The Seven Best Books on Finance and Investing for Dads

Personal finance and investing has long been a passion of mine. Right from an early age I’ve been saving, investing and trying to put money aside for the future. Do you want to do the same? It’s never too late. But what you need is the knowledge to do the right thing.

Knowledge on the subject of finance and investing can be a bit complicated. You will hear a dozen different people telling you a dozen (or more) different things. But why should you follow just one financial author or guru? Why can’t you just take the valuable elements from each one and craft your own approach to finance – your own money system.

In this blog post I’m going to give you my favourite books on finance and investing. Some of these are written specifically for Dads, others not so much. But they all have one thing in common – I’ve gleaned a lot of useful information and advice that I’ve shaped to refresh how I run my finances and shape my own money system.

If you’re a regular on this blog, you’ll also recognise many of these books from reviews that I’ve done on the site. I’ll link to those but I’m not going to rehash those posts – instead I’ll tell you why I like each book and what you will learn from them. Ready? Let’s dive in.

1. Money – Master the Game by Tony Robbins

This has to be the most comprehensive roundup of personal finance principles in modern times. Written by Tony Robbins, it’s over 600 pages of pure gold. If there was one book that influenced the way I run my finances (like a buisness incidentally) then this would be it.

Sure, it has its critics (more on this later) and it is a little ‘up-selly’ as Robbins tries to get you to sign up with his friends and their financial products. But much of the advice is sound and can be easily verified – I do this whenever I’m unsure about what I’m reading.

The key point I learned from this was how to effectively allocate assets in an investment portfolio. The formula in his book now makes up the basis of all my investment accounts.

Buy it here.

P.S. There is a shorter summary version of this book called ‘Unshakeable’ which I’ve reviewed on TDD here.

2. The Millionaire Next Door by Cotter Smith and Thomas J. Stanley

Published in the year 2000, this book is nearly 20 years old. And listening to it now, it does sounds a little dated. But there’s a lot of value in terms of the principles and lessons within the book. Based on research carried out by the authors, it centres on what the everyday millionaires in the United States do. And contrasts with those who make a lot of money but are very poor at keeping it.

After all, it’s not what you earn but what you keep that matters.

Like any popular, TMND has detractors who say that the networth calculation used in the book is flawed as it takes account of home equity (possibly true), or that the book encourages you to nickel and dime your way to wealth and riches (unfair and inaccurate).

What I learned reading this was that most of the wealthy people in America are either:

1. Well paid professionals – Doctors, laywers, CEOs
2. Business owners

Regular professionals and employees need not apply for millionaire status. So if you want to be wealthy, you probably want to be looking at one of those two options. Get it on Amazon here (I’ve listened to the audio version twice).

3. The Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing – Robert T. Kiyosaki

The Rich Dad Poor Dad book series is one of my favourites. I’ve listened or read several of Kiyosaki’s books but this is certainly the one I’ve found the most valuable. All of the Rich Dad books come from the same perspective – Kiyosaki’s rich ‘Dad’ (actually his friend’s dad, but Kiyosaki’s business and money mentor) giving the reader advice through the author’s recollection. It does get a bit cheesy sometimes but the lessons in this book have a lot of value.

What really blew my mind was setting the distinctions between income generating assets and liabilities. Robert teaches you that your aim should be to turn earned income into income-generating assets (e.g. stocks, bonds, property, businesses). Assets like gold, Bitcoin and your home do not come under this category so shouldn’t form a significant part of your journey to accumulating wealth.

Since reading this, I’ve started to think more about how I can do this now and in the future. It was a big driver for me to invest time and money into my side hustle of affiliate marketing through niche blogs.

4. Unscripted: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship by MJ De Marco

I wrote a full review of this book a while back and have since listened to parts of the book on audio for a third and even fourth time. Now that’s a sign of a good book.

DeMarco, author of the popular Millionaire Fastlane penned this follow up partly in response to the Rich Dad Poor Dad books and Tony Robbin’s Money: Master the Game. And he doesn’t hold back in criticising both. Oh and he also has a pop at the Millionaire Next Door too.

