The Best Personal Finance Books of the Year, According to Our Very Exacting Standards

Ah, the liminal space between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Time to eat snacks, play video games, and read some books!

While we can’t feed you delectable morsels directly from our freshly manicured fingertips, nor beat Margit the Fell Omen in Elden Ring for you, we can help with the third one. For we Bitches are avid readers! Every year we scour the shelves for excellent books on money, glean their wisdom, and pass on the best ones to you.

Without further ado, here it is: The Bitches Get Riches guide to the best personal finance books of the year.

The Best Books

Tipped by Barbara Sloan

There’s a whole cottage industry of personal finance books just regurgitating the same tried and true advice in slightly new ways every year. So when something wholly original comes out, we buzz to it like flies to shit.

Tipped: The Life Changing Guide to Financial Freedom for Waitresses, Bartenders, Strippers, and All Other Service Industry Professionals by the inestimable Barbara Sloan is incredible for its ability to speak to an audience that has largely gone ignored in personal finance circles. A former bartender, stripper, and gig worker of all stripes, Barbara has lived the hustle and come out of it with stories to tell.

She shares her instructions on how to get rich, invest, and save for retirement on a tipped employee’s income in her first (but hopefully not last!) book. And she shares without judgment. There’s a societal contempt for and stigma against service industry professionals that just grosses us out. Barbara addresses the stigma head-on (especially the stigma against sex workers) and tells it where to shove its elitist nonsense.

Read our review and watch our interview with the author here. And buy the book from your local indie bookstore!

Mind Your Money by Yanely Espinal

Sometimes I just want to read some solid advice by someone real and funny and energetic, y’know? Someone who comes from a background of service and community values and understands what it’s like to truly get creative to make ends meet.

Which is why I so enjoyed Mind Your Money by Yanely Espinal. Yanely is a bona fide non-profit educator with her roots in a big Brooklyn family who one day went “Hey… is it just me or is this whole economic system kinda predatory and unfair?” And by “one day” I mean “over the course of years while fighting tooth and nail to make things better for her family and community.”

She’s a helpful inspiration to us all, and her book is relatable af. Whether you’re looking for a book that makes you go “sing it, sister” or one that will start you gently, humorously on your ~*personal finance journey*~, Mind Your Money is for you.

Read our review and watch our interview with the author here. And buy the book from your local indie bookstore!

Financial Feminist by Tori Dunlap

You’ve probably already heard of this bad boy. I know I have—from everyone from my hair stylist to random bar patrons! And I literally worked on early drafts of the book!

Tori Dunlap used to be our unofficial little sister of the personal finance blogosphere. That is until she took TikTok by storm and became an overnight sensation with her no-nonsense, unapologetic, feminist advice for young women sick of losing money to the misogyny that lies just below the surface of so many of our financial systems.

Now we like to describe her as an unstoppable great white shark raised by us two clown fish. We’re very proud. And her first book, Financial Feminist, is an absolute triumph. It’s packed with cautionary tales, practical advice, and interviews with other financial feminists. Plus, it’s entertaining as hell.

Read our interview with the author here. And buy the book from your local indie bookstore!

Honorable mentions

Those were our favorites… but a lot of great personal finances books came out recently. In fact, there were so many we had trouble picking which to review. So here’s a lightning round of stuff you should absolutely still check out:

• Money Out Loud: All the Financial Stuff No One Taught Us by Berna Anat
• So…This Is Why I’m Broke: Money Lessons on Financial Literacy, Passive Income, and Generational Wealth by Melissa Jean-Baptiste
• A Healthy State of Panic: Follow Your Fears to Build Wealth, Crush Your Career, and Win at Life by Farnoosh Torabi
• Rich AF: The Winning Money Mindset That Will Change Your Life by Vivian Tu
• Made Whole: The Practical Guide to Reaching Your Financial Goals by Tiffany Aliche

So many books, so little time! Therefore, I’ll end with two tips:

1. Go the fuck to the library for these and other excellent reads.
2. We host book give-aways on our Patreon all the time. Sign up for as little as $1 a month to get access to polls, exclusive videos, and give-aways!

Happy reading, bitchlings! Catch you next year!