5 Best Finance Books to Reboot Your Financial Life

It’s fair to say that a lot of Australians could be doing better with their money. If you’re looking to restart or improve your financial life, here are 5 of the best finance books that helped me on my financial journey and changed my thinking about money.

1. The Barefoot Investor – Scott Pape.

If you’ve been a part of the finance community in Australia for any period of time, you’ve likely heard of the Barefoot Investor. It’s a great beginner's book that’s engaging and easy to read. For someone who’s looking to take charge of their financial life for the first time, this is a great starting point.

2. I Will Teach You To Be Rich – Ramit Sethi.

I Will Teach You To Be Rich is a fantastic personal finance book that covers a range of topics, this is a great book for financial beginners. As it is an American author, some of the topics are not too relevant for Aussies such as Roth IRAs but it still provides great actionable steps. It also speaks to managing our psychology and how we think about money which is super important to understand for our financial journey.

3. The Millionaire Fastlane – M. J. DeMarco.

The Millionaire Fast Lane is an interesting book on strategies for generating income. The core concept of the book is to become a producer rather than a consumer. The book covers the benefit of creating products that can sell independently of your time rather than exchanging your time for payment like in a traditional job. There are also some good principles for assessing the viability of a business idea using the CENTS principle (Control, Entry, Need, Time, and Scale). This is an interesting and thought-provoking book for once you have nailed the foundations of your personal finances.

4. The Go-Giver – Bob Burg & John David Mann

I was not expecting too much from this short book but The Go-Giver has become one of my favourite books. The core principle of the book is to maximise the value that you’re putting out into the world in order to maximise the rewards that you receive. The Go-Giver is a parable-style book that talks through what they call the 5 laws. The laws are:

The Law of Value

The Law of Compensation

The Law of Influence

The Law of Authenticity

The Law of Receptivity

Nailing these “laws” will help maximise the value you put out into the world and in turn, maximise the value you receive from the world. Whilst not specifically a personal finance-focused book, it is extremely helpful for those in the business or creative world in reframing their mindset to focus on the value of their work.

5. The Psychology of Money – Morgan Housel

The Psychology of Money talks about managing our relationship with money and how we can leverage it to make smarter financial decisions. The psychology of money takes a step back from maximising return on investment or analysing for the optimal portfolio and instead focuses on how we can align our financial decision-making framework to our psychology so that the decisions we make are the best decisions for us. It also touches on concepts such as luck, risk, and how what we see of others’ finances doesn't give us the full picture or enough information to make judgments of others.

I've read hundreds of books but these books should give you a solid foundation to use in taking the first steps of improving your financial life or taking the next step to some more advanced financial topics such as maximising your psychology for money or starting a business venture.