In today’s rapidly-changing world, having financial security is more important than ever. Unfortunately, many of us were never taught essential strategies for money management, investing, and personal finance.
In school, we were too busy learning about mitochondria being the powerhouse of the cell, right? 🤷♂️
Just look at these sobering statistics:
- 37% (over one-third!) of Americans would not have $400 cash to pay for an emergency expense. (From a 2022 Federal Reserve report.)
- 36% have more 💳 credit card debt than emergency savings. (From a 2023 Bankrate survey.)
- 25% have no personal retirement savings, as in none at all. (From a different Fed report.)
The good news? It’s probably not too late for you to begin learning and transform your financial life.
But with literally thousands of finance books 📚 published every year, which ones are worth reading? We’ve done the research for you, looking through hundreds of book reviews and dozens of reading guides to find the best finance books of all time. (Yes, really! Check our list of references at the bottom.)
We discovered there is no ONE finance book that is best for everyone, so we chose the best books in several categories. Think of it as a financial 🍱 buffet, where you can pick and choose the tastiest morsels for your personal journey!
TLDR: The best Finance books are:
- Best Overall: 1. Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
- Second Best Overall: 2. Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
- Best For Beginners: 3. The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko
- Second Best for Beginners: 4. The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
- Best for Young Adults: 5. I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
- Second Best for Young Adults: 6. The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
- Best for Savings & Debt: 7. The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
- Second Best for Savings & Debt: 8. Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin
- Best for Investing & Retirement: 9. The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins
- Second Best for Investing & Retirement: 10. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle
- Third Best for Investing & Retirement: 11. The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
- Best for Canadians: 12. Millionaire Teacher by Andrew Hallam
Best Overall: 1. Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
What’s it about? Rich Dad Poor Dad is Robert Kiyosaki's story of growing up with a "Poor Dad" (his middle-class real father) and a "Rich Dad" (his best friend's father, a savvy entrepreneur). Kiyosaki says rich people are rich because they don't work for income, but buy assets that make them money.
Best Quote: “The poor and the middle class work for money. The rich have money work for them.“
Why should you read it?
Rich Dad Poor Dad has been THE bestselling personal finance book for basically the past 20+ years, which is like, longer than some TikTok influencers have been alive! 😂 Wrapped in an engaging story of the author’s childhood in Hawaii, you’ll learn lessons about how ‘the rich’ manage their money differently than ‘the poor.’ (Hint: It’s not about skipping the ☕️ lattes or avocado toast!)
However, this book is 🚫 NOT for everyone. It makes some people’s blood boil when Kiyosaki says higher education is often a waste of time and calls stable jobs a 🐭 ‘rat race.’ But hey, if you want to be rich, you could also just write a bestselling book about getting rich, right?
Top lessons include:
- 🎓 Educate Yourself Financially: ‘The Rich’ teach their kids important lessons about growing wealth that we don’t learn in school.
- 🏦 Understand Assets vs Liabilities: ‘The Rich’ buy assets that generate income, while ‘The Poor’ buy liabilities that cost them money (like a house and cars)
- 🚀 Embrace Entrepreneurship: Spotting opportunity is a skill we can acquire, to help us escape ‘the rat race.’
Second Best Overall: 2. Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
What’s it about? Think and Grow Rich is about more than money—it's about getting what we want in life. Napoleon Hill interviewed 500+ successful people (like Henry Ford and Thomas Edison), identifying a 13-step formula for achievement, which includes 1) a burning desire, 2) a definite plan, and 3) persistence past failure.
Best Quote: “The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.“
Why should you read it?
Okay, this one is a little weird because most of it is about getting what we want using our imagination, positive thinking and the mystical law of attraction—it’s like Hogwarts for grown-ups! 🧙♂️ Some people will love this book and others will think it is straight up bonkers. Don’t read this if you’re looking for a practical guide for balancing your budget! (Unless, of course, you’re hoping to attract a money tree with your good vibes! 🌳💰)
Top lessons include:
- 🔥 Cultivate a Burning Desire: The beginning of riches is having an overwhelming desire, bordering on obsession.
- 🎯 Set a Definite Purpose: Clear goals that are written down are essential for success, not vague wishes.
- 🧠 Practice Autosuggestion:We communicate with our subconscious mind by saying affirmations with emotion
Best For Beginners: 3. The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko
What’s it about? The Millionaire Next Door is about the reality of how people accumulate extraordinary wealth. The authors conducted studies that found typical millionaires are not flashy consumers. Instead, they tend to be business owners who work hard, save money, and live middle-class lifestyles like you and me.
Best Quote: “Wealth is more often the result of a lifestyle of hard work, perseverance, planning, and, most of all, self-discipline.“
Why should you read it?
