[Emily]

Looking for recs for the best self-help or money education books that would be good for teens. Any ideas?

Can’t be too boring. They don’t love reading.

[Ismail]

Start small with 1 Financial Book with First 20-25 Pages = Do this in first week. Give them candy/foods followed by the books! They will read it once they have the incentive!

Tell them write a homework based on the book with just 1 topic. Start small and snowball later over time! By doing it -> You are imprinting their minds about Financial Book for the future!

[Lisa]

Not ideas for books, but ideas to get actual participation: Tell them this is one of the big things you want to pass down to them because you love them (relatedness) Get five or six of the books people here are recommending and let the kids choose which one you all read (give them some autonomy) Explain how they can absolutely do it, it won’t take too long and they can use audio book. (Competence) Emphasize how much you want to spend quality time with them talking about important real-world stuff and how you are interested in their thoughts on these topics. (Competence + relatedness + autonomy = intrinsic motivation)

[David]

Agree with not forcing. I had a book club for each of my kids where they got to invite several friends over for pizza and fun surrounding 30-60 min talking about a book. They loved it! We did financial books and some non-financial books. The books they liked the best, as mentioned above, were stories with a point. The Richest Man in Babylon, Rich Dad / Poor Dad, etc.

The ones they liked least were The Millionaire Next Door which I love but reads like a term paper. Favorite non-finance book “The Slight Edge”. We did once a month. The next summer they were all excited to do it again.

[Allison]

I’m 29. When I was a teenager, my mom had this same idea that she could just “force” things on me. I haven’t spoken to her in six months. Do with that what you will.

[Kureen]

The Latte Factor is great for teens. The psychology of money would be an interesting one too as well as the Millionaire next Door.

[Claire]

Maybe ask them watch I Can Teach You to Be Rich on Netflix, and then buy the book as a supplement. They might also like Caleb Hammer’s YouTube series (Financial Audit) as it’s a younger demographic on the show.

[Guðrún]

My two cents: if they don’t love/like reading, forcing is generally unlikely to be helpful. Finding stuff they find interesting enough to read is probably the key. That being said, Quit like a millionaire by Kristy Shen was the book that first got me into FIRE. I absolutely could not put it down. Granted I was a young adult, not a teen, but I’d think it could interest teens, too.

[Frank]

I would suggest you focus on books that are written by younger people that contain some kind of a story line and avoid “old white-haired guy says do this and you’ll be rich” books. So look at things like “Quit Like a Millionaire”, “Set for Life” and the Erin Lowry “Broke Millennial” series. Cait Flanders’ “The Year of Less” would also be interesting, especially for young women.

Also, the one book we had all our kids read before going to college was “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” by Cal Newport.

[Author]

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