This article includes summaries of ten very well reviewed books for financial success that make for good reading.
1The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
This book is described as a timeless manual worth reading for anyone who is keen to unravel the secrets the ancients used to achieve success. Its content dwells on the subjects of financial planning and frugality and is based on the famed ‘Babylonian principles’ that were idealized in antiquity. The book is an apt read for anyone who seeks advice on virtually every matter that concerns the achievement of personal wealth. Reading the text reveals helpful facts about what the causes and solutions to personal money predicaments are. It contains sound advice on what it takes to acquire money, keep it, and use it to make much more money.
2Financial Peace: Restoring Financial Hope to You and Your Family by Dave Ramsey
This book’s content is inspired by the personal experiences of the author. Dave Ramsey was a young and successful businessman in the 80s when the real estate market was at an all-time high. He made millions during this era but lost his fortune when the market collapsed. Ramsey was then forced to survive the ensuing tough times whilst dealing with debt and bankruptcy issues but he eventually became successful again this time through offering financial counselling advice complemented by his Christian beliefs. Reading the book will offer you insights into the various virtues you need to manage your finances adeptly including sacrifice, patience and discipline.
3The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Success by Dave Ramsey
This is another book from Dave Ramsey (as described above) who is now a successful bestselling author and radio talk-show host. Basically the book is all about helping readers with advice on how to achieve financial freedom by first ensuring that they are debt-free. In it he observes that everyone must be responsible for his or her own financial health and that our current financial situations are a reflection of the financial decisions we’ve made so far. Ramsey uses an easy-to-understand approach to describe a seven-step plan that can help people use their current incomes to expunge all their debts and multiply their wealth.
4Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money—That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! By Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter
In this book Robert Kiyosaki narrates the story of his two dads. One of these was his real father and though he rose to become the superintendent of education in Hawaii he died without a penny to his name. The other dad was his best friend’s father – though he had dropped out of school at 13 years of age he rose to become one of Hawaii’s richest men. Kiyosaki uses this story to outline the different financial strategies that both men used on their way to the said eventualities. He then illustrates the reason why achieving financial success this millennium calls for the adoption of a novel financial paradigm.
5The Wealth in Questions: Audacious Insights in Success and Wealth (Wisesuit Wealth) by Mr. Kris Tabetando
The author is the founder and president of the Vonavo Media Group, a publishing firm that seeks to inspire people thus enabling them to re-link with their inborn greatness. This book is the first volume in the WiseSuit Wealth Series and it seeks to explain why one person faced with a weighty challenge in life manages to triumph and move on to wealth and success while another faced by the same hurdle succumbs to failure and subsequently lives a life of poverty and misery. Tabetando challenges your mind with powerful insights and questions that are aimed at nurturing it and enabling it to get aligned to your success.
6The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko
For two decades the book’s two authors interviewed America’s wealthy and in doing so they came up with seven basic rules that anyone who wants to achieve a net worth of more than one million dollars must adhere to. The first and last of these rules respectively are to ensure that you always live way beneath your means and to select your occupation prudently. The book does not consider wealthy athletes or pop stars but is rather about the tales of ordinary people who have managed to amass wealth through discipline, determination, perseverance, and the least of luck. Stanley and Danko emphasize the importance of these morals while abhorring the modern-day earning-to-consume tendencies many people have.
7Cashflow Quadrant: Rich Dad’s Guide to Financial Freedom by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter
In this book the authors present readers with a summative guide they can use to identify the best avenues they can follow, consequently leading to individual financial success. Kiyosaki and Lechter unveil the approaches that must be adopted to enable one to ascend from the job security level to one where personal financial security is much greater, this by using four financial quadrant alternatives to generate wealth. It is worth knowing that Kiyosaki created CASHFLOW, a board game that is based on the game of money hitherto only known to the wealthy.
8Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest in, That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not! By Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter
In the US the tax and securities laws are such that they allow rich people to make investments in ways that make it rather impossible for the rest of the population to close in on them. This is the basic explanation as to why a mere 10% of the population owns 90% of the country’s corporate stock shares. Kiyosaki and Lechter explain that it is possible to rise into the coveted 10% but only if people learn to make wiser investments. They also emphasize two concepts: the wealthy don’t toil for money and that money can be made without you having any in the first place. Readers should be aware of the fact that though the book speaks of investing ‘guides’ it by no means offers any guarantees for success.
9Rich Dad’s Who Took My Money?: Why Slow Investors Lose and Fast Money Wins! By Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter
This book outlays various financial wisdoms known to the rich and which are not taught as part of any education curriculum or described in conventional financial texts and resources. Kiyosaki begins by describing a personal experience to illustrate the commonest error that many green investors make: investing in plans or schemes that they know nothing about. The author erred by buying into a mutual fund whose details he didn’t know and subsequently his Rich Dad ensured that he (Kiyosaki) retained the bogus investment for several months so that he could learn the virtues of patience. This book details what it takes to make shrewd investments as opposed to wholly embracing the not-so-effective commonplace tendency of long term investing, buying, holding and diversifying. The authors advocate for people to make investments via approaches that require more thinking, learning and effort, but that are also low-risk and potentially more rewarding, and not those options that are simply all about giving money to various financial companies and allowing them to manage it.
10Rich Dad’s Guide to Becoming Rich...Without Cutting Up Your Credit Cards by Robert T. Kiyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter
In this book the authors stress the fact that for one to amass personal wealth he or she has to learn how ‘bad debt’ can be converted into ‘good debt’ and they describe how this can be done without having to shred one’s credit cards.
