Comments on: Best Personal Finance Books About Money – Reviews

By: Steve Miller

Steve Miller — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:05:07 +0000

Have you considered the new, award-winning book, Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It? While well-researched and documented, it’s written in story form to make it an enjoyable read.

It tells the stories of people like Warren Buffett and clothes washer Oseolo McCartney and Thomas Jefferson and even Led Zeppelin – memorable, classic wisdom put in a fresh format.

So far, it’s got all five-star ratings on Amazon. Yes, I’m the author and I suppose it’s a rather shameless promo, but the book is helping a lot of people and I’m trying to get the word out. Would love to see some of you read it and give your candid responses.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:37:00 +0000

An early comment mentions “The Four-Hour Work Week” and “I Will Teach You to be Rich” as possible contenders for the list. I disagree. While they are both good reads, they definitely should not yet be considered classics. 4 hours is mostly about time management and caters to a very specific audience (those who are in business, hate their jobs, are middle aged and single). I just finished “I will teach you” and thought it had sound financial advice, but doesn’t add much to classics like “The Millionaire Next Door,” “The Only Investment Guide You’ll ever need,” etc. And I personally hated his crass hipster way of speaking (even though I’m about his same age). So, again… pretty good books, but not classics. Two other books I’d consider on the way to becoming classics are “Top Ten Distinctions between Millionaires and the Middle Class” by Keith Cameron Smith, and “Five Lessons a Millionaire taught me about life and wealth.” Both are short quick reads that are practical guides to getting started in wealth accumulation.

By: OnTheBrink

OnTheBrink — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 05:35:43 +0000

Any opinions on Mary Hunt’s “The Complete Cheapskate”? The only other book on this list I’ve read is Dale Carnegie’s book, so I can’t speak to how good they are… I just found her book to make a lot of sense from a very specific day-to-day money management perspective instead of just a broad strategy. I realize big-picture is important too, but as my “name” eludes, we are on the brink of financial disaster – most likely bankruptcy unless I can find emergency help immediately… I’ve somewhat given up hope that I will be able to find something in time, especially since my wages are already being garnished (and will be for the next 3-4 years), so I’m now looking for a post-trauma strategy and I want to make sure we get it right this time!!! I really don’t want to flounder around trying multiple strategies and failing any more…

I’ve heard a lot about Dave Ramsey’s book and program and listen to his radio program. I like his approach, but mostly what I hear is how to get out of debt, and it appears that his focus is to BUDGET – which is the same as just about every other program I’ve heard about. What I need is a step-by-step guide we can follow to prepare us for the financial emergencies that we ALWAYS seem to be faced with.

Maybe this isn’t the correct forum for me to be airing this information, if it’s not, I apologize. I’m just very desperate to find some help – if possible before the BK, but if not definitely after… We live in a very small community so assistance-counseling is essentially non-existent. Any suggestions or recommendations will be highly appreciated!!!

P.S. I’m going to start reading these books as soon as possible…

By: Save Money Hound

Save Money Hound — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:24:06 +0000

I have found No 2 and 3 on your list both excellent reads.

Reading “Your Money or Your Life” will certainly change the way you view money.

It really makes you scrutinise your expenses based on your values. And to question whether or not the blood, sweat and tears spent in earning money to consume is worth the effort. It all leads back to a couple of fundamental questions about what kind of lifestyle you choose to lead and what your priorities are.

As for The Millionaire Next Door, it certainly turns up some interesting facts about who the real millionaires are. Not necessarily your high consumerist neighbour next door who has got the latest and best of everything!

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:10:39 +0000

Hello all,

I’ve just graduated from university and wondered whether any of these titles (or any others) would be particularly suitable for me? I’ve had a quick look at the Suze Orman one, but wondered if there was anything else out there?

Peter – I particularly enjoyed a book called ‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’ by Robin Sharma, and have found some useful recommendations too.

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:18:56 +0000

Hi,

Could anyone please recommend me any books about this topic “the important about money, or why should you care more about money”. I have had many chances of making a lot of money in the past, but I have the mentality that I don’t care about money, therefore I never took the chances, and also, I had 89,000 in my saving 4 years ago and spent it all on drinking and other material things and I am currently 55,000 in visa debts, and still don’t care about making money to pay them off. Are there any book out there that will change the way I look at MONEY. I have heard a lot of books out there that teach you how to be rich such as (think and grow rich and the science of being rich), but I have found none of the books that tell you the important of money and why you should work hard to make money. I need books that tell me why I need to be rich not tell me how to be rich. Any help suggestion would be great.

