Having owned homes before and now being retired, I decided not to own but to rent… again having previously lived in Chicago for 27 years without a Car, I had a different approach to transportation.

We also have an Enterprise Car rental service closeby which we use for Trips — especially in the Summers.

I would also recommend “Whatever Happened to Penny Candy ?” by Richard Maybury if people want to learn how money supply effects inflation and the stock market. It’s a simple read geared to a grade 9 level but completely explains some basic economic principals for investors.

SW

Suze Orman: 9 Steps to Financial Freedom - perfect for creating the right foundation with budgeting

Robert Kiyosaki’s Cash Flow Quadrant- a very important motivator to get out of the wrong quadrants and strive to become investors and business owners. I would never have done it without his ideas.

Michael Gerber E-Myth Revisited. DO NOT START A SMALL BUSINESS WITHOUT READING THIS BOOK!

Live it Up without Outliving Your Money: 10 Steps to a Perfect Retirement Portfolio by Paul Merriman

No nonsense, easy to read, straightforward plan. Highly recommend his podcast (Sound Investing) as well.

You’ve given so good description of the books. I like the way you present things.

Thanks for this list. I personally started a crazy project : read 52 of the best businesses books in 52 weeks in an attemp to pass the Personal MBA (a MBA for less than 1 500$) in one year ( see my blog http://www.books-that-can-change-your-life.net/2008/my-crazy-project-read-52-of-the-best-business-books-in-52-weeks-and-post-a-weekly-review-here-on-my-blog/ )

The Personal MBA is a comprehensive list of 77 books (93 with the supplements) in 12 categories that is intended to deliver the 20% of the knowledge given in an MBA that give 80% of the results.

Only a few books are common between your liste and the PMBA one, so i think it is a great complement. Thanks for that

MillionaireManager.com

This book is hilarious–well-written in a simple, conversational style. Even a fifth grader could understand this…and that is not at all an insult to the book, which underscores the importance of getting a true grasp on your business’ financial fortitude.

Evidently, even businesses that are showing up making a profit are still losing money! Could that be why we are in such an economic mess? Maybe.

Still, one should absolutely check this book out–a finance library Must-Have!

1. Index everything
2. You might or might not need to rebalance.

But is this applicable in current market.

I would recommend “coffehouse investor”

http://sreekalyan.blogspot.com

For the comments on Rich Dad, Poor Dad - he’s a very good salesman, and he’s selling your own ability to reach financial freedom. Too light on actual useful techniques, and he makes it sound too easy, but there are some good ideas there. My favorite is his definition of wealth: how many months you could continue with your current lifestyle if you lost your job now. Thus infinite wealth is streams of passive income in excess of your expenses. Financial Freedom.

Books I would add to the list:
Safe Strategies for Financial Freedom by Van K Tharp. What RDPD should be - he completely sells you on Financial Freedom in the beginning, then gets into cutting debt, increasing cashflow, re-deploying the assets you have, different investments, and finally risk management. When I finished investments, I was a little let-down that there wasn’t more with so much of the book left, but the risk understanding is the best part of the book, especially when he gets to taking responsibility for your situation.

Creating Wealth by Robert Allen. My favorite Robert Allen book, because he starts with a list of asset classes and breaks down their strong and weak points - worth it just for this chart! But he also gets into how to accelerate your real estate portfolio, and some very clever ideas on how to build wealth with mortgages and other less-well-known strategies. You can get in trouble with “No money down” strategies, but overall a very good book.

It’s Not About the Money by Brent Kessel. This and T Harv Eker’s book are the best I’ve found on understanding and re-wiring your relationship to money. When he comes to financial crises, he starts with Loving-Kindness meditation and some very good non-standard practices.

Automatic Wealth: The 6 Steps to Financial Independence by Michael Masterson. Master marketer and businessperson, he walks you through the stages (if not full steps) of getting rich - starting with becoming indispensable at work, then building your own side business. I didn’t like Ready, Fire, Aim as much though - this one is better overall.

Just One Thing by John Mauldin. He goes to some of the best minds in investing, and asks, “If you could impart just one idea to your family/disciple/students about money, what would it be?” There are some great answers here.

Market Wizards by Jack Schwager. More for people who actively invest or trade the markets, this book looks at the most successful and what they do. You’ll find some common themes: cautiously optimistic, willing to be responsible for their mistakes, honest appraisals about their abilities, understanding of risks, and great money management (best explained in Tharp’s book - the first on my list).

Good reading! And thanks for your suggestions, all.

101 Ways to Magnetize Money by Matt Furey

Go to : http://www.101WaystoMagnetizeMoney.com

There are some positive things about his books, but far too many mistakes, errors, omissions, etc to make it worth it. (He makes a fundamental error in defining an ‘asset’ for example).

His initial success was with Amway, and that’s how he got his books rolling, by the way.

Plug “kiyosaki critique” into google and you’ll find an excellent website devoted to debunking him.

The rules of money have changed…the US government is flooding our money supply with more and more currency. We are moving towards a hyper-inflation which means that the $20,000 that you worked so hard to save over the last several years will be lose much of its value in the years ahead.

The alternative to saving your money would be to invest in tangible assets that hedge against inflation like gold, silver and oil.

Leveraging debt is one way to increase wealth. If you are looking to make large sums of wealth, you MUST leverage debt and not be afraid of it.

Acquiring wealth first begins with an abundance mindset. If you are obsessed with living below your means, it will be difficult to focus on expanding your means and tapping into the abundant resources that we have available to us.

I’ve learned all of this from my mentor Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad. Much of what he teaches contradicts most people’s beliefs about money.

Playing his CASHFLOW board game radically changed my perceptions about money forever.

Great discussion everyone!

Buffett: The Making of an American capitalist.

This books gives insights to one of the most referred person in the investing world. It won’t give you stock tips and such, but it’ll set the mood on how you should behave with your investments.

I read this book 3 years ago(I’m currently 24), and plan to apply this to my career and life.