Contemporary book for financial literacy?
May 5, 2019 7:50 AM   Subscribe

I'm looking for a contemporary book on financial literacy, something suitable for a young adult to learn about how to save money, buy a house, manage credit card debt, plan for retirement, etc. In the past I've always recommended Jane Bryant Quinn's Making the Most of your Money but that book was written back in 1991 and last updated in 2009. Looking for something newer.

There's a zillion trendy books on investments, savings, etc. I'm looking for more of a boring down to earth book with practical advice. Quinn's book is structured very well. There's a chapter on mortgages, and a chapter on credit cards, and a chapter on mutual funds, and.. it's 1400 pages but you can approach it a subject at a time. And the advice is very simple and solid. Great book! But I fear it's a bit long in the tooth and am wondering if someone else has taken over the mantle of writing a book like that.

(I'm not looking for personal advice, I learned this stuff from Quinn back when her book was new. Looking now for something I can give as a gift or refer someone to.)
posted by Nelson to Work & Money (5 answers total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
Because this is Metafilter, I am going to recommend “Your Money: The Missing Manual.” If you ever read the Get Rich Slowly blog, this is that author’s comprehensive book after many years of study. Blogger Kevin Kelley does a good job of explaining why this is probably the best book right now. It dates from 2010, but the basics haven’t changed that much.

If this were not Metafilter, I would recommend Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover. But in general this site sometimes has a problem with Christian authors. This is definitely a finance book but Ramsey does mention two or three times in several hundred pages that he is Christian. This is enough to make some people not want to read the rest of the book. In my opinion Dave Ramsey does this the best for a young person because he emphasizes that managing money is not only a matter of learning math or a budgeting system, but also includes understanding and managing your emotions and behaviors about money.

Either book is good and will do pretty much exactly what you want.
posted by seasparrow at 9:49 AM on May 5, 2019 [2 favorites]


I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi. He updated the book for 2019 and it will be out in May.
posted by saturdaymornings at 1:17 PM on May 5, 2019


A financial blogger that I'm friends with suggested the Sethi book when I asked him with financial book to my my newly graduated from college son.
posted by COD at 3:30 PM on May 5, 2019


Best answer: Get a Financial Life by Beth Kobliner - last updated in 2017.
posted by soelo at 9:02 AM on May 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


I came to second Kobliner's Get a Financial Life.
posted by brianogilvie at 6:42 PM on May 6, 2019


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