Because you’ll feel better about yourself afterwards! 😂 I’m just kidding. Well, half kidding. These authors interviewed hundreds of millionaires and found that real-life millionaires have surprisingly average lifestyles. Like they are far more likely to drive a Toyota or Ford, than a shiny red Ferrari. 🏎 It turns out, the secret to wealth might just be embracing your inner Average Joe!
Top lessons include:
- 🐿️ Remain Frugal: To get wealthy, you must save money through financial planning, which provides your “seed money” for investing
- 🚫 Avoid Status Traps: A common obstacle to accumulating wealth is a desire to display a high-status lifestyle through flashy consumption
- 🏦 Acquire Assets: People generally become millionaires not through income, but through buying assets that increase in value like stocks, real estate, etc.
Second Best for Beginners: 4. The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
What’s it about? The Richest Man in Babylon is a timeless finance book that explains simple rules to grow wealth, become debt-free, and attain financial freedom. Author George S. Clason invented the phrase "pay yourself first," which means saving 10% of your income before paying any other expenses.
Best Quote: “A part of all I earn is mine to keep.“
Why should you read it?
Want to go on a time-traveling adventure back to 🐪 Ancient Babylon, being entertained by captivating parables about camel drivers, while at the same time learning about how to secure your retirement? Then this is the one for you! Forget about flashy stock tips or cryptocurrency; this book takes you back to the basics of 💰 building riches. Spoiler alert: it turns out that good ol’ saving, investing, and living within your means have always been the foundation of building financial security.
Top lessons include:
- 🐖 Pay Yourself First:Save 10% of your earnings for your future, before paying anyone else.
- 🏠 Lower Your Expenses: Living within our means is about not confusing our needs with our desires.
- 🌳 Let Money Work For You: To become wealthy, our savings must be invested to create passive income.
Best for Young Adults: 5. I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
What is the book about?
I Will Teach You to Be Rich is an actionable guide to organize your finances and live your personal ‘Rich Life.’ Ramit Sethi focuses on conscious spending, so we can buy what we want guilt-free, while also saving money. He gives specific recommendations for credit cards, banks, and investing.
Our favourite quote
“The single most important thing you can do to be rich is to start early.”
What do the reviews say?
| ⭐️ 4.7 on Amazon | ⭐️ 4.2 on Goodreads |
| 👍 Positive: Many people liked the very specific actionable steps that tell you exactly what to do, like which accounts to open at which bank. | 👎 Criticism: Some people said the book contains no new information (just save money and invest in index funds). |
Why should you read it?
What’s not to like about a finance book that kicks off with the tagline: “Buy as many ☕ lattes as you want”? Too many personal finance books are dry, boring and repetitive, which turns people off. This author offers the exact opposite—with plenty of colourful 😂 jokes and the real, honest truth about money. (He even spills the beans on the conversation he had with his wife before they signed a 💍 prenup!)
Top lessons include:
- 💸 Financial Automation. Nobody enjoys paying bills, so why not make it automatic? So that every month your bills are paid and your investment accounts funded without you needing to do anything, and you don’t need to think about it anymore!
- 🛍️ Conscious Spending. Rather than focusing on limiting spending, this is about making a plan for spending on what really makes you happy, so you can live our personal ‘Rich Life’ guilt-free.
- ⏰ Begin Today. It’s better to start now than waiting to get everything perfect, when it comes to saving money and investing. What really matters is being in the game sooner, because of the power of compound interest.
Second Best for Young Adults: 6. The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
What is the book about?
The Psychology of Money focuses on the mental and emotional side of financial success. Morgan Housel says making good money decisions is more about controlling our emotional reactions, rather than mastering math or clever investing strategies.
Our favourite quote
“Financial success is not a hard science. It’s a soft skill, where how you behave is more important than what you know.”
What do the reviews say?
| ⭐️ 4.7 on Amazon | ⭐️ 4.4 on Goodreads |
| 👍 Positive: Many enjoyed the book’s unique focus on the inner psychological side of investing, which is different from most finance books. | 👎 Criticism: Some didn’t like the book is very US-focused, and has almost no references to women. |
Why should you read it?
Does watching the financial news sometimes feel like an emotional 🎢 roller coaster? Then this one is for you! This book help you remain calm and collected 🧘, even if others around you are pulling their hair out. If you can avoid acting impulsively based on emotions, then you’ll make better investing decisions. Simple as that!
Top lessons include:
- 😌 Attitude > Intelligence. Effective investing has less to do with being overly smart or aggressive, and more about remaining calm during crises, even when you’re losing money. When our account balance is dropping, it can be surprisingly difficult to hold on to this long-term perspective.