Like I said earlier – better to take the best parts from a number of experts than follow one blindly hoping that he is right.

The real value I found in this book in the last couple of chapters, where DeMarco sets out how to build a money system. This is a way of setting up your finances to provide you with real passive income. And you do it from day one. It doesn’t matter if you have £500 or £50,000 – the system is the same: invest for income.

Up until that point I’d invested purely for growth (Tony Robbins is hot on this) with an eye on early retirement. But what if you could have an income that grew with your investments right now? That’s what DeMarco’s money system is all about.

After listening to this chapter in my car, I went home and re-positioned my investments so they were set up to maximise income as well as leaning towards growth. I’ve now got a great mix of income generating funds and stocks with some which are geared towards growth.

There’s definite inter-play between this concept (create a money system) and Robert T. Kiyosaki’s ‘invest in income generating assets’. That’s what I love about reading widely on a subject – you get a much fuller and connected picture starting to build up.

You can get Unscripted here (warning, there’s a fair bit of sweary-words in this book).

5. The Rich Employee by James Altucher

If you haven’t read James Altucher’s Choose Yourself trilogy, where have you been? James Altucher is an investor, author, stand-up comic and all round nice guy. He’s written children’s books and once gave me some incredible business advice.

The stand out volume of Choose Yourself is The Rich Employee. Altucher’s books follow a similar format to each other. They’re basically compilations of his best blog posts with some extras added, all edited together to make a great book. It’s such a good model and works really well (I copied this for my own book back in 2017).

The standout lesson in The Rich Employee was that if I wanted to grow as a creative and driven entrepreneur/businessman then I had to find an employer that valued those qualities. A rich employee is able to work in an environment that values creativity and going out on a limb to realise great reward.

I’m blessed because I found such a place to work – it was after reading this book that I started searching in earnest. And using the principles in this book, aced the interview. I’m now an owner in the business too.

You can get it here (I recommend the Audio versions, read by the author).

6. Gorilla Mindset by Mike Cernovich

While not a book specifically on money and finance, Gorilla Mindset deserves an honourable mention. This is because it was the first place I ever came across:

• Investing in index linked funds and investments
• Cost averaging
• Affiliate marketing and online business

Reading briefly about those ideas in Gorilla Mindset made me hungry for more – more knowledge, more understanding. And more money.

It taught me that money wasn’t good or evil. Instead money could be good or evil depending on how you used it. If I chose to make the world a better place with my money, then it was good and I could have as much of it as I wanted. This was a game changer and flipped everything I’d been taught on its head.

I’ve reviewed and talked about this book at length. But only because no other book (other than the Bible) has changed my life and way of thinking in such a dramatic way.

7. You Inc. by Gene Simmons

In case you didn’t know who Gene Simmons is, he’s the guy with all the make up on in the picture below. But he’s also one of the most prolific and intelligent businessmen of his generation.

One of the staggering parts of this book is when he lists off all the different business and enterprises he owns.

And he built it all from nothing. He came to the U.S. as a dirt poor Jewish immigrant with no English and very little education. But he had drive, desire and the tenacity to make it big in business.

While I don’t have a desire to emulate his lifestyle or Rock Star past, I still have admiration for how he looks constantly for business opportunities and openings. If you were more like that, could you be better off that now?

Read my full review of this book here.

Want to Know a Subject? Read Widely

These are my top seven books on finance and investing for Dads. A few years ago, I set out to learn as much as I could about money, finance and investing. I wanted to do good – to have money that I could give to others to make their lives better.

And I wanted to be able to provide a stable and secure financial future for my family. These books have all paved part of that road for me. Some of them cost a few pounds, others just a few pennies. But the value I’ve gleaned from each one is hard to measure.

If you want to know a subject, ready widely. And if you want to know finance and investing, start with these seven books.

Neil

P.S. I’ve got a new book coming out soon. But you can still get my first one here.