11.13.07
Simple Dollar’s top 10 finance books
Simple Dollar spent a year reading personal finance books, one a week for 52 weeks. Now he’s picked out the top ten of those. The first I definitely agree with, and copies are available for $1 at the link.
1. Your Money or Your Life
Joe Dominguez and Vicki RobinThis shouldn’t surprise my regular readers at all, as not only have I reviewed the book, I’ve also talked about how it changed my life and discussed it in incredible detail in the inaugural version of The Simple Dollar Book Club.
I’ve read a small mountain of personal finance books over the last year and a half and simply none of them compare to this one in terms of really making you reconsider the role that money has in your life and how to manage it better. Unlike other personal finance books, it really doesn’t focus much at all on the mechanics of how to save money or how to invest. Instead, it steps back and looks at the broader picture of how and why you’re spending money.
This material could easily become nebulous and, well, boring in the hands of lesser authors, but the late Joe Dominguez is just amazing here, transforming some very broad ideas into very, very specific things you can do to evaluate your own financial situation and how you’re choosing to spend your money and your time. It goes beyond money management into an examination of how we spend money in the modern world and whether it’s in line with our values or not. This book is incredibly heady stuff and will leave you questioning a lot about your life if you follow along and take the whole thing seriously. Read my complete review of Your Money or Your Life, and if that’s not enough detail, read through the very detailed book club entries.