- 🍀 Luck & Risk. In extraordinary success stories, luck is a stronger factor than skill. And trying to get lucky often carries excessive risk. So the better strategy is to accept making average returns, which can make us wealthy over a long enough period of time (due to compound interest).
- 🤑 Lower Your Ego. A large reason people don’t save more money is the urge to display wealth. Real wealth is hidden in our investing accounts, while spending and debt can be displayed on social media. The greatest thing our money can buy is freedom and independence.
Best for Savings & Debt: 7. The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
What’s it about? The Total Money Makeover is a common sense guide to help you become debt-free and reach financial freedom. Dave Ramsey's "baby steps" plan emphasizes financial responsibility, discipline, budgeting, and avoiding all debt including credit cards.
Best Quote: “If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.“
Why should you read it?
There’s nothing fancy here, folks! Just a common sense plan that works—if you’re willing to 👷♂️ work the plan! Struggling with debt? This is the one to choose. Let Dave Ramsey be your financial Yoda, guiding you through ever-greater ✅ milestones on the path to financial freedom. Eventually, you’ll defeat your personal Death Star—whether that means blowing up your debt or blasting away your 🏠 mortgage payments.
Top lessons include:
- ❄️ The Snowball Method: Pay off your debts smallest to largest, building momentum as you go.
- 💰 Build an Emergency Fund: Establish a $1,000 starter fund, then build 3-6 months of living expenses.
- 💳 Debt-Free Living: Eliminate all non-mortgage debt, fostering financial independence. (Dave Ramsey doesn’t even like credit cards, preferring debit and cash.)
Second Best for Savings & Debt: 8. Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin
What’s it about? Your Money Or Your Life is different from other personal finance books because it talks about choice, freedom and fulfillment—instead of deprivation and discipline. You'll learn how to use money to achieve your authentic dreams and escape the modern traps of consumption, clutter and debt.
Best Quote: “Money is something we choose to trade our life energy for. (...) Life energy is all we have. It is precious because it is limited and irretrievable and because our choices about how we use it express the meaning and purpose of our time on Earth.“
Why should you read it?
We can all feel bad about money mistakes that we’ve made in the past, like those 🛍️ impulse buys, lack of savings, or huge pile of debt. These authors are like financial 👩⚕️👨⚕️ therapists, helping us let go of the guilt and still craft a plan for our financial future. Thanks, guys! 🙌
Top lessons include:
- 🌱 Money is Life Energy: Taking care of our money means valuing our most precious and irreplaceable resource—our time, which we can never reclaim.
- 💸 Savings Equal Freedom: While unrestrained spending seems liberating, it often leads to crippling debt and fear. Conversely, saving money brings true freedom.
- ✌️ No Shame, No Blame: Looking back at our past financial life without guilt, enables us look realistically at our money situation today, so we can create a plan for a brighter future.
Best for Investing & Retirement: 9. The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins
What’s it about? The Simple Path to Wealth is about how to manage our money so we can enjoy financial freedom and greater wealth. JL Collins recommends saving as much as possible, getting out of debt quickly, and investing in low-cost stock index funds.
Best Quote: “Stop thinking about what your money can buy. Start thinking about what your money can earn.“
Why should you read it?
Just want to get started and put your savings somewhere that your money can grow faster than a 🐌 snail-paced 1% bank account? This book simplifies the process. The author recommends one 📈 stock index fund from Vanguard (and one bond index fund for balance). Don’t know what that means? No worries—this book explains it all in plain English! In fact, the best criticism of this approach is that it’s TOO simple, lacking diversification. But if you want a 🎯 quick start, then it’s perfect! Plus, The Simple Path to Wealth is Reddit’s #1 recommended personal finance book today. You can’t argue with the internet, right?
Top lessons include:
- 📊 Buy Low-Cost Index Funds: Instead of buying mutual funds, minimize fees and maximize returns by investing in index funds, which are like a collection of ALL the stocks in the market.
- 🐢 Invest for the Long-term: Develop mental toughness to ignore short-term market fluctuations and noise. Adopt a buy-and-hold strategy, just like many of the best investors.
- ✂️ Be Frugal and Save: Cut unnecessary expenses to boost your savings rate and accelerate your journey to financial freedom—via greater passive income from investments.
Second Best for Investing & Retirement: 10. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle
What is the book about?
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing is about how to better invest your money for retirement. The main idea is that you should buy and hold low-cost index funds, rather than buying individual stocks or actively managed mutual funds. John Bogle founded Vanguard, a pioneer of index fund investing.
Our favourite quote
“Don’t look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack!”
