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With the weekend (what’s a weekend again?) coming up, there will be lots of drinking, debauchery, and Pokeman Go (I haven’t been sucked into the madness yet and I’m still holding on. Be strong, FIRECracker, be strong). But that’s for regular people. Here at Millennial Revolution, we are hustlers. And hustlers know that a single second not learning about financial independence and investing, is a second that someone else—instead of you—is getting rich.
And thus I present to you…
“Books That Will Teach You To Be Rich”!
These books helped us get to where we are today, so we know they will help you too.
Full disclosure: The links below are affiliate links so if you buy them, I will get a small portion of the book price. However, if you prefer to get them from the library, I won’t judge.
Investing:
- The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing, by Taylor Larimore, Michael LeBoeuf, Mel Lindauer
- Practical advice on investing and retirement planning, based on the principles of Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard.
- Talks about Allocation, Indexing, Rebalancing, as well as minimizing taxes.
- If you don’t have time to read all the books, this one is the one to read.
- The Simple Path to Wealth, by J.L Collins.
- Written by the Godfather of the FIRE (Financial Independency Retire Early) movement, Jim Collins, who blogs at http://jlcollinsnh.com/, this book is the perfect, practical guide to teach you how to invest.
- Check out my book review here.
- What’s Good, Bad and Downright Awful in Canadian Investments Today, by Rob Carrick
- Not the most riveting read but a good reference book.
- Carrick is one of the first authors who taught us why investment fees suck.
- The Warren Buffett Way, by Robert G. Hagstrom
- Helped us understand why “buy and hold” works.
- Warren Buffet thinks of investing in terms of years, not days or months. And now we do too.
- “Random Walk down Wallstreet”, by Burton G Malkiel
- “The Stock Market is rigged,” and this book proves it. That’s why we use AIR (Allocation, Indexing, Rebalancing), and don’t bother timing the market.
- “The Intelligent Investor”, by Benjamin Graham
- “In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.”
- This books taught us that in the short term, the market swings wildly due to human emotion. But in the long term, the fundamentals kick in and forces it to act rationally.
- Risk-Return Analysis: The Theory and Practice of Rational Investing, by Harry Makovwitz
- Extremely boring (can you tell by the title?). Basically a textbook and I almost chewed my own arm off to stave off the boredom, but introduces the vital concept of “Modern Portfolio Theory”.
- “In Your Best Interest”, by H. (Hank) Cunningham
- If you want to understand how bond yields and the bond market works, this is your bible. Except the bible is a roller-coast ride compared to this. Perfect for insomniacs. But if you can get through it, you will learn A LOT.
Financial Independence:
- Your Money Or Your life, by Joe Domingue and Vicki Robin
- One of our favourite books of all time and our inspiration for becoming Financially Independent.
- Millionaire Next Door, by Thomas J. Stanley Ph.D
- Another favourite. Basically the premise is: real millionaires are not flashy and don’t have sexy jobs/businesses. So the next time you think of sucking up to the guy with the Maserati, don’t bother. Your 5-year-old nephew probably has more money in his piggy bank.
- Findependence Day, by Jonathan Chevreau
- This is a strange little book (with a HIDEOUSLY hacked together cover) that uses fiction to teach financial independence. Not the most well-written book, but unique and interesting.
- Millionaire Maker, by Loral Langemeier
- I found this book randomly while browsing the library. The title caught my eye, even though it had a “get rich quick scheme” vibe to it. But I gave it chance and, shockingly, as soon as I read the first chapter I was hooked! (And as an author, I don’t say this often.)
- There were some parts of the book that were wishy washy, and had a lot of made up terms like “the Wealth Creation Process” that I didn’t care for, but I still liked it because it offered practical wealth-building advice and is fun to read.
- My favorite quotes:
- “You can’t eat your houses or take off a shingle to buy a car. Most of us need cash flow. For some of us, it might be better to rent in the place we want to live and put the money into assets that can create cash flow.”
