15 Best books to achieve financial independence (Part 1)

Have you had that feeling where you read something in a book and you just know that your life is going to change because of it? Every single book on this list gave me that feeling. Each book taught me what it takes to achieve financial independence and brought me closer to that goal. I have divided the books into 3 categories:

• Part 1- best personal finance books
• Part 2 – best motivational books
• Part 3 – best entrepreneurship books

Each one has specific and special information on how to build your wealth quickly and efficiently on your way to financial freedom. Your financial independence is ONLY 15 17 books away! Let’s embark on your personal finance journey.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad By: Robert Kiyosaki

Opening the category of best personal finance books is the book that emphasizes the importance of financial education, in order to build wealth and achieve financial freedom through investing in cash flow producing assets. Everything I learned about money management and achieving financial independence started with this book. It will teach you the principles behind becoming wealthy too.
Robert Kiyosaki tells the story of two fathers in the book, one he calls poor and one he calls rich. The poor dad is actually his real-life father, a man who had a great education and worked 9-5 every day to provide for his family. Yet despite what would seem to be a great advantage – education and a steady job – Robert’s father struggled financially his whole life.

The rich dad in the story is Robert’s friend’s father, a man without a formal education who decided to start his own business instead of working for someone else. He went on to become an extremely wealthy man, and taught Robert everything that eventually made him a very rich man too. Among the top things that the book teaches:

• Rich people don’t work for their money – their money works for them
• What is an asset and what is a liability
• Why your house isn’t your biggest asset – or even an asset at all

This book is a game-changer for anyone who wants to stop working for their money. Instead, let their money work HARD for them in order to achieve financial independence faster.

How the book helped to achieve financial independence:

This book’s arrival was perfectly timed. It came on my 34^th birthday. I had decided that I was really tired of doing the 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. rat race, and that I was ready to make a change. I wanted to be more present with my family, and to not be worrying about work all the time or making enough money so that all of the bills would get paid.
I devoured every word of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and it literally changed my life. It opened my eyes to what was possible and gave me hope that my dream of living an abundant and prosperous life was within reach. It was the first book that taught me to dream bigger than my everyday job and education taught me to do. After reading the book, I took massive action in order to achieve financial independence!

Think and Grow Rich By: Napoleon Hill

1937. It was the year that Amelia Earhart disappeared, the Hindenburg crashed, and the Golden Gate Bridge opened to traffic for the first time. The average home price was $4,100 and the computer, let alone the internet, was decades from being invented.
What could a book that was first published in 1937 possibly have to teach you about business and earnings and how to be successful in the 21^st century? A lot, as it turns out.
You need to read “Think and Grow Rich” because the Law of Success philosophy that is at the heart of it is something that author Napoleon Hill spent his life perfecting. He wanted to share his philosophy – and the secret to a happy, successful life, defined on your personal terms – with the world. It’s a message that every entrepreneur still needs to hear well into the 21^st century on his/her pursuit of financial freedom.

Napoleon Hill believed that each of us has the capability within ourselves to become millionaires. He believed that all we needed was to understand the secrets behind the most successful business people and how they got to where they are. Once we could understand those secret principles that these successful people lived by, we then had the tools to become successful entrepreneurs ourselves.
But his philosophy didn’t just start and stop with business. Hill also believed that people need balance in their lives, that they needed to understand people and know how to build relationships. So he made that a second tier of his book. When you put a high-level understanding of business together with a set of great interpersonal skills, you can unlock the potential for an earning capacity that surpasses your wildest dreams.

You will learn so much from reading this timeless classic. Hill’s book highlights 13 steps to achieving wealth, and you will learn to walk through each of them. It also contains an epilogue on how to outwit fear and take inventory of yourself so that you know how much you’re progressing in your knowledge and business acumen. So you’ll also learn how to look inward and make sure that you are on the right track as you conceptualize and build your business. By the time you’re finished reading it, you will be ready to change your life using the principles that Hill preaches. You may even be like Daymond John, the multi-millionaire founder of FUBU clothing and one of the entrepreneurs regularly featured on “Shark Tank,” who admits to reading the book every few years so that he can remind himself of Hill’s principles and get back on track with Hill’s philosophy. If it worked for John, and so many others over the course of eight decades in publication, it can work for you. In short, this book is about learning the secrets that top business people like Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Charles Schwab, and Daymond John have used to become so successful, and applying those secrets to your life and your business.