What do the reviews say?
| ⭐️ 4.7 on Amazon | ⭐️ 4.2 on Goodreads |
| 👍 Positive: Many readers appreciated the easy-to-understand writing style, which helps beginner investors avoid common mistakes. | 👎 Criticism: Some noted the book could have been shorter, as it tends to repeat the same main point over and over again. |
Why should you read it?
You’ll probably notice a huge overlap between this book and the last one. That’s because John Bogle is like the 👴🏻 cool grandpa of the investing world, who’s inspired tons of writers, including the author of “The Simple Path to Wealth.” He pointed out something that now seems obvious: that the financial industry is more interested in lining 🤑 their own pockets than ours. I mean, who would’ve guessed, right? 🤷♀️ But hey, thanks to him and others, we now have some nice alternatives about where to put our money
Top lessons include:
- 🌐 Low-Cost Index Funds: Simplify your investing through buying index funds, which are like a collection of all the stocks in the market. This approach minimizes fees, promotes diversification, and provides greater average returns than actively managed funds.
- 🕵️ Beware of Fees: Larger costs and fees are a major downside of buying individual stocks or actively managed mutual funds. These include management fees, buying/selling fees, and greater capital gains taxes.
- 🙉 Ignore Market Noise: Instead of buying and selling based on current news or trends, simply buy and hold. By investing for the long-term, and maintaining patience and discipline, you’ll benefit from greater compounding returns.
Third Best for Investing & Retirement: 11. The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
What is the book about?
The Intelligent Investor is a classic book on “value investing,” which focuses on identifying undervalued stocks. Benjamin Graham emphasizes a disciplined, long-term investing approach that goes beyond just looking at the stock price, to analyzing the underlying company’s fundamentals. Warren Buffett says it’s “by far the best book on investing.”
Our favourite quote
“The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.”
What do the reviews say?
| ⭐️ 4.7 on Amazon | ⭐️ 4.3 on Goodreads |
| 👍 Positive: Many feel the book is essential reading for a deeper understanding of investing. | 👎 Criticism: Some didn’t like the newer commentary in the book that seems to contradict Graham’s value investing. |
Why should you read it?
If you’ve ever 💭 daydreamed about becoming the next Warren Buffett, strutting around with groups of admiring fans soaking up your nuggets of investing wisdom, then this book should be next on your 📚 reading list! While “The Intelligent Investor” may be a classic today, the most important sections focus on timeless principles and remain as true as ever, like a perfectly aged fine wine. 🍷
Top lessons include:
- 🧐 Value Investing: Instead of chasing short-term market trends or overhyped growth stories, focus on finding undervalued stocks with strong fundamentals. Look for things like a proven track record of growth/profits, top-notch management, a history of dividends, and a good price-to-earnings ratio.
- 🔒 Margin of Safety: Always try to buy stocks “on sale,” at prices significantly below their estimated true value. This guards you against losing money in case of mistakes in judgment or market fluctuations.
- 🎢 Mr. Market Analogy: To understand the irrational “herd mentality” of the overall stock market, Benjamin Graham invented a character named “Mr. Market,” who has large random mood swings. Sometimes Mr. Market is overly optimistic causing stock prices to soar, and sometimes he gets depressed causing stocks to plummet, but the main lesson is for us not to be overly influenced by the swings in the public price of a stock.
Best for Canadians: 12. Millionaire Teacher by Andrew Hallam
What’s it about? Millionaire Teacher explains how to start investing as a middle-class person so you could retire a millionaire. Andrew Hallam, who was a Canadian English teacher, explains how to save more money through extreme frugality and where to put our savings for the most dependable growth. (Hint: index funds.)
Best Quote: “The surest way to grow rich over time is to start by spending a lot less than you make.“
Why should you read it?
Looking for finance tips specifically for 🇨🇦 Canadians? Then look no further than this gem from a fellow 🍁 maple syrup lover from British Columbia. This one covers RRSPs, TFSAs and even throws in a few 🏒 Tim Hortons coupons. Just kidding! But seriously, it’s a great read for Canucks. And let’s not forget an honourable mention to “The Wealthy Barber Returns,” the OG Canadian personal finance book!
Top lessons include:
- 🚲 Live Below Your Means: The author, an English teacher, was able to save 70% of his income by living with roommates and cycling 70 miles to work daily! His coworkers felt sad for him, but this allowed him to pay off his student loans in a year and later buy oceanfront property.
- 📈 Index Fund Investing: Many newer finance books talk about the benefits of index funds (as opposed to traditional mutual funds). But this one goes a few steps further, preparing us for objections financial advisors may raise and providing counter-arguments.
- ⏰ Power of Compound Interest: You’ve probably noticed this is a common theme in investing books, and for good reason! The earlier you start investing, the more you benefit from compounding—the impressive effect of your money generating even more money over time.
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