Recently I’ve been very into reading about personal finance. There are so many fantastic books about using and managing your money, so I decided to create my own personal finance reading list for beginners.

Why Reading About Money Matters

I finished reading the highly recommended personal finance book Rich Dad Poor Dad last night.

It only took me a few days to read Rich Dad Poor Dad in my spare time and I feel like I learned something really important from the book. I learned that I need to keep learning!

Obviously I already knew that, but I know I need to take it a step further. I feel like the main idea advocated in the book is continued learning and knowledge growth.

If you want to be rich you need to increase your financial literacy/knowledge through reading.

After reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, I decided that’s exactly what I need to do. I’m personally uncomfortable about some concepts related to money but I think the fear just comes from lack of knowledge. So I’m going to slowly start tackling that lack of knowledge and educating myself on personal finance, money, running a business, and investing. I want to learn everything I can about money instead of being afraid of it. I want to learn to control my money instead of having it create situations that control me.

The great thing about personal finance is that you can learn money management for nearly free! If you can’t afford to enroll in a course or take a seminar you can always read a book. You don’t even have to buy these books – many are available from local libraries for free.

Books are relatively inexpensive and often free, so it won’t be a burden financially to learn about personal finance.

A Personal Finance Reading List

This list of beginning personal finance books is inspired by the Personal MBA concept.

For this endeavor I grabbed the personal finance section of books from that list to start my own personal finance reading list and then added a few more based on recommendations from other personal finance bloggers and the best-sellers list on Amazon.

General Personal Finance Books

• Your Money or Your Life by Joel Dominguez & Vicki Robin
• The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey
• It’s Not About the Money by Brent Kessel
• The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke by Suze Orman

Growing Wealth Books

• I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
• The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley & William Danko
• The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich by David Bach

Investing Books

• Fail Safe Investing by Harry Browne
• The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing by Benjamin Graham
• The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns (Little Books. Big Profits) by John Bogle
• The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing by by Taylor Larimore, Mel Lindauer, Michael LeBoeuf

Personal Growth Books 

• Work Less, Live More: The Way to Semi-Retirement by Bob Clyatt
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen Covey
• Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters by Jon Acuff
• Quitter: Closing the Gap Between Your Day Job & Your Dream Job by Jon Acuff
• Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence by Daniel Goleman
• How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Women & Business Books

• Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg
• Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office by Lois Frankel
• Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman: What Men Know About Success that Women Need to Learn by Gail Evans
• How Remarkable Women Lead: The Breakthrough Model for Work and Life by Joanna Barsh and Susie Cranston
• Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny by Suze Orman
• Financially Fearless: The LearnVest Program for Taking Control of Your Money by Alexa Von Tobel

And now I’m researching more books to read because new ones come out all the time and end up on the Amazon Best Sellers Personal Finance list.

I would love it if you all could help me out and give me some good ideas for reading material. I want to keep learning!

What else should I read?