Reading books on wealth building can provide valuable insights, strategies, and inspiration to help you develop the mindset and skills necessary for achieving financial success and long-term prosperity. The list of wealth building books is long, and for every approach to creating wealth, there’s a book or two devoted to it. Whether you want to learn about budgeting to live within your means, paying off debt, trading securities, investing in real estate or any other route to increasing your wealth, there’s a book to suit your needs. You can also schedule a consultation with a financial advisor to develop a customized plan for increasing your own wealth.
10 Wealth Building Books
Successful books about accumulating personal wealth can command millions of readers and achieve influence and popularity spanning years, decades and even generations. The following books are some of the most highly regarded of their kind. Though the advice they offer is general, much useful financial information can be imparted through the pages of a book. As always, for a more personalized strategy tailored to your unique financial goals, consider consulting with a financial advisor.
- The Intelligent Investor, by Benjamin Graham. Many famous investors cite this venerable book on value investing as the most important one they have read. Its basic message is that investors need to use fundamental analysis to determine the value of a company before investing in it, then buy undervalued securities and hold them for the long term.
- Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki. Making money work for you instead of making yourself work for money is the central theme of this popular book, which also stresses financial literacy, passive income and real estate investing. Along the way, author Kiyosaki discusses how to pay down debts, overcome obstacles to wealth and change unproductive habits.
- The Millionaire Next Door, by Thomas S. Stanley and William D. Danko. According to the college professor co-authors, most wealthy Americans don’t live in exclusive cloisters such as Beverly Hills, but in working-class neighborhoods scattered across the country. They go on to explain the seven behaviors exhibited by these ordinary-looking wealth accumulators, including spending less than they earn, avoiding costly status purchases and being willing to take risks.
- A Random Walk Down Wall Street, by Burton Malkiel. Here beginning investors will get an introduction to the basics of investing along with a warning against trying to beat the market. Instead, economist Malkiel recommends long-term investing in major indexes using low-cost, passively managed index funds as the best way for most investors to build wealth.
- One Up On Wall Street, by Peter Lynch. The author and legendary manager of Fidelity’s Magellan Fund provides an introduction to investing and then moves into his personal method for selecting winning stocks. He advises against picking trendy companies or industries, and urges readers to consider securities of companies that have good fundamentals but aren’t well-known.
- The Little Book of Commonsense Investing, by John Bogle. Since Bogle is the founder and chairman of Vanguard, it’s to be expected that his approach to amassing personal wealth stresses index investing over trying to pick the best stocks and funds. Bogle lauds investing in index funds as a low-cost, tax-efficient and reliable way to earn average market returns. Perhaps best of all from the perspective of someone just learning about investing, it’s also simple and easy.
- Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill. The premise of this stalwart of wealth-building literature is that anyone can become affluent. It lays out a set of steps to follow that include setting clear goals, preparing a plan to achieve objectives, taking actions that can be expected to advance the plan and maintaining a positive attitude.
- The Total Money Makeover, by Dave Ramsey. Personal finance guru Ramsey offers seven steps to creating prosperity, including perhaps most notably using the snowball method for paying off debt. Other tips include starting on the road to wealth building by saving $1,000 as a safety net and then saving for retirement and college and, finally, giving to charity.
- The E-Myth Revisited, by Michael Gerber. This take on wealth building focuses on how to successfully run a small business by going against some of the common wisdom about entrepreneurs. Typical entrepreneurs, according to the author, are not risk-embracing visionaries but technicians who are expert at producing the goods and services they sell but not at running the businesses they create. The key insight is that most should aim to focus on working on their business rather than merely working in it.
- The Psychology of Money, by Morgan Housel. A former journalist-turned-venture capitalist, Housel’s take on wealth building is more idiosyncratic than most. Among other things, he emphasizes recognizing the influence early life experiences can have on anyone’s relationship with money, the vital role of luck and the fact that saving for retirement using tax-advantaged accounts such as IRAs is a relatively recent phenomenon, so it’s not surprising that people aren’t that good at it.
Bottom Line
Wealth building books allow readers to get inside the minds of those who have become affluent through their own efforts and gain exposure to ideas, philosophies, strategies and attitudes that have allowed others to accumulate significant assets. The variety of approaches displayed by popular books on growing individual wealth demonstrates that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the challenge of building affluence. There are, rather, a wide array of approaches, each with something to offer to anyone who is seeking to create prosperity.
Tips for Building Wealth
- If you’re inspired by these wealth-building books, a financial advisor can provide personalized insights and actionable steps to help you implement the strategies you’ve learned. Finding a financial advisor doesn’t have to be hard. SmartAsset’s free tool matches you with up to three financial advisors in your area, and you can interview your advisor matches at no cost to decide which one is right for you. If you’re ready to find an advisor who can help you achieve your financial goals, get started now.
- Get a dollars-and-cents illustration of the power of compound interest using the SmartAsset Savings Calculator.
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