Personal finance books that will change the way you look at your finances

You won’t find too many people showing a liking for personal finance books. Devoid of fantasies and fiction, these books teach you about life and money. After all, what is life without money?

Books have always been a man’s best friend. Be it any subject, the content in the pages contains the crux of all experiences and imagination, thus, helping you to shape the way you think. Many people look for books that would help them learn how to deal with money. Personal finance is hard to teach, especially for people not adept at money matters. Even the most intelligent and smart people flounder and trip on money matters.

Learning personal finance need not always involve an in-depth understanding of intense mathematical calculations. You need always collect and collate data to assess how finance works. A basic understanding of savings and investments is enough to have a grip on how money works to create more money.

If you are inclined to read books on personal finance, I suggest that you start reading what our indigenous writers have written. These books by Indian authors do not talk about markets nor offer any tortuous content. Some of the most popular books on personal finance include:

Let’s Talk Money by Monika Halan

Devoid of jargon or complicated examples elucidating the stock markets, this book can be best described as a book of analogies. The book starts with a small story about how spending money recklessly can always wreck unwanted financial doom.

Penned by one of the most trusted names in the field of finance, this book is handy for novice investors inclined to learn about how one can make the best use of money to create the much-desired wealth in the future. This book does not target any particular niche nor tell you how you must work on your earnings. The author makes it an easy-to-read book for those looking to build financial security.

Retire Rich by P V Subramanyam

Now the title of the book is enough to entice you to read this book. After all, who does not want to get rid of the daily nine-to-six grind and retire early? Early retirement is most people’s dream, though the thought of not having accumulated enough makes many feel tizzy and uncomfortable. The thought of earning more through passive income to save and invest more remains a dream for many as they complain about how inflation eats into their savings each day. The decreasing value of money due to inflation means that what you save today may not be enough to sustain your expenses tomorrow. Therefore, today’s idea of saving for retirement may hold no value tomorrow.

This book does not tell you to create wealth drastically. A simple and regular investment of Rs 40 every day done diligently over the next 30-40 years is enough to create a decent corpus of Rs 40-50 lakhs. The “Power of Compounding” is the secret recipe to financial success. So, a steady investment over a prolonged tenure is a sure-shot way to accumulate the desired amount.

The author stresses how investing early in life will help one retire rich. There is no magic involved. You must choose from a host of investment opportunities available, invest your money in one or more of them and then sit back to witness how the compounding effect helps to grow your money, or rather money on your invested amount.

The Richest Engineer by Abhishek Kumar

Hold your horses before you jump to conclusions about the content of this book. No, this book does not discuss the monotonous lives of engineers nor throws light on their allegedly superfluous lives. It is a fictional story woven around a conversation between two engineers debating on how some people are financially successful in their lives despite having started with a low pay scale or not retiring with a glorious payout, etc.

You dig deep and will realize that it does not take starred qualifications or a big package to be rich. Being aware of your finances or being watchful of your expenses will do a lot better in helping you achieve your financial goals.

I will teach you to be rich by Ramit Sethi

There is no magic formula like “Abra Cadabra … Oomph … Shoosh” to get rich. Creating wealth entails going through a series of steps and this book will precisely teach you that. You may define this book as a six-week personal finance course to learn how to sort your finances for the rest of your life. You can view this book as an essential step to learning the nuances of finance in our daily lives. The fact that most people in India are devoid of the essential tenets of financial literacy and our schools are yet to introduce courses on personal finance in their education curriculums makes reading this book all the more necessary.

What sets this book apart from other books is that this book not only discusses stock market investing and other investment opportunities but also the benefits of credit cards, when used rightly. Many people who have read this book have shared how reading its contents has helped them manage debt, create budgets, choose the right investment options and set financial goals accordingly.

Books will share with you what no one else does or can. So, before you jump head-first into the world of investing, learn personal finance by reading any one or all of these books for a complete understanding.