(Part 2) Best money management books according to redditors

Pasta (and sauce), and any/all frozen/normal vegetables etc. Can make it quite varied.

Jack Monroe has written a book on how to cook from tins:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tin-Can-Cook-Store-cupboard-Recipes/dp/1529015286

I've got some spare cash, so PM me your address if you can't afford to buy it and I'll get a copy to you.

read Smart Money, Smart Kids by Rachel Cruz and Dave Ramsey. Fantastic advice

https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Money-Kids-Raising-Generation/dp/1937077632/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1520445193&sr=8-1&keywords=smart+money+smart+kids

Dave Ramsey has the best financial boot camp advice, IMHO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xxNoyEL1n0

Teach them civics--including how local government (city, county, state) government works. (And include a practical element: visit the local city hall, the local building and public works department, the local police station. Understanding that most of our interactions with government is not with the Federal Government but with your local City Hall and local police force is something sorely missing with a lot of people today.)

Teach them history--and not just the cold and pointless memorization of names and dates. Have them watch Ken Burns Civil War documentary, for example. Have them read books which tell history as a series of stories rather than a list of facts. Video series like America: The Story of Us aren't bad. Have them understand that history is a continuum, that our present day circumstances did not spring fully formed from the forehead of Zeus, but is the result of over 400 years of historic accident.

----

And while I'm daydreaming, have them understand basic Economic theory, both Macro-economics and Micro-economics. Nothing deep here; in fact, I'd say a good introduction would be The Cartoon Introduction to Economics, Volume 1: Microeconomics and The Cartoon Introduction to Economics, Volume 2: Macroeconomics. The point is not for them to become economists themselves--but to just have a basic passing understanding so they can understand the political rhetoric.

And I'd give them a basic understanding of personal finance. Just basic skills: what a checking account is, what a savings account is. How to earn money, how to save money. I'm personally a fan of Dave Ramsey, who teaches not to get in debt, to defer rewards through saving for major purchases, and who teaches keeping a budget. But honestly, any coherent introduction to personal finance is helpful here--because at some point they're going to go into the world and have to take care of themselves, financially.

Here are some of my best & worst decisions financially. (edited, with how strong an idea I think it is)

• (good) The rule of three, a good set of rules to get you out of debt.
  
  • 1/3 of your income on "fixed" basic expenses, your house, car, food.
    
  • 1/3 of your income paying down debt & or using to invest in yourself, or your property - this is also the fund you draw from for entertainment.
    
  • 1/3 for savings, by building up a savings fund, you are resistant to sudden financial troubles.
    
    
• (bad) I joined a furniture & wholesale goods club, in hindsight if I had a wife and kids at the time, this would make sense, however as a single person it was a bad decision , overall cost 5000$.
  
  
• (great) With regard to school, study your ass off on hard classes, I can't say as I can estimate what the exact dollar value added is, but what I do know is that I get and can take hard jobs and get them done, employers & customers like that...a lot.
  
  
• (great) Student loans is another area in itself where you can either do really well or really badly , depending entirely upon how you use them, but it's equally important to understand a bit , about yourself, when you look deeply you often find what you thought was what you wanted isn't really so.
  
  
  • (good) So taking on student loans AND obtaining a good/(technically business useful degree) , is a great investment. In this way, many years later, I made more this year in bonus than in my first year's tuition, and historically have a salary increase of 4200$ year over year), it allows you autonomy financially, allows you to dream...on a budget.
    
    
  • (tragic) Student loans AND a "bad" degree/(impractical or low paying) , this is a ticket to working at Starbucks or Walmart for the majority of your adult life, it means your dreams are deferred, perhaps permanently.
    
    
• (good) In the question of whether to by a new car vs. used car, almost always you should by a used car, I bought my first new car at the tender age of 38, and when I did, it was a very high efficiency hybrid, which (with 3 & 4 dollar gasoline prevalent) means I save roughly 2500-3000$ every year on the cost difference between hybrid car and regular car. If a new / hybrid car is out of reach, as they say, "If you can't raise the bridge, lower the river ", you can move, live VERY close to work, find safe , clean, housing as close to your job as possible.

Don't be upset with the people here. Many find your situation laughably easy because they are already living for much less than it costs you. However I'm sure you are earnest - you are looking over the edge of a cliff and need to know if it's safe to jump.

The house value is meaningless unless you plan on moving so you can just ignore the whole thing in your calculations. With your invested net worth, you can safely spend $22k per year for the rest of your life (well ~99% probability). If you used the 4% rule for a 95% success rate, you could spend $29k per year.

I wouldn't hold onto the 2.8% loan. Sure it's a good interest rate, but you don't need the leverage. This article should help you visualize the effect of leverage. Making it your last action of work to pay it off would probably smooth out the road a bit. I'd have a talk with your father and tell him that you are getting ready for retirement and you'd like to pay it before you finish.

I'd say that you can't FIRE quite yet unless you are willing to cut expenses. Can you reliably live off of $1800 a month in your budget? That's not a spending level that's objectively difficult, but it may take some getting used to.