- “I actually do not believe that if you do what you love, the money will follow. Ask any poet how that’s going for him or her, and I’m sure you’ll be hit up for a loan. I think it’s important to hold on to your day job until you can establish a formidable flow of cash.”
- “You get to do what you like only after you make money and gain business skills doing what you already know. ”
- Cash Flow Quadrant, by Robert T. Kiyosaki
- Not a big fan of Kiyosaki, but was a HUGE fan of this book. It helped me realize why I needed to become an investor instead of an employee. Now that I’m on the other side, things are SO much sweeter. I pay WAY less tax (2.8% instead of 22%) and my money pays me even when I’m sleeping.
We will continue to add this list over time. What are some of your favourite finance books?
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– Fooled by Randomness
– Antifragile
– Black Swan Theory
All by Nicholas Nassim Taleb
Animal Spirits by George Akerlof and Robert Shiller
Irrational Exuberance also by Shiller
Yes, Shiller and Taleb are gods in this field 🙂
For sure. Besides being incredibly enlightening, I also found Taleb’s writing to be pretty amusing.
Robert Shiller of the Shiller House Price Index? Oooooh I’ve gotta pick that one up.
Ugh, did I just fangirl over an Index? :hangs head in shame:
Also note Shiller offers a frew course on open Yale. Technically not a read, but if you turn the subtitles on it sort if is.
Good to know! Thanks for the suggestion.
You can also check out Shiller’s free Financial Markets course on Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/learn/financial-markets
-Skin in the Game by Nicholas Nassim Taleb: important for understanding disproportionate risk and the problems from taking advice from people without skin in the game.
-Millionaire Teacher by Andrew Hallum: this is the book that I read right after my bachelor’s which opened me to the realization that I could plant the seeds of FI on my PhD student stipend.
-Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki: the big takeaway is the difference between assets and liabilities: assets put money in your pocket. Liabilities do not. As for real estate leverage, this was written during a different time before REITs and Roofstock existed and therefore do not take these newer options for real estate investing into account.
-Self Made by Nely Galan: written with women in mind, but helpful for all. This book contains ways to create opportunities to build wealth as a self-made person, not by relying on Prince Charming or Job Charming to tell you who you are.
I just stumbled upon a summary of the following book as a tangent to some reading I was doing on the Smith Manoeuvre.
Lifecycle Investing: A New, Safe, and Audacious Way to Improve the Performance of Your Retirement Portfolio
“The point is simple: if diversification across asset classes is so good, why not also seek greater diversification across time periods?” – author Ian Ayres
Doesn’t sound like a strategy for everyone, but I might just have to read it to expand my horizons. Robert Shiller even endorsed it.
Yeah I’ve heard about that. “Lifecycle Investing” is, essentially, borrowing to invest in index funds when you’re in your 20s to take advantage of your longer time horizon. It’s one of those ideas that works out great in a spreadsheet but is impractical in real life because people in their 20’s are still trying to figure out what investing is, let alone considering such an aggressive cowboy move like that. And besides, margin investing + indexing are fundamentally incompatible with each other, because in market downturns youe margin will get called, forcing to sell you ETFs while it’s negative, which completely defeats the point of indexing.
Out of curiosity, why are you researching the Smith Manoeuvre? Aren’t you living on a boat?
I agree the “lifecycle investing” is highly unlikely to work for many, but I like to look at many different strategies and further develop my own drawing upon ideas that may compliment or enhance my current plan, if they fit with my investing personality.
As for the Smith Manoeuvre, we are headed back to land life and potentially jobs… Sailing and boat living was never meant to be forever so the aforementioned strategy could become relevant one day. While we use our near FI to our advantage we don’t want to live complete minimalist lives forever just for the sake of not working (our portfolio is a bit smaller than yours), so we will strive for continued modest living and target career satisfaction (if it exists) on the final road to complete independence.
