Most of my life has been lived in the mindset of treating money as something that comes and goes without ever considering the reasons for anything. I would save money whenever it crossed my mind, spend when it suited me, and assumed that someday "I'll just get good with money." Spoiler alert: that day is not going to happen.

The actual breakthroughs were not brought about by an increase in salary, some kind of fancy budgeting app, or even a resolution on January 2nd that made it to the eleventh day of the year. The breakthroughs were books. Five or so of them, which I randomly picked up within a few years' time, turned around my whole approach to money. Not just the practicality of handling money, but the essence of what money meant for me. And if you have ever felt bad with money, or just lost on the subject in general, perhaps these books will change your perspective too. 

This one goes without saying because this one is indeed worth its popularity. It is the story of Kiyosaki's personal experience where he compares the way his biological father (well-educated, but poor man) thinks with the way his best friend's father (not as well-educated as his own, but rich) thinks.

The concept that left the biggest impression on me was his simple and very practical classification of assets versus liabilities. This classification is not about how these terms are used in accounting textbooks, but how you understand them when you see something in real life – asset brings money to your wallet, liability takes money away from it. Suddenly, things I thought were my investments started looking totally different – a car I couldn't really afford didn't count as one.

Prior to reading this book, I would say that being good with money meant earning more. Now I know that it is just as important to know how to use what you have earned.

While Rich Dad Poor Dad changed my perspective on the notion of assets, this one changed my view on myself and my attitude to money. All the arguments by Housel point out the fact that success in finance does not depend on knowledge but largely depends on behavior – patience, fears, good habits, and even luck.

The story about the janitor who managed to save millions of dollars through decades of disciplined and steady investments, while other people with high salary ended up with nothing, stayed in my mind forever. It was neither about intellect nor salary; it was about temperament and consistency.

That's why this book became the reason for my stop of searching for the next "smart" investment and start focusing on the principle of consistency. 

The reason why this one struck a chord was because of the unique approach taken in the book. All the money books tend to focus on the numbers, while this one takes on a different route and talks about the most precious commodity that we have – our time. The central idea in the book by Robin is that the money that we earn is worth so much more than just dollars; it is the value of the hours of our life which we have exchanged for it.

There's an interesting exercise in the book which requires the readers to figure out their true hourly rate after considering things such as commuting, work wear, expenses incurred due to stress and all the other things that we spend on account of our jobs. Once I calculated that for myself, I found myself looking at my purchases in a different light. Instead of a mere $40, that impulsive purchase turned out to be 2 hours of my life.

 

This book completely ruined the perception of what a wealthy individual looked like. For many years, the authors researched the lives of real millionaires in the USA, and what came out was a far cry from the extravagant, expensive car and designer everything millionaire that we have all imagined.

In fact, the majority of the participants in the research lived in average houses, drove old cars and did not invest a lot of money into making themselves seem like they were extremely rich. Their richness was not obvious and came quietly, over time, as a result of living under their means even though they were able to do otherwise.

My take away from this book is that appearing wealthy and being wealthy are two totally opposite approaches. A lot of individuals who appear to be spending the most are doing it to appear wealthy, whereas people who are truly wealthy would probably never be suspected of such a thing.

 

By the time I read this book, I already knew the reason why people should make certain financial decisions. What I was missing at that point was the how to do that, that is, how to set up things so that my good decisions were made automatically without any extra effort.

The best thing about the approach that Sethi offers is its non-judgmental nature. He does not criticize people for buying coffee on a daily basis or feel guilty about spending their money. Instead, he encourages you to take care of boring things such as saving, investing, and paying bills, leaving you free to spend guiltlessly on what really matters to you.

This book is the one which finally convinced me to set up automated transfers to my savings and retirement accounts rather than plan to start doing something soon.

However, none of the books gave me a secret recipe on how to become rich quickly; and frankly, I wouldn't trust anyone who claims he can. Instead, the effect they had on me is that of a gradual change of my understanding of money, as something associated with time, behavior, patience and identity, and not merely as figures in my bank account.

Here are the main conclusions that could be drawn from all of these five books at once: in the majority of cases, problems with money do not have anything to do with mathematics, they are purely psychological and behavioral problems.

Therefore, if you want to start with something, choose whatever suits you best according to your current state: if you are having trouble with simple habits – try I Will Teach You to Be Rich, if you are interested in the psychological aspect – go for The Psychology of Money. Whichever book you choose, I can assure you that these books really changed the way I am dealing with money in general.