What you can do right now is to start bringing your expenses down and practice living off of the amount you would have if you were FIRE. If you need to burn some vacation to have some free time to simulate the cost savings from being home, do it. Doing the trial run right now will tell you more than years of playing with calculators.

You should go ahead and start working on kids. 35 is already pretty old for having children. The chances of conceiving go down, the chances of birth defects go way up. It may take a while for your wife to get pregnant. The reason why I suggest this is that you'll be able to take FMLA leave when your child is born, which will help with the next step.

After you've got the trial run handled, you go ahead and jump in the pool by taking a leave of absence. If it's paternity leave, your work can't legally stop you from taking 6 weeks. Otherwise, you should be able to negotiate some type of leave (perhaps 4 months?) while you take a "sabbatical." You'll know that this is your retirement, but they won't. If the first try at retirement doesn't go well, you can just go back to work when your sabbatical or paternity leave is done.

I'd recommend you read the book Get a Life: You Don't Need a Million to Retire Well. It covers a lot of subjects you wouldn't really think about going into retirement.

For cutting back on spending, I’d try following the advice in Gail Vaz-Oxlade’s book Debt-Free Forever. It’s really targeted toward getting a grasp on your income and expenses, and how to ensure you’re paying off debt and not spending more than you make.

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

The Opposite of Spoiled I thought was a great read. Hit on very good points on how to guide your kids to be a generous thoughtful person when it comes to money, materials, and other people. I'm going to be pulling this book out at least once a year for ideas.

You can find the book here and I agree, it's a great scholarship resource. Many libraries also have it.

Oldie but goodie: Gail Vaz-Oxlade's book Debt Free Forever is pretty much the budget primer for young Canadians.

https://www.amazon.ca/Debt-Free-Forever-Take-Control-Money/dp/1554685915

Using tinned ingredients. Recipe from Tin Can Cook by Jack Monroe https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07L34BL4Z/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Here are the UK links if anyone needs those (the books are free there too):


https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Weather-Retirement-Portfolio-post-retirement-investment-ebook/dp/B00WF8XW78


https://www.amazon.co.uk/More-than-Millionaire-Happiness-Purposeful-ebook/dp/B07BC5BTCK

Based on reading your responses in this thread, I think you would really, really benefit from Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover program. His book "Total Money Makeover" would be a great place to start, and his podcasts, which are updated daily. His program absolutely changed my financial life, and I can't recommend it enough. I've found /r/DaveRamsey to be just as helpful as /r/personalfinance, if not more so.

I think Dave would say (don't shoot the messenger), you are really overspending. For someone taking home 33k a year, 10k in debt, to be leasing a $1,000+ phone and owning a German-made car (very high upkeep expenses)... It just doesn't make sense. And now you're going back to school, so your income may be going down. I have alarm bells going off for you, bud. This could get ugly real fast.

At least you have the beans and rice right, so that's a start! :)

The best advice I can give you is to get Total Money Makeover from the library (physical or audio), and start the program ASAP. It'll force you to confront the reality of your finances, help you get out of debt and get your spending in line.

Hope that helps.

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You can get it used for $6 on amazon. https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0785289089/ref=tmm_hrd_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=&sr=

If you are in great shape, healthy, happy and have great relationships with your kids and great ties to your community, then your retirement is going to be awesome with or without a lot of money. If you lack those things, then no amount of lobster dinners is going to make if fulfilling.

There are diminishing returns to your happiness when compared to your income. Those returns may even be negative if you are spending your time doing something unfulfilling to earn money that won't increase your happiness.

You should read the book Get a Life: You Don't Need a Million to Retire Well There are certainly things you can do to improve your retirement, but they may not be in the realm of earning more money.

Also, you imagine that your retirement life is going to to be one big adventure where you travel all over and do all kinds of interesting things. I'd wager that you'll be sick of it in a year. Have you even tried doing it for a few months? If you can, why don't you try doing it now and see if it's something that you are willing to do for the rest of your life? I suspect that getting a house, taking care of grandkids and coaching the local little league is going to be more fun than endless nights on a sailboat.

Diseased88,
I have a thought for you. As a military guy I am sure you are familiar with the idea of mission, strategy and tactics. The president sets the mission, the military brass creates the strategies that fulfill the mission and the soldiers carry out the tactics on the ground which make the strategies work and fulfill the mission. In my book (http://amzn.to/HFyM7r) I argue that personal finance can be seen in the same exact way.

You need to make sure that you understand the financial mission, strategy and tactics for both your business and your household.

Right now, you know the mission of your business:
Make me money to pay my bills

You clearly have some strategies in place:
Work for free until money can come out of the business
Get profitable
Reinvest in the business etc.

Your business tactics clearly are working:
You are in the newspaper
You have paid the bills for the month in your first week

So what is the problem? One of your strategies doesn't meet the mission laid out for your business. It is the wrong strategy long term. If the job of you business is to pay your bills, you can't work for free long term.

