Useful Business and Finance Books to Read for Beginners

Every investors and business minded individual are looking for a great, effective and proven formula to achieve success. They are looking formulas on books, internet or asking someone who is already successful and rich. There are lot of business and finance book that are available on bookstore or in the internet as a PDF file (eBook), or sometimes the book are already published on the internet.

PDF Files (eBook) are also good but I prefer to buy a book (hard copy) so that my children can get benefit from these books. I can say that the books are my “gift” for them. But the precious gifts are my investments and some small business and enterprises that someday they will be the one to manage this investments and businesses.

In order for them (my kids) to become knowledgeable, I used books and let them know what I am doing with my family’s finances. No wonder why other people raise a “money-smart kids”, it is because they train their children handling finances in a nice way while they are still young.

There are proven studies that if a child trained properly, the knowledge and skills will be use in his advantage during his adult age. To train a child is not expensive as you think, it only cost you a small amount of money. One best way to train a child is by reading a book, a useful book that you considered as effective.

Example, a book related to anime or cartoons is not useful if you want to make your child to be a “money smart” or money conscious. Maybe a cartoon can be useful if the book is related to “values”, some books related to values are stories from the bible, or other stories that has “moral values” learning objectives.

The story of David and Goliath can remind your child to be brave and take risk. The story of “Job” can remind your child on how to remain faithfully in God inspite of life’s challenges and difficulties.

The books I have now so far are popular and somewhat “best-selling books”. Some are not. But I found them so useful and very effective. When choosing a book to read, I consider the following;

1. The juice
2. Unique
3. Practical
4. Easy to Understand English or Tagalog
5. Challenging
6. The Author – the author must be “rich and successful”.
7. Reasonable Price???

The Juice – Learn Many Things or Nothing at All
I am not looking for a title. I am looking for the “juice’. How to find out if the book has a great “juice” or not? First, look at the back cover of the book. Second, look at the table of contents.

Unique Ideas
There are authors whose ideas are just “copied” the idea of other authors. He just changed the phrase or sentence, but the meaning is the same. There are example of copied ideas nowadays, but good thing, even if it is a copied ideas, I found them useful because some authors translate the ideas into “tagalog” version.

Practical Guide
When I say practical, it has a practical guide or procedure on how to do a particular thing. Example, if the book entitled “how to get rich”, then it should have practical guide on “how to get rich” such as investing, buying real estate, not just blah blah blah. Or sometimes, the author should write his own experience on how to get rich.

Easy to Understand 
I have found a good book related to business and finance. It is easy to understand, using common and popular words in English. The author is very casual in explaining on how he acquired his wealth and how he think when it comes to business and finances.

Challenging Book is Not Boring
If you read books that only requires “eyes” , then  it is not a good book. A challenging book should make you think who you are now, how do you with your finances and motivate and encourage you in achieving your goal.

The Author and His Life
I consider a book is effective if the author is “walking his talk”.Example, if the title of the book is “investing in the stock market”, then he should be the one investing in the stock market and he should have the proof on how became rich in stock investing. Another ironic example is, the author talks about “how to get rich” but he himself is not ‘rich”. Common sense, how come his book will be effective if in his life the book was not effective. The” show me the money” philosophy is right if this is the case. Or else the author just copied the ideas of other people elsewhere. Take note, I consider an author as a coach, if a coach isn’t rich how did he teach you well on how to become rich, maybe he can teach you how to become “poor” or “broke”?

Reasonable Price Book
I am not very strict in pricing when it comes to buying books. Some price of the books are based on its “pages” not its “juices”. So beware, some 50 page business and finance book is better than a book that has thousand pages. It is worth buying if it will benefit you in achieving your goal. Do not waste money in buying books, but we should keep on learning to become successful. I am giving thanks to the authors and writers who contribute well in the world of business and finances. There are Filipino authors who are very intelligent in finances. I am so proud of them, especially those authors who is aiming for “financial literacy” of the Filipinos. For me, a good and effective author about financial literacy is a “hero”. Why? It is because most Filipinos need this kind of author, they make the Filipino rich, they make the Philippine economy growing by teaching Filipinos about investing. Two thumbs up for you guys.

Some Filipino Authors:
Mr. Francisco Colayco
Mr. J. Randell Tiongson
Bro. Bo Sanchez
Mr. Marvin Germo
David King
Mr. Larry Gamboa

Some Foreign Authors;
T.Harv Eker
Napoleon Hill
Robert Kiyosaki
Wallace Wattles
Rhonda Bryne
Thomas Stanley

I am not suggesting or recommending any of the books I am using, so far I bought these books using my “education funds” that has been discuss in my article entitled “how to manage money properly”. Just keep on reading first, before I will redirect you to the money management tips”. I have collected a business and finance books using “education jar”, a simple jar that is use for educating myself in the field that I want to learn, example, investing, real estate and entrepreneurship.

The Science of Getting Rich
Author: Wallace D. Wattles
Lesson Learned: “Give every man more in use value than you take from him in cash value, then you are adding to the life of the world by every business transactions”.
Full Review: The Science of Getting Rich

The Secret
Author: Rhonda Byrne
Lesson Learned: Read “The Secret to Money”, it is just a self explanation. The book will going to help you how to practice the law of attraction. Excerpt from “The Secret”.

To attract money, focus on wealth. It is impossible to bring more money into your life when you focus on the lack of it.

If you are willing to do only what’s easy, life will be hard. But if you are willing to do what’s hard, life will be easy.
Money will only make you more of what you already are.
Think of yourself as a container for wealth. If your container is small and your money is big, what’s going to happen? You will lose it. Your container will overflow and the excess money will spill out all over the place. You simply cannot have more money than the container. Therefore you must grow to be a big container so you cannot only hold more wealth but also attract more wealth. The universe abhors a vacuum and if you have a very large money container, it will rush in to fill the space. – T. Harv Eker

My Next Project this Year
My next project is to acquire books and other entrepreneurial magazines. The book for investing in stocks. I will going to buy this month a book entitled “the millionaire next door”. Also I will buy a book “money matters”, I just read some of this pages on book store. I think the work of the authors in this book will help teach me and my kids on how to be a smart on finances.

All you need to learn about finances. Practical savings, insurances, stocks, bonds and other investment vehicles. Retirement planning has been discussed also in this book.