As you may remember from some of my other articles, I went from working as a flight attendant for twelve years, messing up my body, and being financially unimpressive (to say the least.) There were several things that I had to learn to get my act together financially so that I could live independently and quit flying. I had to quit flying to be healthy. The good news is I feel great now and am making more money than I ever could flying.
All of the following books played an important role for me as I was learning about money. Wealth is a learnable skill and all you need is a library card to learn it.
**There are links to the books at the bottom of this article**
1) Suze Orman's Nine Steps to Financial Freedom:
This one seems obvious but you may not realize how much mindset work she put into this book. Yes, the practical information will give you the clear steps toward wealth, but she also addresses the self-sabotaging behaviors that you might have that will get you back into debt or back living hand to mouth if you don't address them. You have to fix your mindset AS WELL AS your knowledge and habits.
I could not recommend this book enough -- keep it as a reference as well. Suze lays out the definitions of things clearly and you can just refer back to them when you have a question without having to commit everything to memory. Can't remember what capital gains taxes are or the difference between a living revocable trust or a will? No problem, just look it up when you need it. Don't make it harder than it has to be.
2) Jen Sincero's You are a BadAss at making Money
This one is a full-on money mindset-encouragement-push yourself-party. It helps that Jen Sincero is funny and delightful and it also helps that her story includes the fact that she was broke and living hand-to-mouth until her forties. I find it a comfort that you can be totally clueless for a lot of adulthood and still get it together and thrive.
She feels no shame or guilt for her wealth -- actually she points out that you cannot have shame or guilt about wealth and stay wealthy (your subconscious doesn't allow for that kind of contradiction to exist for long). She also points out that you can do a lot more good in the world if you are prosperous. The more good, rich people the world has the more good can be done in the world. If you are a good person you owe it to the world to be rich. So there!
3) Ken Honda's Happy Money
I love this book. Ken talks about the positive energy you associate with money will allow it to flow freely in your life. One of my favorite take-aways from this book is that the money is serving you whether it is flowing toward you or away from you. If you tend to get all stressed and scarcity-minded when you are paying bills or worrying about the cost of something it is good to remember that the money is still serving you as it flows toward the mortgage or grocery bill. Money is basically a form of energy -- the freer your relationship to it is the more abundantly it will flow.
Good money habits extend beyond budgeting and saving (though, we know that is essential as well) -- they include a healthy mental and emotional relationship with money.
4) Denise Duffield-Thomas' Get Rich Lucky Bitch
What is it with me and book titles with naughty words? Who knows, anyway, Denise's books are place where you can really cure your mental money blocks. We so do many things to sabotage ourselves because we have these buried beliefs about money -- I don't deserve wealth; Wealthy people are greedy/bad/sleazy, etc.; I'm not the type who can have money; If I had money I'd attract negativity -- the list of common money blocks goes on and on.
We all have some untrue belief about money and usually it stands in our way. Denise gets right to the heart of the matter. In this book you'll do exercises and think back to childhood memories to uncover what you believe that is keeping you from moving to the next level financially. She is also a fun and delightful writer and if you like Australian accents get the book on audio because she reads it herself.
5) Guy Spier's The Education of a Value Investor
This one is for the reader who is interested in investing wisely and conscientiously. Guy is a value investor (as you may have guessed from the title) and he goes through his story of working on Wall Street with the sometimes less than wholesome habits of the Wall Street culture.
He learned how to have complete integrity with his investing and how much more lucrative that turned out to be.
He also learned the important lesson that he'd be more successful if he lived far away from the Wall Street noise so he didn't get caught up in excessive urgency and competition. It may surprise people to realize that truly successful investors are patient and methodical -- the traders you see in the movies who are all coked up and making million dollar deals every five minutes are good for movie drama, but don't make good investors in reality. And more than that, that life is not going to end up being an abundant life in any category. Poorly thought out and rushed decisions will make that movie-character style investor lose money as often as he makes it.
I mean, let's face it, hasty, coked-up decisions are not usually good ones.
Think of the Zen-like energy flow of Ken Honda's money mindset -- that is how Guy Spier had to learn to approach his portfolio. He talks a lot about his education from Warren Buffett and Mohnish Pabrai in the book as well. It teaches a lot about the true nature of money.
Wealth is a learnable skill. These authors are a great way to start learning how to live a prosperous and abundant life. Learn from the masters.
*Daniella Bozzone is a mindset and habit writer and a private investor. She also has a positive mindset shop on Etsy.com, called DesigningDandelion.
Links to the books mentioned in the article.
*The following are paid affiliate links.*