Your Must Read Recommendations

[meadow lark]

I was really impressed by Hungry Planet.  It is amazing the differences, of course the obvious differences in quantity between the US and Ethiopia, but also how everything in the US was a processed product wrapped in plastic, compared to the beautiful fresh foods in some of the other photos.  Other countries photos just looked better than the US's!  I think that image has stuck with me and helped me as I have changed my diet from rather typical, to mostly fresh and natural.

[Captain and Mrs Slow]

Great stuff on here already!

I liked this blog post series: http://www.thesimpledollar.com/31-days-to-fix-your-finances/

Not truly MMM, but very helpful in my first steps thinking about FI, and the only thing that got Mr. MEJG on board.

Wanted second Trent, when I stumbled across his blog I could barely pay the bills, now we are almost FI

Thank you Trent

I recommend Millionaire Teacher by Andrew Hallam simple and easy to follow

[twinge]

In Cheap we trust: The story of a misunderstood American virtue by Lauren Weber

I checked this out of the library and found it a fun read--not so much on individual financial strategies, but more on how competing conceptions of thrift vs. consumption have played out in American history.  I found it interesting in a "facts I never knew" sort of way rather than a guiding philosophy or a rigorous historical analysis.

[Gerard]

+1 on In Cheap We Trust (which I also just got from the library!). It won't teach you any tips, but it gives a lot of social and historical context to what we do (and what people who think different from us do).

[boy_bye]

island by aldous huxley is one of my favorite books of all time. it's not about economics or frugality, per se ... it's about how a culture can be structured so that it serves the needs of its people, and fosters their uniqueness and growth and happiness. not surprisingly, the way folks live on the island is pretty mustachian -- simple diet, lots of physical work, strong social connections, and a few mind-opening drugs in the mix, too.

he wrote it about 30 years after he wrote brave new world -- really interesting to read them one after the other.

[seanquixote]

I haven't seen this one in the list...but I read it yeeeeears ago.  And it struck a chord with me... How to Survive Without a Salary by Charles Long.  He also wrote a book about building your own stone house...which I have been unable to find a copy of...but would still love to read it. 

One my favorite stories from the book: The author goes into a furniture store looking for a bed (and box springs)...the furniture salesman says something to the effect of "this box springs is as firm as if you set the mattress on plywood" ....at which point Long and his wife look at each other and promptly leave to find a piece of plywood.  I love that little story...

An absolutely great book and one that should be read by Mustachians..

[Gerard]

Some mustachians might enjoy the just-published Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending by Elizabeth Dunn (Canadian social psychologist) and Michael Norton (American marketing prof). It's basically 160 pages of studies supporting almost everything MMM has ever written. And a very easy read.

[rymanani]

I want the Earth plus 5% - probably my all time favourite book about money & its origins.

More around the rise of money, and in a deeper sense, Capitalism itself.

http://www.relfe.com/plus_5_.html

Great read, and will only take 20 minutes or so.

I've read this one again and again :)

[texscrooge]

I figure most people here will appreciate this NY Times article on Target data mining the shit out of you:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html

I really enjoyed that one.

Thanks for this link.  Really eye-opening stuff.  Mustachians might want to pay cash.

[grantmeaname]

Or just not buy shit they don't need at target.

[aj_yooper]

Not a read, but a fun video by George Carlin on Stuff:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac

[BZB]

If you're looking to cut your portion sizes down, I would recommend The Portion Teller by Dr. Lisa Young. For her Ph.D. thesis she did an extensive analysis of the portions of food sold in restaurants, street food vendors, fast food places and in prepared foods in grocery stores in the US. What I learned from the book:
1. The sizes of foods sold and consumed have increased dramatically in the US post World War II (she has some really interesting sidebars that are timelines showing how, for example, a Hershey chocolate bar has increased in size over the years).
Also, looking at old sets of dishes from the 1940's you can see how food sizes have changed. Dinner plates today are gigantic. My coffee mug could hold 2 servings of coffee, and I drink 2 full mugs per day! I already knew some of this before reading the book, but it is eye-opening to see it quantified.
2. Calorie counts on packaged foods are not accurate. She recounts a story of several dieticians given the task to determine the calorie count and nutritional content in a meal, and they all had different answers.

[George_PA]

I recommend a book called "Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford".  It is an easy read because it is only 1 page long.

[arebelspy]

I recommend a book called "Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford".  It is an easy read because it is only 1 page long.

Good point. Video review of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG_KuCc94JQ

[jengod]

Prince Charming Isn't Coming: How Women Get Smart About Money by Barbara Stanny was a great mindshift for me. She was the daughter of the H in H&R Block, but she was clueless about money, until after her (first?) husband squandered her inheritance and then some. Her thesis is that women are socialized to trust that their money is being handled by superior money minds, but it's nonsense and it's a shameful dereliction of duty to go limp and play dumb about investments.

Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office and Nice Girls Don't Get Rich were also great.

Oh, and Women Don't Ask is a great training manual for negotiation as well as a sociological study of women's behaviors in re negotiation. If you don't have a BFF like Jack Donaghy to train you, this book is a good close second.