After years of working hard and building our credit, we start looking for ways to build our lives. We contact a mortgage broker to get a house for our growing family. We open up a savings account to build our savings for our kids’ college tuition. We contact car dealers to get ourselves a car that would fit our whole family comfortably.
Apart from these saving funds for the future, we can also build our lives and our family’s through investing. But many people are afraid to try out investing. If not that, then they leave it up to the finance experts to manage the investments for them. But this doesn’t have to be the case. We, too, can learn a thing or two about investing. This way, we can learn to manage our own money and learn to save more for our future. These are the best books that can teach investing to beginners like us.
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing
If we’re going to start reading about investing, we should at least start with a book that was endorsed by Warren Buffett himself. He famously claimed, “Investors — large and small — should read Jack Bogle’s The Little Book of Common Sense Investing.”
This book can teach us that, at its core, investing really is about common sense. It encourages us to exercise our minds to navigate the stock market. And then, this book will guide us as we exercise our minds. It will also teach us to see the warning signs of investment fads that will lead to us losing our money. Bogle himself was an experienced investor. He founded the Vanguard Group and the first index mutual fund in the world. So if we’re to pick our first teacher in investing, then Bogle would be the best for us.
The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing
If we find ourselves attached to Bogle’s book, then reading The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing would be the best way for us to learn more about this interesting facet of investing. Written by Taylor Larimore, Michael LeBoeuf, and Mel Lindauer, this book will teach us straightforward ways of investing, and building our wealth for the future.
At its core, this book will teach us the value of being a Boglehead — an investing term that pertains to a community of investors inspired by Bogle’s work and beliefs.
A Beginner’s Guide to the Stock Market
As the title clearly states, Matthew R. Kratter’s book will teach us more about the stock market especially since it would still be too confusing for us. The book’s full title is A Beginner’s Guide to the Stock Market: Everything You Need to Start Making Money Today. One of its most important statements is this: “Learn to make money in the stock market, even if you’ve never traded before.”
Kratter’s book is among the many works that will help us eliminate our fear of the stock market and not knowing what to do. It will help us learn to make calculated decisions to ensure the success of our investments — from buying our first stock to thinking like Buffett.
The Intelligent Investor
Science has Sir Isaac Newton. Philosophy has Aristotle and Plato. But economics has Benjamin Graham. He’s known as the father of value investing, especially with the prevalence of his book, The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Guide Book on Value Investing.
Through this book, we will learn to really think for the long term when we get into investing. If we really want to learn about this world much like what economics and finance college majors do, then this book will be the best for us.
The Simple Path to Wealth
While the other books highlight the importance of mastering investing in the stock market, J.L. Collins’ book highlights how investing is a means to an end — and the end is building our wealth. His book, The Simple Path to Wealth: Your Road Map to Financial Independence and a Rich, Free Life, can show us how we can build and sustain our future through investments.
In this book, we will learn all aspects of financing, from making smart loaning decisions to even specific things such as understanding the difference between 401(k) and 403(b).
Many people will claim that learning about money and economics is just too complicated for everyone. But managing our own money is one of the most fundamental things that we should all learn about — and part of managing our own money is building our wealth through investing. So, lucky for us, these books are here to simplify everything for us. With these books, we will start from beginners to experts in investing.