Top Financial Planning Books

Books that teach the art of finance are an excellent method to study the ins and outs of finance at a fraction of the cost of a professional Finance Course. Reading a book is one of the best strategies to develop your skills and quickly ingest a lot of research.

Finance is a vital component of our lives. Some people with modest salaries save fortunes while others with seven-figure monthly salaries struggle to make ends meet.

Many people from paycheck to paycheck without emergency funds for unexpected expenses. The books listed below serve as a guide that has helped thousands alter their fortunes by changing their mindset and habits.

The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing

by Benjamin Graham and Jason Zweig

The intelligent investor by benjamin graham is one of the best books on value investing.

British-born Benjamin Grossbaum (May 8, 1894 – September 21, 1976) was an economist and professional investor from the United States born Benjamin Grossbaum in London. In 1928, Graham began teaching value investing at Columbia Business School, where he is regarded as a pioneer in the field.

Jason Zweig is a Wall Street Journal personal finance and investing columnist. A former senior writer at Money, the mutual-fund editor at Forbes, and a contributor to Time and Cnn.com, he has a wide range of experience in financial journalism.

Warren Buffet referred to it as the best book on investing ever written.

Think and Grow Rich
by Napoleon Hill

Napoleon Hill began his writing career as a “mountain reporter” at 13 in West County, Virginia, where he worked for local newspapers. The author of such classics as The Law of Success and Think and Grow Rich, two of the world’s best-selling self-help books. Hill paved the way for the present genre of self-help books.

Think and Grow Rich addresses the fundamental connection between thoughts and success.

It is not for those who would want to follow the appearances of money.

Despite its age, I felt the truths it taught to be quite applicable to my life today. My favorite concepts from this book:

1.  You cannot achieve enormous riches without a clear plan, a strong desire to follow through on your plan, and a firm belief that your plan will work.
2.  To succeed like the world’s best achievers, you must build a desire until it becomes an obsession.
3.  Material success is achieved by organizing and transforming specialized knowledge into a product or service that can be sold to a large audience.
4.  Persistence typically separates success from failure. It is a mental state that can be overcome with effort.

One Up On Wall Street

by Peter Lynch

Peter Lynch is the best money manager in the United States. For him, it’s all about the mantra: Anyone can become an expert in their field and identify successful stocks with just a little research. Peter Lynch is vice chairman of Fidelity Management & Research Company — the investment advisor arm of Fidelity Investments — and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Fidelity funds. He was the manager of Fidelity Magellan Fund, the best performing fund globally, from May 1977 to May 1990, when he was in charge of the portfolio. One of his books is a beginner’s guide to financial literacy, Beating the Street and Learn to Earn, which has sold more than a million copies.

This book looks to be highly recommended for anyone interested in investing. Lynch is famous for his “invest in what you know” adage, but he is far from irresponsible in his book and actively warns against it.

His basic concept is that people like me and you are aware of new trends and investment opportunities. Investing in “baggers” – equities that expand in value over time – can make you wealthy if you are familiar and careful. Lynch claims this offers the typical person an advantage over expert investors, hence the moniker. Throughout the book, he details his thoughts and methodologies for analyzing firms and provides an excellent foundation to value-oriented investors—the author’s sense of humor (like Buffett).

The only flaw I can detect in the book is that it is decades old. Since then, the dot-com bubble and the 2008 recession have occurred. But I don’t mind because the lessons and approaches in the book are universal. It doesn’t affect the book’s quality.

The Psychology of Money
By Morgan Housel

It’s not always about what you know regarding money management. It’s all in the way you carry yourself. And it’s challenging to teach even the most intelligent people how to behave.

Financial decision-making is taught as a mathematical area, where data and formulae tell us precisely what to do. However, people don’t use spreadsheets to make financial decisions in the real world. They’re made at the dinner table or in a conference room, when personal history, your unique perspective on the world, ego, pride, marketing, and bizarre incentives are smashed together.

One of the best-selling authors of The Psychology of Money, Morgan Housel, takes you on a journey through 19 short stories that explore the unusual ways in which people think about money.

The Psychology of Money teaches a lot. Because of his easygoing writing style, Housel’s book may appear to be a casual look at the junction of psychology and money. Still, it’s a master class in narrative structure and development. The author teaches us the most profound insights into the psychology of money via the lens of history and personal stories – what it means to us, how we spend, save, and invest, and how we relate who we are today vs. tomorrow. When it comes to risk, Housel challenges us to look at it from various angles, showing that orthodox economists’ narrow definitions of risk are insufficient to help people make judgments about money. Finally, the book is short, but in the best conceivable sense. It’s a fast-paced book with a tremendous reward.