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January 20, 2014

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I agree they are both great books.

the Millionaire Mind was a geat follow-up to Next door for those so inclined for a more "in depth" look btw....

Those are great books! I'd like to toss in Your Money or Your Life as well. It had the most profound impact on me because of its concept of life energy - which we choose to trade money for.

It also prompted me to start closely tracking my income, expenses, and portfolio which has helped motivate me to reach the "cross-over point" as soon as possible.

I agree with your choices but I needed the Dave Ramsey 'Total Money
Makeover' book. It gave me the actual monthly steps to re-organize my
entire thinking. I spent a long time on Step 2 but it was worth it.

Both are great books. Another one I would add to the list is Learn to Earn by Peter Lynch. It is a little more focused on investing, but still has some great basic pillars for improving your personal finance

I agree 100% with your choice of "The Millionaire Next Door" as an excellent financial life book. I have bought several copies over the years to loan out to people to read. I often don't get them back; I'm hoping they get passed on to other people. I think that people need to understand this book doesn't contain a list of things to do to become wealthy, but rather changes your thinking about what wealth really is and who has the wealth in America. Just think about all the multi-million dollar salary athletes out in the world that you hear are broke a few years after their careers are complete. It should be a book every kid gets when they leave home to begin their own life journey.

The second book I would recommend is "The Wealthy Barber" written by Canadian David Chilton. It is written as a story but contains a very important message on how to structure your life to win at managing and growing your financial assets. I believe that if you follow Chilton's road map, you will never get lost.

I also agree that the bookstore's shelves are filled with hundreds of useless books on personal finance. Everything you need can be condensed into a few pages. It is not difficult. The hard part is taking the first step to your financial goal and sticking with your plan.

I have to also comment on Dave Ramsey's books and philosophy. I agree that Dave's strategy is very useful for people who are struggling with debt and never seem to have a nickel in their jeans. However I think he misses the mark for the rest of us who pay off our credit cards each month, save a percentage of our income, etc. If you are in the second category, I would not follow all of Dave's recommendations. That being said, I appreciate what he says and try to incorporate some of this philosophy into my own. I do have a credit card, but don't consider myself stupid. Dave Ramsey would disagree with me.

I liked both these books and will also add a plug for the wealthy barber and your money or your life. The first for including discussions many don't think about while young (e.g. wills) and the second for the idea of seriously thinking about what you are really working for with regards to your wealth.

Too often people just want to be "rich" without a clue what "rich" means. To many it's an unrealistic salary, or an unattainable amount of money, and they have this idea if they can just make X a year or win X in a lottery they'll have "made it". I liked that all these books put wealth into perspective and allow you to define for yourself what "rich" is, which to me is more about financial independance than a dollar amount or the bling of what your own.

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