3 Personal Finance Books to Read

Interested in personal finance? Take a look at my top 3 books to read on personal finance to help further your knowledge on the subject!

1. Rich Dad, Poor Dad

One of the first books I read about personal finance was Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. I heard a lot about this book before I picked it up and it's very polarizing - everyone I know either hates it or loves it.

The one thing I keep hearing from people who dislike the book is that it doesn't give you a replicable formula for generating wealth. Spoiler alert: it's not supposed to. This is Robert's personal experience with generating wealth and it has a lot of nuggets on how you can also apply these wisdoms to your own life to generate wealth. A lot of what Robert did can't necessarily be replicated word for word.

For example, in one of Robert's real estate investment anecdotes, he talks about how bad the economy was in the 1990s. Houses were on a deep discount and by shopping at a foreclosure auction, he could find a $75,000 house selling for $20,000 (which is nearly impossible now as we are in a hot housing market in Feb 2022). He was able to borrow $2,000 from a friend for 90 days in exchange for $200 interest. Long story short, he was able to sell the house for $60,000 plus a $2,500 processing fee, so he essentially made $40,000 on this transaction. There are several things about this anecdote that doesn't make it realistic for some of us. First, none of my friends would loan me $2,000 in exchange for $200 in interest. My parents wouldn't even do that. Second, he was lucky that the house he purchased didn't require significant renovations or work done to make the place inhabitable. When you're buying at an auction, you can't view the property prior to purchasing. You can get really lucky and it's in perfect condition, or you can be screwed because the owner has been neglecting the place due to the inability to pay for repairs, etc. The point isn't that this exact situation will happen to you. The point is that you have a better chance at finding a good deal at a foreclosure auction than just buying a property listed on Zillow. If you read the book from that lens, you'll learn a lot of interesting ways on how money can work for you.