400. Avoiding complex math and obsolete financial models, she turns her father’s investing knowledge into twelve easy-to understand lessons.In each chapter, Danielle examines the investment strategies she mastered as her increasing know-how deepens the trust between her and her father. Throughout, she streamlines the process of making wise financial decisions and shows you just how easy—and profitable—investing can be.Capturing a warm, charming, and down-to-earth give and take between a headstrong daughter and her mostly patient dad, Invested makes the complex world of investing simple, straightforward, and approachable, and will help you formulate your own investment plan—and foster the confidence to put it into action.

The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing


Taylor Larimore - 2006
    The book offers sound, practical advice, no matter what your age or net worth. Bottomline, become a Boglehead and prosper! Originally just the chat-line ruminations of Boglehead founder Taylor Larimore, and Morningstar forum leading cohorts Mel Lindauer and Michael LeBoeuf, their trusted advice has been brewed and distilled into an easy-to-use, need-to-know, no frills guide to building up your own financial well-being - so you can worry less and profit more from the investments you make. Invest like a Boglehead, and let their grassroots investment wisdom guide you down the path of long-term wealth creation and happiness, without all the worries and fuss of stock pickers and day traders. If you face a financial crisis or problem, or simply want to know what is prudent to do with the money you save, the Bogleheads will have the answers you need to help you gain your financial footing and keep it.

Set for Life: Dominate Life, Money, and the American Dream


Scott Trench - 2017
    By layering philosophy with practical knowledge, Set for Life gives young professionals the fiscal confidence they need to conquer financial goals early in life. Accumulating a lifetime of wealth in a short period of time involves working harder and smarter than the average person, and Set for Life demonstrates how to do just that―from zero savings to five figures, then to six figures, and finally to the ultimate goal of financial freedom. Wealth isn’t just about a nest egg, setting aside money for a “rainy day,” or accumulating an emergency fund. True wealth is about building out a Financial Runway―creating enough readily accessible wealth that you can survive without work for a year. Then five years. Then for life. Readers will learn how to: • Save more income―50+ percent of it, while still having fun • Double or triple your income in three to five years • Secure “real” assets and avoid “false” ones that destroy wealth

Millionaire Teacher: The Nine Rules of Wealth You Should Have Learned in School


Andrew Hallam - 2011
    But Andrew Hallam did so, long before the typical retirement age. And now, with Millionaire Teacher, he wants to show you how to follow in his footsteps. With lively humor and the simple clarity you'd expect from a gifted educator, Hallam demonstrates how average people can build wealth in the stock market by shunning the investment products peddled by most financial advisors and avoiding the get-rich-quicker products concocted by an ever widening, self-serving industry.Using low cost index funds, coupled with a philosophy in line with the one that made Warren Buffett a multi-billionaire, Hallam guides readers to understand how the stock and bond markets really work, arming you with a psychological advantage for when markets fall.Shows why young investors should hope for stock market crashes if they want to get rich Explains how you can spend just 60 minutes a year on your investments, never open a financial paper, avoid investment news, and still leave most professional investors in the dust Promotes a unique new investment methodology that combines low cost index funds and a Warren Buffett-esque investment philosophy Millionaire Teacher explains how any middle-income individual can learn can learn the ABCs of personal finance and become a multi-millionaire, from a schoolteacher who has been there and done that.

The Money Class: Learn to Create Your New American Dream


Suze Orman - 2011
    She addresses every aspect of the American Dream—home, family, career, retirement. She teaches us that in order to create lasting security we must learn to stand in our truth. We must recognize, embrace, and be honest about what is real for us today and allow that understanding to inform the choices we make.  The New American Dream is not the things we accumulate, says Orman, but the confidence that comes from knowing that which we’ve worked so hard for cannot be taken away from us. In THE MONEY CLASS, Orman teaches us how to take control over our present—right here, right now—in order to build the future of our dreams.  Whether navigating the complicated mix of money and family, offering the most comprehensive retirement resource available today, or delivering a bracing dose of reality when it comes to recalibrating our expectations and our goals, Orman educates us with her signature no-nonsense approach and laser-like clarity. She empowers us to live a life of integrity and honesty that will create an enduring legacy for future generations—a New American Dream that lies in truth, security, financial freedom, and peace of mind.

