Finance and Minimalism Books I Read in 2020

Last year, I read about 20 books. The most I've read in one year since I started tracking my reading habit back in 2013. Surprisingly, six books were related to personal finance and minimalism. Here are my take on these books.

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  The Intelligent Investor (Revised Edition) by Benjamin Graham - This is the granddaddy of all value investing books. Warren Buffett can attest to this. I didn't read this book word for word since most of the materials and examples are outdated. It's the concepts in investing that I'm most interested. These concepts are well documented in other, more modern, personal investment books. Concepts such as buy and hold index funds, pick the right company not the stock, etc. I don't think this book is a must read because of its dense material since it is over 600 pages. There are other books I recommend for the average investor. Like the one below.

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  Invested by Danielle Town - This is a book by the daughter of Phil Town, the author of Rule #1, another investing book I read back in 2007. In Invested, Danielle documents her journey in investing and focuses on buying stocks in Whole Foods. She documents three methods of stock valuation that are easy to understand to a novice stock investor. I found this book to be a quick read, but some information in the book are irrelevant to investing, such as her personal life with her dad and her boyfriend at the time. In the end, I took down notes about her investing methods, but I didn't use any of them because it's hard for me to invest in individual stocks due to pre-clearance issues in my company. I have an easier time buying ETFs.

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  I Will Teach You to be Rich (Second Edition) by Ramit Sethi - This is the best personal finance book for anyone who wants to reach financial independence. I recommended this book to several people already. The book gives great advice on things that were never taught in school. Basic things such as credit cards, bank accounts, budgeting, stock investing, and more are discussed. Not only does this book gives many practical advice, it recommends many of the same services that I use already, such as the best banks to use, best brokerage firms to open accounts, etc. A great book to read.

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  The Richest Man in Babylon by George S Clason - This is a very popular book that's written like an old parable. It's a short book and is also geared toward a novice who is just starting out with saving and investing. However, I recommend this book only in its concepts. To get more practical and modern, read the I Will Teach You to be Rich book.

These are the finance books I read last year. They are great in getting a person to start saving and investing. There are two other books that put me in a different mindset and really shifted my perspective about money. They are the following.

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  The Moneyless Man by Mark Boyle - This book documents Mark's journey of spending a year living a moneyless life. He did this near Bristol, England. It's a fascinating read and showed me that it is possible to live without money if I really wanted to. The book gives some practical ways to live a moneyless life and is an inspiration for anyone who is interested in extreme minimalism.

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  The Man Who Quit Money by Mark Sundeen - This book is written about a man named Daniel Suelo, who spent over ten years living a moneyless life in Moab, Utah. It is different than The Moneyless Man in that it's more of a long memoir than a short yearlong log. The book describes the reasons why Daniel decided to become moneyless and the series of events in his life that led to his decision. It's a great read overall, though I feel some chapters dragged on a bit too long. Nonetheless, it changed my perspective about money.

We all know who are the top three richest people in the world are, but we don't know who are the people on the other side of the spectrum. It's these people who have the more interesting lives to me. These two books taught me to look money in a new way. If I ever lose all of my money I feel more comfortable now that I know there are people who live without money intentionally, and they still live a happy and good life. Money, in the end, is just a tool. It's not the end all be all.