Over the course of this worldwide pandemic, I have been devouring personal finance books. Some have been better than others, of course, but I want to share my favorites with you all. These books are incredible resources. I think anyone can find themselves relating to some aspect of these books, no matter how much money you are actually working with, because the concepts they present are scalable and can be applied from negative net worth to zero and all the way up to millions.
J.L. Collins wrote this book for his daughter who asked him to just simplify saving for retirement as much as possible, because she did not want to spend all her time trying to understand and time the stock market. I definitely sympathize. I have no desire to try to gamble my way to wealth picking stocks and hoping I hit the jackpot. He does an excellent job of narrowing down the major important points of each aspect, placing them side by side for comparison, and providing his own recommendations which you can take with your grain of salt if you like.
This book uses Vanguard’s funds frequently as an example, and I do agree that Vanguard is excellent for anyone who wishes to invest on their own and stick with low-cost index funds, but they are definitely not the only option. Collins explains that there are many funds with similar characteristics with every financial institution. Fidelity is awesome too, and I’ve seen similar funds at Schwab and others as well. Wherever your retirement fund sits, you can use the lessons in this book to understand what you’re holding and what you want to be holding instead.
The book outlines the different purposes for saving, the different tax-advantaged accounts available, and the different types of securities a person can have access to. These explanations are succinct and comparable and I believe anyone would be able to understand and apply the information presented in this book to their own retirement accounts and become more comfortable with their financial futures.
The Simple Path to Wealth by J. L. Collins is, hands-down, the best book for beginner investors who just want to ensure stability in retirement. If you want to go hardcore, picking stocks every day and challenging yourself to time the market and find The Next Big Thing, this book is not for you. This book is for those of us who want the simple, reliable path to wealth.
This will take you to the current link on Amazon if you’d like to purchase the book. If you choose to purchase through this link, I will get a small affiliate commission, which would be dope! It won’t add any additional cost for you, but it would help FSE keep providing awesome information and education to all you lovely people! Enjoy!