Financial Freedom: A Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need


Grant Sabatier - 2019
    Time is not. Become financially independent as fast as possible.In 2010, 24-year old Grant Sabatier woke up to find he had $2.26 in his bank account. Five years later, he had a net worth of over $1.25 million, and CNBC began calling him "the Millennial Millionaire." By age 30, he had reached financial independence. Along the way he uncovered that most of the accepted wisdom about money, work, and retirement is either incorrect, incomplete, or so old-school it's obsolete.Financial Freedom is a step-by-step path to make more money in less time, so you have more time for the things you love. It challenges the accepted narrative of spending decades working a traditional 9 to 5 job, pinching pennies, and finally earning the right to retirement at age 65, and instead offers readers an alternative: forget everything you've ever learned about money so that you can actually live the life you want.Sabatier offers surprising, counter-intuitive advice on topics such as how to:*  Create profitable side hustles that you can turn into passive income streams or full-time businesses*  Save money without giving up what makes you happy*  Negotiate more out of your employer than you thought possible*  Travel the world for less*  Live for free--or better yet, make money on your living situation*  Create a simple, money-making portfolio that only needs minor adjustments*  Think creatively--there are so many ways to make money, but we don't see them.But most importantly, Sabatier highlights that, while one's ability to make money is limitless, one's time is not. There's also a limit to how much you can save, but not to how much money you can make. No one should spend precious years working at a job they dislike or worrying about how to make ends meet. Perhaps the biggest surprise: You need less money to "retire" at age 30 than you do at age 65.Financial Freedom is not merely a laundry list of advice to follow to get rich quick--it's a practical roadmap to living life on one's own terms, as soon as possible.

The Wealthy Barber Returns


David Chilton - 2011
    While you're at it, learn a thing or two about your personal motivation and how to point it in the right direction. And laugh your socks off, too! I thoroughly enjoyed this book!"Gail Vaz-Oxlade, TV Host of Til Debt Do Us Part and Financial Author"The Task Force on Financial Literacy can stop dithering. All it has to do is distribute Dave Chilton's long-awaited The Wealthy Barber Returns."Jonathan Chevreau National Post Columnist and Author of Findependence"Very funny. Very smart. This fast-paced journey through the world of personal finance will help a lot of people. I loved it!" Amanda Lang, CBC Senior Business Correspondent"A simple plan for a better financial future: Read this book. It's down to earth, fun to read and wise to all the mistakes people make in managing money."Rob Carrick, Personal Finance Columnist, The Globe and Mail

Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence


Chris Mamula - 2019
    And then, there are three suburban dads just trying to make the world a little bit better. Meet Brad Barrett and Jonathan Mendonsa of the award-winning Choose FI podcast and Chris Mamula of the popular blog “Can I Retire Yet?”. They have walked the talk and now want to share their knowledge with you. Together, these three regular guys will show you how they did something extraordinary. They are all financially independent and doing meaningful work that fulfills them. All three left their corporate 9 to 5 jobs and are reaping the benefits of extra time with their families. Mirroring the format of the popular Choose FI podcast, this book pulls from the collective knowledge of those who have decided to build a lifestyle around their passions instead of allowing their finances to dictate their future. These stories demonstrate universal principles, giving you the opportunity to pick the elements that are the most applicable to your financial situation and “choose your own adventure.”FI or Financial Independence is the new debt-free and getting back to 0 is just the beginning of a wonderful journey. Whether you have mountains of debt now or are recently debt free and wondering what to do next, Choose FI : Your Blueprint to Financial Independence will give you the information to guide your next move.