The Simple Path to Wealth

Collins started writing investing advice for his teenage daughter and ended up writing the most useful investing book of the last decade. His thesis is heretically simple: pick one total-market index fund, hold it forever, increase your savings rate, and let math work. The math, of course, is brutal — at a 50% savings rate you're financially independent in 17 years. The book is mostly about why this is psychologically so hard and how to do it anyway. The "F-You Money" chapter is one of the most quietly liberating things Jim has ever read about money — the idea that the goal isn't to be rich, it's to have enough independence that you can walk away from anything that diminishes you. The chapters on bond allocation, on tax-advantaged accounts, on the four-percent rule, and on what to do during market crashes are the cleanest summaries available anywhere. Pair this with Housel for the why and Sethi for the how, and you have a complete investing program. Five worms. The book Jim wishes he'd had at 25, and the book he gives to every young person he knows.