Further Reading

This information is also available in the “Bibliography and Further Reading” section of the book. It will be kept up to date as links and resources change.

Books

The most direct inspiration for this book is Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez. Originally published in the early 1990s, Your Money or Your Life gained a new audience among people interested in financial independence and retiring early, or FIRE. The book includes a mixture of advice and techniques for analyzing and controlling your spending relative to your income. It has been revised for modern investing options and with a new foreword by a popular personal finance blogger.

John C. Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, is something of a folk hero among savvy individual investors for spreading the gospel about low-cost index funds. He has written several books on the subject of investing. The most famous of these is The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns. I recommend it for people who want more information about simple fund strategies to help them build wealth throughout their careers.

For people who want more detailed information on investing with some history mixed in, Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing is a worthwhile if long read. Graham is often called the “father of value investing” and is the inspiration for investors such as Warren Buffett. The book was first published in 1949 and last revised in 1973 before Graham died in 1976, so his book often seems very dated by modern standards. New editions continue to be published which include a contemporary commentary after each chapter to put Graham’s observations in a modern context.

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder is a lengthy, comprehensive biography about one of the most successful investors in American history. From a personal finance standpoint, I found that The Snowball taught me just how difficult it is for an investor to thoroughly research companies before investing in them. Even though technology has advanced considerably since Buffett started reviewing paper reports at his home and office, the fundamentals of value investing continue to drive Buffett’s portfolio of profitable yet familiar companies such as Coca-Cola, American Express, and Kraft Heinz. After I read The Snowball, I decided to move nearly all of my stock market investments into index funds because I couldn’t commit enough time and energy to pick stocks on my own.

Ponzi’s Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend by Mitchell Zuckoff is a fascinating read about Charles Ponzi, the man who did not invent the scheme that bears his name but who made it famous worldwide. The book looks at the culture that helped Ponzi stay in business. For example, he found support from credulous reporters and police officers to whom he sold his dubious investments. Among the major figures who helped bring Ponzi down was a Boston Post reporter named Clarence W. Barron, who in 1921 founded a weekly financial news magazine that bears his name and that is still in print as of 2022.

For those interested in helping others, I personally prefer to grant funds to traditional charities. This system has been effective but it has its flaws. Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas is a compelling read about how the richest and most powerful people in business keep their own interests in mind as they look to change the world. Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) by Dean Spade, published in late 2020, captures an alternative to traditional nonprofits that some of my friends prefer and recommend over the traditional charity model.

For those interested in do-it-yourself (DIY) legal work, I recommend the web site and books of Nolo. When I was a landlord, I used Leases & Rental Agreements to help write leases, for example.

Retirement planning

Even if you’re far away from retirement, the book How to Retire by Christine Benz is worthwhile reading. Ms. Benz writes for Morningstar; her book includes 20 interviews with retirement experts, including herself, with interesting insights about planning financially and emotionally for a life after work. The book’s interview subjects have useful retirement web sites of their own; I recommend The Ultimate Pre-Retirement Checklist, by Fritz Gilbert, and Open Social Security, a free, open source calculator to help Americans decide when to start claiming Social Security benefits.

Web sites with articles

The Motley Fool, which has been offering advice on-line since 1993, has an excellent introductory investing guide which offers fundamentally sound advice. The Fool makes its money largely from premium subscription services, which it promotes constantly and which in some cases have outperformed the market, but its investing guide offers rather subdued, reasonable advice.

I trust a small set of web sites for basic financial information, though many others will pop up when I do a search for a topic or a news event. For news and rates related to mortgages and savings accounts, I like BankRate, which is clearly ad-supported but whose information is generally easy to understand. I consider Investopedia to be an excellent resource for professionally-written articles and simple explainers about even complex investment topics. For tax topics, the IRS’s web site has a lot of useful information and forms that you can download for free. It also has interactive calculators and worksheets. You should also create an IRS account to help you in case of any dispute — and so that nobody else can create an account in your name. Many financial news sites have personal finance sections; I personally like reading CNBC. Although I don’t agree with everything they publish, their personal finance section is updated regularly and includes a broad range of topics.

People who are curious about the law and who like to do things themselves should check out Nolo. Their web site is full of reliable and readable articles about a wide range of topics. When I rented out property, I bought one of their books that included guidance on writing a lease and sample documents that I could edit and print out. They also sell software and services for various legal needs, including estate planning.

AARP, originally formed to represent retirees, has a lot of useful resources about personal finance on their web site, such as this guide to creating a living will and a whole section about scams. AARP members get access to additional services including financial guidance and travel discounts.

The U.S. government maintains StudentAid.gov, a portal with resources about planning for education expenses and paying for college. Check whether your state offers similar resources for its residents. Finaid, started by the publisher of scholarship finder Fastweb, also has a lot of useful material, including this article on UTMA, UGMA, and 529 accounts for college savings. Saving for College includes this article that may help you to select an out-of-state 529 plan.

There are many forums on-line for personal finance, though I’m not a member of any myself. I rarely read large, broad forums since the volume of posts is just too much to keep up with. If you join a forum, try to find one that aligns with your goals and, in particular, with where you live. U.S. tax laws are complex enough; if you are in a forum where people are giving advice across national borders, that’s going to be more confusing than helpful. Reddit’s /r/personalfinance forum has over 15 million members as of early 2022 and has collaborated on a useful wiki with a ton of information, notably its step-by-step guide to spending money that I’d recommend as a good resource for rules-oriented people who are just starting out. With so many members from around the world, though, I could never find the time to read even a tiny fraction of the posts and threads in its main discussion board.

Applications

After having used Quicken for over 10 years, I switched to the open-source Gnucash for managing my accounts. Gnucash is ugly and you might need to learn Scheme to write custom reports, but it’s free software that doesn’t require annual payments to maintain its functionality. It also runs reasonably well on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and you can move a file from one operating system to another without too much hacking.

TreasuryDirect is the Treasury Department’s web application. It’s the only way to buy Series I savings bonds, those inflation-tracking bonds that are among the safest and highest-returning investments available in 2022. Their web site features one of the most unwieldy login pages I’ve ever used, but the financial return is worth your time.

I recommend that everyone use a password manager that keeps their unique passwords encrypted at rest and accessible on all their devices. I’ve used LastPass, but now I recommend open source password managers, KeePassXC and BitWarden.

For filing my taxes, I recommend FreeTaxUSA, which has a free Federal version with more features than any of its competitors, although it doesn’t hold your hand as much. A deluxe upgrade and state tax filing cost extra. If you have experience with tax filing and you’re comfortable looking things up on your own, FreeTaxUSA will help you file a tax return cheaply and reliably.

If you’re interested in generating a will online for free, give FreeWill a try.