I gotta admit, that sailing lifestyle of yours sounds pretty cool. Hopefully going back to being landlubbers (do people say that or just 18th century pirates?) won’t bore you to tears. But hey, it sounds like your only a few more years away from FI, so good for you! As for attaining target career satisfaction, I wouldn’t get your hopes up. In my experience, the perfect job is the one you create for yourself.
The book that got me started is Garth Turner’s Money Road. It goes over the why and explains the how. A little dated (it names segmented funds as a good vehicle… mucho fees!)
For modern portfolio theory i liked “The intelligent investor”, but it is a little drier.
I forgot to mention “the snowball”, Warren Buffett’s biography. Instead of reading what’s said about him, it helps you see what he did (right and wrong) to get where he is.
Interesting fact: buying Berkshire was an error.
Ooh I am so picking that up.
Oh yeah, I read that one too. I liked it but I agree it’s a bit dated. At one point I think he talks about diversifying by buying randomly picked equities, but I think that was before Index ETFs had become popular. Good book though.
I will teach you to be reach by Ramit Sethi
Heard good things about Ramit Sethi from Pat Flynn’s blog. Haven’t read the book yet, but will put it on my “to be read” list.
Millionaire Teacher – Andrew Hallam
Richest Man in Babylon is one of my go-tos.
Read that one. Loved it!
Interesting that everyone is always so focused on stocks. I was too for many years and read the same great books above, did the whole Buffet / Benjamin Graham / Vanguard / ETF index investing thing and obediently added funds every year but the portfolios grew more by me adding cash than by themselves increasing in value. Even with dividends staying in.
I got tired of it all eventually and cashed in my ROTH and used the money to buy commercial real estate and commercial land instead.
I have never been happier with my portfolios…. in about two years I’ve created close to $1M USD in equity and in addition a very strong and growing cash flow to go with it. In fact, the cash flow in the next six months will grow to the equivalent of a 4% safe withdrawal rate from a mutual fund investment of about $1.8M USD.
So, not only did I create $1M USD in equity, the cash flow is like I have another $1.8 USD in the bank!!!
So, I doubt I will ever go back to stocks. In fact, now that my eyes have been opened to the incredible opportunities, in commercial land especially, I am looking to increase my investments in this area. The IRR projections on my next deal is over 100% over a 3-year period. Way over.
I can guest post my deals if you guys are interested. I think it’s definitely something to look into. As William Penn famously said…. don’t wait to buy land, buy land and wait.
Have you read “The Wealthy Renter”? It was pretty good!
Yes! I haven’t had a chance to finish it yet but I love it! Very thought-provoking and well-written.
It’s interesting how “The Wealthy Renter” and “Burn Your Mortgage” are basically the anti-thesis of each other. It’s good to read both and make your own conclusions 🙂
I’ve got a good one I’m reading at the moment…
The Art of Frugal Hedonism by Annie Raser-Rowland
Humorous and very clever!
My 2cents from aus. X
For the UK contingent, it’s got to be “Reset: How to Restart Your Life and Get FU Money” by David Sawyer
For those using geographic arbitrage:
– Global Expatriate’s Guide to Investing – Andrew Hallam (Fellow Canadian)
Fundamentals:
– Unshakable – Tony Robbins (Disclaimer: I was skeptical at first but this book is excellent. Many of the examples are American but the principles are widely applicable)
Thanks for this list.
Re: the Kiyosaki quadrants book, I’ve seen him explain this in video and he seems to suggest you need to own a large business and invest your profits in order to pay low taxes.
Is this blog your big business? I’d like to get to the “I“ quadrant without starting a business, if possible.
Thank you.
Hi MR,
How do you feel about Ken Honda’s about Money EQ / Money IQ? Have you heard about it and what do you think about it?
Thanks,
Victor
Another good book, might be worth mentioning: “Make Money Trading Leading Stocks”
If you haven’t read Morgan Housel’s The Psychology of Money yet, highly recommend it. Very well written stories of how to deal with our cognitive biases towards money.
Hello there, new to your website and checking out this list… curious to know whether you would you update it now, almost 5 years later?