So what I hear from you is that you are scared to take money out of the business. Can you say why? What has you afraid? I am wondering if you have truly paid all your expenses for the month or if you have just paid the expenses you were counting like, inventory and the rent. Perhaps you are scared because there are other unknown expenses that you haven't estimated and because you haven't estimated them you don't know if you have any money to take out of the business. Am I right? Otherwise why would you be scared to take profit if all your expenses for the month were paid in the first week?

I would guess that Ms. Kim is right that a trip to SCORE would really help you know how much you can take from the business right now to meet your immediate needs. They are a great organization.

Then when you figure out what profit you can remove from the business, take a look at my book to see how to apply the same thinking to your personal finances which will help you live as lean as possible until the business gives you enough to live on.

>Hey, he's a thing still?

Broke and trying to make a comeback. Recently wrote a humorous book on being poor. Also has been hanging around with Sargon during his recent electioneering, and did an interview with Jordan Peterson

There's a book that could really change his life.


https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Poor-Milo-Yiannopoulos/dp/9527303532

So this book Tin Can Cook came out here recently. It is, as you’d imagine, entirely based on storecupboard-based (ie, not fresh) items. Now, for the most part I think these recipes assume a full kitchen at the same time, but I would recommend having a look at it in a bookshop. Best case is it’s genuinely useful to you, worst case, it might give you some ideas about cans to look out for.

>Libertarians (at least in the US) consider abusing the welfare state a morally righteous endeavor.

[Seems like lots of Americans do](
https://www.amazon.com/Get-Whats-Yours-Revised-Security/dp/1501144766/)

I highly recommend All Your Worth. You can get a used copy for $4 shipped, and it is one of the best budgeting plans I have ever come across.

It's so wonderful because of its simplicity. It makes sense, it's easy to use, it is incredibly effective, and most importantly it doesn't encourage depriving yourself. I feel like it would be great for someone like you, because so many budgeting guides say things like cut down on this, cut down on that and quit throwing your money away on frivolous things and stop buying $6 lattes when you can make them yourself at home and quit feeling like you're entitled to treat yourself constantly. This one is different.

*Also, I saw someone talking about Excel spreadsheets and all that... What kind of phone do you have?

You will need this:

https://www.amazon.com/Manage-Your-Money-When-Second-ebook/dp/B007IUGLYO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523926297&sr=8-1&keywords=frugal+living&dpID=41WcHFjdSUL&preST=_SY445_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

Sure thing. This is the Amazon link. I also have it on my website here. If you like it, definitely appreciate any help on shooting it around

Try this book. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0066619823/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1463326613&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=getting+rich+in+america&dpPl=1&dpID=51VCNCB5P2L&ref=plSrch

It is really short and each chapter is a different example. Buying a used car vs new car, etc. I actually had Richard McKenzie for micro Econ for my MBA. A basic understanding of these principles would have made a world of difference if I would have read it before college.

I found this book a good one for starters. Then move to Dummies Guide to Personal a Finance in your 20s.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1481027565/ref=cm_cr_srp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8

Are your student loans subsidized or unsubsidized?

What are you studying? (Is that $80k investment worth it?)

I haven't read it myself, but this book has been advised before.

Please Send Money by Dara Duagay

I read it in my early 20's and wish I had read it in high school. Explained a lot to me and very insightful about bills, loans, schooling, insurance, home and car buying etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Please-Money-Financial-Survival-Adults/dp/1570717214

What others said about ACA exchanges is right on point.

Also, he/you might want to read "Get What's Yours for Medicare." Link here!. Also, the states all have a Medicare hotline; find yours here. The New York City one is great, but the one in my burb not so much; the one in Iowa is great. Keep trying until you find a good one.

Also there is a book by the same folks called "Get What's Yours in Social Security" that might be useful. Good luck to him!

Great advice.
Whether you decide to be open about the trust fund or not, teaching kids how to give from an early age can help with instilling perspective and a sense of responsibility.

My son is only a toddler, but this book is on my wishlist for when he's older. http://www.amazon.com/Opposite-Spoiled-Raising-Grounded-Generous/dp/0062247018

This book has a lot of information that might be useful:
Adulting
Also: Why Didn't They Teach Me This In School?

Yeah, "Rich Dad Poor Dad" didn't sit too well with me, mostly because he's selling a story and not actual practical/reasonable advice. I found Kiyosaki to be more of a snake oil salesman than a teacher.

My all time favorite PF book that I've read so far has been The Millionaire In You by Michael LeBoeuf. I like it a lot because it addresses all the areas in your life that you need to focus on in order to lead a good life, and not just financial/material success.

Also, Getting Rich In America: 8 Simple Rules For Building A Fortune And A Satisfying Life is a pretty good for the same reasons, although not quite as good.

There are, no joke, millions of scholarships out there. There’s a lot of websites dedicated to scholarships (my fave is scholarships.com but fair warning, it’s a bit overwhelming at first) and books (I used an older edition of this one and quite liked it).