6. Beating the Street by Peter Lynch (Simon and Schuster, 1993)
“Beating the Street is one of the first investing books I ever read, and it’s stayed with me because it makes stock investing accessible to beginners. There are many highly analytical and slightly scary books on investing, but Peter Lynch managed to make stocks exciting and approachable using simple, real-world examples drawn from his own experience as a high-performing fund manager. It’s an oldie but a goodie.”
—Aditya Nain, MoneySense contributor, author, speaker and educator about Canadian investments, personal finance and crypto
Master the basics of personal finance—at any age
7. Seventeen to Millionaire by Douglas Price (self-published, 2022)
“This book feels like your (parents) sat you down and taught you everything you need to know about money, before you ever encountered any of it. It gives you the opportunity to take on the world, with easily digestible knowledge in your back pocket.”
—Reni Odetoyinbo, financial educator and content creator (Reni the Resource)
8. I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi (revised edition, Workman Publishing Company, 2019)
“A great book for anyone who wants to understand how the financial system works. I love that this book is incredibly practical. It breaks personal finance down in such an easy-to-understand way and helps you create systems around your finances that make things less stressful.”
—Reni Odetoyinbo
9. How Not To Move Back in With Your Parents by Rob Carrick (Doubleday Canada, 2012)
“This book teaches the basics of money management to young adults. It helps teach good financial habits for young people and their parents!”
—Shannon Lee Simmons, an award-winning Certified Financial Planner, speaker, bestselling author, Chartered Investment Manager, founder of the New School of Financethe money columnist on CBC Radio’s Metro Morning and a financial expert on the concluded The Marilyn Denis Show
10. The Wealthy Barber: The Common Sense Guide to Successful Financial Planning by David Chilton (Stoddart, 1989)
“This was the first personal finance book I ever read, after learning personal finance at my father’s knee. Thanks to his coaching, I have filed my own income tax returns every year since I was 16. And it still stands up. The literary conceit of the titular barber allows author David Chilton to walk through scary-sounding money concepts in a relatable way. There’s a reason it’s sold millions of copies.”
—Sandra E. Martin, two-time MoneySense editor (OG editor-in-chief Ian McGugan hired her in 1999, and she returned in 2019 as editor-in-chief), and currently The Globe and Mail’s standards editor.
11.The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need by Andrew Tobias (revised edition, Harper Business, 2022)
“Let me give a shout-out to the book that changed my life: The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need by Andrew Tobias. Until I plucked this book at random out of a box of discards while working a night shift in 1979, I was a university student who thought money was boring and inexplicable. Tobias changed all that. He was smart, funny and human. He made money fascinating. He also delivered a truckload of practical wisdom. I remain a fan of this personal-finance classic—now updated many times, not just for its sage advice but also for its big personality.”
—Ian McGugan, founding editor of MoneySense, and columnist for The Globe and Mail.
12. Stop Over-Thinking Your Money!: The Five Simple Rules of Financial Success by Preet Banerjee (Penguin Canada, 2014)
“If you’re looking for no-nonsense, clearly explained money tips, pick up this easy-to-read volume by Canadian writer and podcaster Preet Banerjee. He boils personal finance down to five rules: disaster-proof your life, spend less than you earn, aggressively pay down high-interest debt, read the fine print, and delay consumption. Do these five things and you’ll be in better financial shape than you are today.”
—Jaclyn Law, MoneySense’s managing editor
Find the courage to chase your dreams
13. I Could Do Anything If Only I Knew What It Was by Barbara Sher (Dell, 1995)
“I did all the ‘right’ things in my career. I went to business school and got a great corporate job. If I had just stayed on that path, money would have taken care of itself. Except I didn’t love the job. I was stuck. I needed something to crack my paradigm about what ‘right’ meant for me. This book did that. One transformational exercise was answering this question: ‘If you could do anything and knew you would be successful, what would it be?’ This was a light-bulb moment for me. My answer was to work in TV news, and I realized that it was just fear that was holding me back. As terrified as I was, I quit my job and pursued what I really wanted. I made less money than I would have in the business world, but the big switch was worth every penny.”
—Bruce Sellery, CEO of Credit Canada, host of Moolala on SiriusXM, the Money Columnist for CBC Radio
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