The Top Personal Finance Books to Get a Handle on Your Money

I Will Teach You To Be Rich

This is an excellent choice for a young adult, whether she has recently graduated from high school or college.

Ramit’s no-nonsense approach is simple and works well. He teaches straight-forward, effective approaches to saving, investing, budgeting and banking. There are methods to negotiating debt, automating your money, negotiating a pay raise all while letting you still buy your latte.

Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together

Broke Millennial is a finance book written by a millennial, for millennials. Its casual tone makes for reading that will hold interest while presenting practical information.

Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending

This book, written by two professors, looks at how money CAN buy happiness and how to get the most joy from your spending.

This isn’t a book about budgeting or how to invest. But if you are wanting to learn more about spending your money wisely and in a way that is proven most likely to bring happiness, then this is the book you want to read.

The Simple Path to Wealth

This book was born out of a series of letters from the author to his daughter for the future. In this book, J L Collins talks about simple truths of personal finance including debt, handling investments, and how to think about money. He offers great insight and a path to financial independence.

All Your Worth

All Your Worth helps readers navigate finance by teaching how to balance wants, needs, and savings. The authors introduce the 50/30/20 budgeting. This method helps people manage money with an accessible approach that does not involve counting pennies.

The Richest Man in Babylon

This is a finance classic. Chapters are short stories / parables which are personal finance lessons that are as applicable today as they would have been in ancient Babylon.

The Total Money Makeover

Dave Ramsey is one of the biggest names in personal finance.

If you need help with budgeting, getting out of debt, and controlling your spending, this is a must-read book.

The Automatic Millionaire

In The Automatic Millionaire, David Bach shares his secret to retiring well by paying yourself first and automating savings.

He provides resources to help you get started and information on shopping for interest rates and consolidating debt.

Your Money or Your Life

Vicki Robin shows readers how to use money for living well, rather than just making a living.

She approaches money with a goal of financial independence in mind and encourages mindfulness, minimalism and good habits for managing your money.

The Millionaire Next Door

The Millionaire Next Door describes traits often found among the wealthy. And their examples of the wealthy aren’t the flamboyant superstars you see in the news, but the guy down the street.

The Four Pillars of Investing

In this book, William Bernstein goes into choose an effective mix of asset classes, warns of dangers of picking individual stocks, and provides strategies for managing your portfolio.

While these topics sound complex, the book is presented in a way that is easy to read and simplifies the jargon that laymen run into when trying to learn about investments.

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing

This book is a classic written by a pioneer of mutual funds. John C. Bogle explains why low-cost index funds is the most effective investment strategy to grow wealth.

This new edition includes information on asset allocation and retirement investing, as well.

The Intelligent Investor

Benjamin Graham’s book on investing is one of the staples in any investing library and has a well-deserved reputation. He teaches the development of long-term investment strategies that have stood the test of time. This is a book that even Warren Buffett recommends.