Thanks,

Peter

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:13:44 +0000

Do you ever offer any personal finance book giveaways? I have never seen you offer such a prize in any of your blog posts. How about offering some of the older books for loyal readers as an online prize rather than giving out the newer, less proven releases.

Building a personal finance book library from scratch by buying one’s own books is expensive!

By: Budlab

Budlab — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:59:34 +0000

“The Four Filters Invention of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger” book examines each of the basic steps they perform in “framing and making” an investment decision. This book is a focused look into this amazing invention within “Behavioral Finance.” The genius of Buffett and Munger’s parsimonious four filters process was to “capture all the important stakeholders” in a “multi-variable” equation or formula. Imagine…Products, Enduring Customers, Managers, and Margin-of-Safety… all in one mixed “qual + quant” formula.

By: Carter

Carter — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:20:34 +0000

DebtGoal,
I highly recommend you to take a read at Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover. Dave Ramsey’s the master guru of being anti debt. If you are looking for a real way to tackle out of control debt and keep the non-mortgage debt under control try reading his works. Financial Peace By Dave Ramsey’s also a good read for the anti debt folks

By: DebtGoal

DebtGoal — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:32:12 +0000

Is there a book that you can recommend that provides a comprehensive personal financial strategy for someone that carries significant non-mortgage debt?

By: Raymond

Raymond — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:22:51 +0000

Lindsay,

Glad you are a fellow personal finance book reader as well. Millionaire Next Door was definitely one of my favorites. I’ve always been intrigued and particularly fond of reading about millionaire profiles. One work that I particularly enjoy is actually from CNN Money’s online “Millionaires in the Making” series. They haven’t been updating the blog series as much these days however…probably because of the economy – people aren’t as interested in hearing about someone’s dream of becoming a millionaire these days while people out there are still struggling to stay afloat financially.

Buy for lazy book readers out there, I definitely recommend taking a look at audio books as a possible alternative solution to reading books. You can listen to some of these popular personal finance books via your iPod or car audio disc player at your leisure while exercising, jogging on the treadmill, commuting to work, or simply while running errands.

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 20:44:17 +0000

Very thorough post, thank you! I’ve read a lot of these, and I’ll have to check out the others. I’ll have to give the Richest Man in Babylon another try–it’s on my iPod and I had a hard time getting into the quirky narrative.

I like the message of the Millionaire Next Door books because it really reminds us that we don’t need a lot of shiny new things to be happy and independent. True wealth is really about choosing a sustainable lifestyle.

By: Raymond

Raymond — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:18:17 +0000

I enjoyed “Who Moved My Cheese” but am not sure it will necessarily have mass appeal to everyone. I can see how the book may be disliked by some. The story and lesson it offers is pretty rudimentary although I liked the book’s attitude and approach towards the acceptance of change. Maybe not a must read in my opinion, but rather an ought to read.

By: BetsyR

BetsyR — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:06:25 +0000

Ray, I like your PF book pics…but how about Who Moved My Cheese? – written by Spencer Johnson. I dunno why the book gets poor reviews but the story is quite inspiring and gets you thinking about the whole nature of change and how we ought to respond when confronted with such scenarios. It’s all about these 2 mice (Sniff and Sucrry) and 2 humans (Hem and Haw) living in this maze and their personal ways of dealing with the crisis of change when their precious cheese is moved. Lots of parallels between the story and working life in today’s society. But like you mentioned in your blog post….finance and money is now just all about x’s and o’s and numbers, it’s also about how we respond to social interaction and life’s challenges. The book’s a very basic but motivational read!

By: Raymond

Raymond — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:00:40 +0000

Darren,

Those two are interesting new reads for sure. I’ve flipped through both of them but haven’t had time to thoroughly review them. The “Four Hour Work Week” has been out for over a year but I think “I Will Teach You To Be Rich” by blogger Ramit has only been out very recently.

I’ve heard fairly positive things about both but I’ve also heard some criticism… particularly towards Timothy Ferris’ rather extreme approach towards outsourcing of personal services. For new readers, I recommend tackling the oldies but goodies of personal finance books before hitting the new age books. “I Will Teach You To Be Rich” is not really a new age book, but it approaches personal finance book through a “hipper”, young adult approach…I guess it remains to be seen whether Ramit’s book is destined to become a top bestseller.

Thoughts anyone about these two titles?