How the book helped to achieve financial independence:

There are two major ways that this book changed my life. The first is that it taught me that the key to success is found in the title of the book. It’s not “Work Hard and Grow Rich,” it’s “Think and Grow Rich.” So I started by changing my mindset and putting the things I was learning into practice so that they could really start working for me.

The second way it changed my life was by introducing me to the concept of a mastermind group. A mastermind group is people that meet together regularly for the purpose of holding each other accountable to their business dreams and goals. They offer support and advice to one another. After I read about these groups, I found a similar group in my town, and I meet regularly with them so that we can help each other become as successful as possible. Having an accountability group has helped my stretch myself and grow even beyond my goals because they are always challenging me to do more.

What Every Real Estate Investor Needs By: Frank Gallinelli

This book is a great place to start if you want to know how to begin your career as a real estate investor.
Whether you are a real estate rookie, someone who has been toiling around the industry but just hasn’t taken the investment leap yet, or a seasoned pro at the real estate investing life, this book has something for you. It has things that you can learn about how to be a better investor and get a better return on that investment.
Gallinelli wants you to know what it means to be a good real estate investor and how to be successful at it. His book is full of things you must know if you’re going to succeed – 37 things to be exact. He wants to remove any guesswork from the investment process so that you can be confident in your ability to pick the right property in the right place at the right time for you to invest in.

He touches on so many different critical points of being an investor. Just some of them are:

• Discounted Cash Flow
• Cash-on-Cash Return
• Net Operating Income
• Profitability Index
• Return on Equity

And there are so many more. When you finish this book, you’ll feel much more educated and much more confident that you have the tools to succeed in real estate investing and create a better, more financially sound future for yourself and your family.
Frank Gallinelli – man who has been in the real estate business for almost 40 years. He is a Yale graduate and runs the website realdata.com, which specializing in software for real estate developers and investors. He also has his own online course and teaches real estate finance as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in Columbia University’s Master of Science in Real Estate Development major. It’s safe to say he knows his stuff, and in this book, you’ll have the chance to glean his knowledge.
Gallinelli teaches concepts like how to crunch the real estate numbers so that you can correctly judge a property’s value and whether it’s the right investment for you to make. He’ll teach you things like how to know if a property is a good long-term investment and not just meant for short-term profits.
In short, you’ll learn tips, secrets, and essentials in how to build your own real estate empire. And you’re learning it all from one of the best.

How the book helped to achieve financial independence:

This book was critical to me because it gave me the vocabulary to be able to start my new real estate venture. It not only gave me the terms and definitions I needed to be able to talk about investing in real estate, it also gave little tests throughout the book so it helped to reinforce everything that I was learning. It gave me the confidence to be able to communicate with professionals in the field, even as I was just starting out.
It not only helped with vocabulary, but also with learning how to do calculations. This book taught me basic formulas so that I was ready to implement my knowledge in practical ways and calculate values so that I understood the financial implications of the investment decisions I was making. Calculations like the Rule of 72 were invaluable to me as I started investing in real estate. This book needs to be on your bookshelf if you’re thinking about investing and want to collapse time to achieve financial freedom.

The Richest Man in Babylon By: George S. Clason

This book is the best book on money management will give you the wisdom and secrets to help you learn not only how to get rich, but how to stay rich. If you’re looking to understand the fundamental principles about how to build the foundation of your wealth and keep it growing, this book is the place to start. “The Richest Man in Babylon” draws on the principles of acquiring wealth that were practiced by the ancient Babylon civilization. They are still remarkably relevant in our current times and can easily be applied to achieving wealth today. Clason explains about how rich the citizens of Babylon were, and what they understood to be the key principles of getting wealthy, staying wealthy, and ensuring your income for future generations.

This book will teach you the seven simple and practical rules for acquiring your fortune.

1. Save one-tenth of your earnings
2. Create a budget and stick to it
3. Make your money multiply
4. Guard your money from loss
5. Understand what a profitable investment is and how to make them
6. Ensure that your future income stays strong and continues to grow
7. Increase your ability to earn (the idea of reinvesting)

How the book helped to achieve financial independence:

“The Richest Man in Babylon” gave me the foundation I needed in order to build my wealth. It gave me a fundamental understanding how people get wealthy and how much I can be in control of what I save, earn, and reinvest. This book made me believe that I could achieve wealth not only for my lifetime, but for my kids as well.

