After publishing our 5-Step Guide to Financial Independence Retire Early, we received many questions regarding which resources we use to learn about FIRE and stay up to date. Early retirement is a big hype nowadays, so we understand it’s easy to lose direction with all the noise.
There are plenty of resources out there about Financial Independence Retire Early. That makes choosing where to start can be overwhelming.
That’s why we complied the Ultimate Early Retirement Resources List For Beginners.
We share our favorite books, blogs, podcasts, and other resources we have used and are continuously using.
The list is split into the various mediums that we’ve used. We recommend that you start with the format that works best for you. If you prefer listening rather than reading, start with a podcast, and vice versa.
Is there something missing? We tried to minimise this list as a starter’s kit. Nonetheless, if you have the perfect resource and it’s not on the list, share it in the comments below.
Also check out our comprehensive guides:
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Books about early retirement
We have read plenty of books related to Financial Independence and investing. Below are the essential 3 books we recommend for starting your early retirement journey
Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
If you choose to read only one book, make it this one!
The book was firstly published in 1997, but is still as relevant today as it was back then. It is an easy read full of useful tips and practical advice.
Kiyosaki uses his own experience growing up with a “poor” dad and learning from his best friend’s “rich” dad to portray the difference in mindset that is required to grow wealth.
He helped us understand many concepts that have been essential in our journey to our early retirement. For instance, he talks about liabilities and assets. He says the house that you own and live in is not an asset, but rather a liability. Assets are anything that helps you to generate income.
Therefore the house you live in cannot be considered an asset. In the book there is a more elaborate explanation of this concept.
Rich Dad Poor Dad was the first book we have read about the topic of Financial Independence and still remains one of our favorites.
Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez
This book is attributed by many as the founding philosophy behind the Financial Independence, Retire Early movement. It is a book that is based on the combined experience of Robin and Dominguez.
It is full of stories and examples that are relatable.
The book is nicely split into 9 steps that help you understand your current situation and where you should be heading to.
It emphasises the importance of setting financial goals and helped us determine how much money is enough money for us, and how much we should aim for. Focusing your life energy towards things and experiences that really make you happy is the biggest learning from this book.
Your Money or Your Life came across our path further along our journey, yet we recommend it as a starting point for anyone pursuing an early retirement.
There is an updated version with some new content published by Vicki Robin last year (2018).
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker
In this book, Eker talks about how everyone has a money blueprint that is ingrained into them as children. He explains how this blueprint is formed by our environment, our upbringing, and childhood influences.
The book discusses beliefs about money that our parents have implemented in us, which might be limiting or accelerating our journey to an early retirement.
For us the biggest revelation of the book was to understand our money blueprint and how it formed during our childhood.
Eker elaborates on how you can change your money blueprint through “17 wealth files”, which are essentially practical exercises you can go through. For us it was important to understand why our thoughts are programmed in a certain way. Through that we could make the necessary changes we needed to make.
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind was for us a great eyeopener to how psychology plays its part in our journey to early retirement.
TIP: you can use this link to get a $5 discount on your first ebook or audiobook purchase on Kobo.
Podcast favourites about early retirement and financial independence
We love listening to podcasts as they provide so much useful information that is not available in books or blogs. We recommend below three podcasts that we find valuable and spend a lot of time listening to.
The Mad Fientist Financial Independence Podcast
We probably spent the most hours listening to this podcast. We listened to all episodes from the first to the latest in our journey to early retirement.
In his own words, The Mad Fientist “gets inside of the brains of the best and brightest in personal finance to find out how they achieved financial independence.”
The host, Brandon, has great interviewing skills and achieved to bring all leaders of the Financial Independence, Retire Early community together on one platform in his podcast.
The podcast has a casual and personal tone and is easy to listen to.
Listen Money Matters
Listen Money Matters takes the format of a show. The hosts, Andrew and Matt, discuss a variety of topics around personal finance with actionable advice.
Their guests are specialists in their fields, and the discussions are vibrant and clear to the novice ear. We really like how they break down complicated personal finance topics so that anyone can understand.
Bigger Pockets
The Bigger Pockets podcast is mainly focused on real estate investment, which is our main form of investment and therefore very useful to us.
If your interests lie in entering real estate, this is definitely the podcast you should listen to. The hosts have guests joining them on the show that share their personal stories on success and failure.
For us it is inspiring to hear how others are approaching real estate, and get to know not only stories behind their success, but also their failures.
How to stay updated on latest financial news for an early retirement
On the path to becoming financially independent, it is important to stay up-to-date with new opportunities and developments world wide. We have a few resources that we constantly use to stay informed about how we can make our money work for us.
Below are the two most prominent resources that we use.
Finimize
Finimize is our number one source of financial news.
They provide daily news in a short and concise format that takes you less than 5 minutes to read. Their aim is to present financial news in a way that appeals to millennial, jargon free, and as short as possible.
We have been receiving the daily newsletter for over 3 years, and we have to attribute a lot of our financial knowledge to the daily Finimize newsletter. They manage to explain complicated topics in such simple terms that anyone can follow.
Yahoo Finance
Yahoo Finance is probably the most popular free financial news agents. It is the easiest way to find out about stock performance, review analytical data, and any stocks related stories.
They have an app too where you can create your watch list of stocks that you want to follow and receive direct updates about new developments.
We mainly use Yahoo Finance to decide whether to invest in a stock of a company.
Early retirement is worth it!
Starting your path to Financial Independence can be overwhelming if you don’t know what resources to begin with. There are a number of resources that we constantly go back to and that helped us the most in the beginning.
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If you have any other recommendations that you would like to share with the community, post them in the comments below.
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