Top 10 Personal Finance Books of All Time

BY GEOFFREY JAMES @SALES_SOURCE

These ten books have ten different (and powerful) approaches to
accumulating personal wealth.
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Previous posts have identified the best motivational business books of
all time, and the best eye-opening books for the entrepreneur. Here's
a list of books to help you get out of the rat race of debt and
achieve the wealth that you truly deserve.

10. The Richest Man In Babylon

George S. Clason's faux-biblical parables about acquiring wealth have
inspired investors since the 1920s. Like most of the personal finance
books that followed, The Richest Man In Babylonemphasizes saving over
spending. However, the book also insists that charitable giving is
equally as important, provided you don't allow those two whom you give
to become dependent upon your gifts.

Best quote: "Budget thy expenses that thou mayest have coins to pay
for thy necessities, to pay for thy enjoyments and to gratify thy
worthwhile desires without spending more than nine-tenths of thy
earnings."

9. Rich Dad, Poor Dad

An eighth-grade dropout who spends less than he earns is smarter than
a college professor who can't make ends meet, according to Robert
Kiyosaki. Furthermore, while working for a steady paycheck can get you
started, your best investment of your time and money is to buy
property or a business. Or better yet, do what Kiyosaki himself did
and write a best selling book.

Best quote: "The key to financial freedom and great wealth is a
person's ability or skill to convert earned income into passive income
and/or portfolio income."

8. The Millionaire Fast Lane

Working hard, saving 10 percent, and retiring at 65 is a chump's game
because 1) financial markets are simply too volatile and 2) you'll "be
in a wheelchair" by the time you actually have enough to retire,
according to author MJ DeMarco. A better strategy is to use the
volatility of the financial markets to get rich quickly and enjoy it
now.

Best quote: "Show me a 22-year-old who got rich investing in mutual
funds. Show me the man who earned millions in three years by
maximizing his 401k. Show me the young twenty-something who got rich
clipping coupons. Where are these people? They don't exist."

7. Your Money or Your Life

Contrary to popular belief, living more frugally increases (rather
than decreases) your quality of life. Author Vicki Robin's cites many
examples, such as the practice of working at a job that brings in less
than the amount you pay out for childcare and "time saving" trips to
McDonalds.

Best quote: "Conditions have changed, but we are still operating
financially by the rules established during the Industrial
Revolution--rules based on creating more material possessions. But our
high standard of living has not led to a high quality of life--for us
or for the planet."

6. The Science of Getting Rich

Even though it contains nothing that even vaguely resembles "science,"
this 1910 book provided the intellectual framework for thousands of
personal wealth-building seminars. Author Wallace Wattle believed
that your ability to accumulate wealth is directly dependent upon how
you think about it. In other words, if you believe that money is the
root of all evil, you'll never be wealthy.

Best quote: "No man can rise to his greatest possible height in talent
of soul development unless he has plenty of money."

5. The Millionaire Next Door

Through research into U.S. households with a net worth of $1 million
or more, authors Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko identifies
most individuals as Under Accumulators of Wealth (UAW) who have a low
net wealth compared to their income. They then provide advice (like
take skimpy vacations) to help people achieve a higher net worth
compared to their income.

Best quote: People whom we define as being wealthy get much more
pleasure from owning substantial amounts of appreciable assets than
from displaying a high-consumption lifestyle.

4. Total Money Makeover

Anyone who's listened to Dave Ramsey's radio show knows that he's all
about common sense: avoid buying on credit, pay cash for everything
possible, get yourself out of debt and build an emergency fund. Rather
than airy-fairy promises and feel-good anecdotes, he offers solid
basic advice for the everyman and everywoman.

Best quote: "What I have done is packaged the time-honored information
into a process that is doable and has inspired millions to act on it."

3. The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke

Most personal finance books seem to be written with the
about-to-retire set in mind. In this sprightly offering, TV star Suze
Orman helps millennials navigate the basics of the financial world,
like coping with huge student loans and a job market that, for young
people, is nearly as dismal as the Great Depression.

Best quote: "You picked up this book because you are broke. Keep
reading and you will discover what you need to know--and do--so you
will not be broke forever."

2. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind

If you're poor, it's because you think like a poor person and if
you're rich, it's because you think rich, according to author (and
multi-millionaire) T. Harv Eker. To make matters worse, poor people
essentially program their children to be poor, by providing them with
a worldview that makes wealth accumulation impossible. Not to worry,
though. If you start thinking like a mogul, you can be one, too.

Best quote: "The vast majority of people simply do not have the
internal capacity to create and hold on to large amounts of money and
the increased challenges that go with more money and success."

1. Think and Grow Rich

Way back in the 1930s, author Napoleon Hill interviewed a series of
millionaires and philanthropists, starting with the steel magnate
Andrew Carnegie. The result was a perennially best-selling work of
self-development that encourages the notion that "greed is good"--as
long as you're willing to share your wealth.

Best quote: "If you truly desire money so keenly that your desire is
an obsession, you will have no difficulty in convincing yourself that
you will acquire it. The object is to want money, and to be so
determined to have it that you convince yourself that you will have
it."

What other books should have been on this list. Leave a comment!