The Book on Investing in Real Estate with No (and Low) Money Down By: Brandon Turner

If you’ve been interested in investing in real estate but don’t know where to start, you should read this book. If you’ve been interested in investing in real estate but have no extra income to put into it, you should read this book. If you’ve been interested in investing in real estate but need to make sure you have all your ducks in a row and that your mind is focused properly, you should read this book.

Let’s actually start by telling you what this book is NOT before you learn what it is.

• It’s not a magical guide to success.
• It’s not a step-by-step guide to how to invest.
• It’s not about how to amass a huge amount of money to get started.

What it IS about is how to change your mindset so that you are ready to be an investor. It’s about how raise funds you don’t yet have so that you can start investing in real estate sooner rather than later. This book is definitely geared towards those who are just starting out on their investment journey, but those who are already experienced and have purchased or flipped several properties will still be able to learn some great financial strategies from reading this book.

Turner explores nine different options for how to invest in real estate even if you don’t have the cash in your bank account to do it. He talks about everything from seller financing to a home equity line of credit to raising your own private funds – and six more ways! – in order to make your investment dreams a reality. But he doesn’t just list your options. Turner takes it several steps further and fleshes out how each of these scenarios play out in real-life examples. You’ll be to see how each of these options work and be able to make the absolute best decision for how you want to start your investment career.

When you read this book, you’ll learn about the best way for you to get rich. It won’t happen quickly, but if you follow what Turner says, you’ll have a great head start in how to invest the right way so that your money is working for you.

How the book helped to achieve financial independence:

I first heard of Brandon Turner when I was listening to the Bigger Pockets podcast. I then met Turner personally at a FinCon conference. We have become friends, and I am grateful for our friendship. It means that I can attest to his character and his knowledge.

The biggest thing that this book taught me is that “I don’t have money” is not an excuse for not investing in real estate. This book forces you to ask the question, “If I don’t have disposable income at the moment but want to invest, where are some places that I can find the money to invest in real estate and  make this dream a reality?” Turner then gives you a lot of different ideas where you can get the money. He also teaches a lot about financing, making sure his readers understand all kinds of real estate terms like HELOC, and giving real-life examples to back up his points, which helps his ideas and points to make more sense. This book will give you the confidence you need to start your journey towards real estate investing.

How Much Money Do I Need to Retire By: Todd R. Tresidder

Financial Independence hinges on knowing how to plan for retirement— or more accurately, how much money you need to retire when you want. This book is one of the best for getting that number right the first time. Written by a former hedge fund manager and owner of FinancialMentor.com, How Much Money Do I Need to Retire? breaks down how the traditional retirement model works, but it also exposes the holes you may not currently see in your plan. Tresidder presents the risks in conventional retirement planning with viable alternatives to avoid them.
The book is built on three different retirement models that build upon each other to give you a complete picture of how to design an asset-based retirement plan fit for the life you want to live. In each you learn how to plan things like:

• Using the conventional retirement model the right way and the questions
• Lifestyle planning
• Cash flow planning

This book’s sole focus is to help you figure out as precisely as possible how much money you need to retire. It is eye-opening to realize how many factors you may have not considered. Once you get through it, you’ll understand things like how to ensure you don’t outlive your nest egg and how to strategize for economic conditions you aren’t able to control. It also gives you the tools to close the gap between what you have saved and where you want to be. The best part is this book is useful whether you are just starting out or if you’re 10 years away from retirement and need to step up your savings game. It gives you confidence in the number goal that works for you.

Don’t Retire… Graduate!: Building a Path to Financial Freedom and Retirement at Any Age By: Eric Brotman

Eric is a judicious financial advisor who is nonetheless empathetic to the challenges Americans face when it comes to building a prosperous savings account. His latest book and podcast of the same name, Don’t Retire…Graduate!, treats saving towards retirement not as something we have to do in order to retreat from daily life by the time we hit 65, but something we should choose to do in order to better our well being. In fact, Eric believes financial wellbeing is a large component of our health as a whole, and should be tended to in the same way as exercise, clean eating, and mental health.

Eric’s belief system surrounding retirement preparedness is why he’s rewiring our attitudes towards retirement saving with a college textbook format on both his podcast and within the pages of his book. From Cash Management 101 to Retirement Readiness 402, Eric teaches us to never lose sight of the fact that when we save, we’re essentially writing a check to ourselves. His approach is so effective that Eric has been featured in Forbes, ABC, The Wall Street Journal, and more.