The Psychology of Money
Doing well with money, Morgan Housel argues, has very little to do with how smart you are and almost everything to do with how you behave. The Psychology of Money is twenty short essays by the longtime Wall Street Journal and Motley Fool columnist on the soft skills of personal finance: the difference between being rich and being wealthy, why no one is crazy when it comes to spending, the role of luck and risk in any successful career, the freedom that comes from not needing to keep up, and the underrated power of saving simply because you do not know what your future will require of you. Drawing on Bill Gates's high school computer access, Charlie Munger's century-long perspective, and the way a janitor named Ronald Read accidentally became an eight-million-dollar philanthropist, Housel's 2020 book has sold millions of copies and become one of the defining popular books on personal finance of its generation.
Where The Psychology of Money keeps showing up
One of our editors' lists features this novel.
Books in conversation with The Psychology of Money
A few of the closest reads from our full list.
What you might want to know about The Psychology of Money
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Former Wall Street Journal columnist Morgan Housel collects twenty short essays on how people actually decide what to do with money, drawing on stories from a janitor with a million-dollar portfolio, hedge fund blowups, and his own family. Each chapter sticks to one idea about behavior.
The Psychology of Money was written by Morgan Housel and published in 2020. Housel is a former Wall Street Journal columnist and the author of the follow-up Same as Ever (2023). The metadata above lists Michael Argyle in error.
Partly. The Psychology of Money is structured as 19 short essays about how people actually behave with money, drawing on psychology rather than spreadsheets. It is more behavioral than tactical.
The Psychology of Money is a standalone novel by Michael Argyle, not part of a series.
The Psychology of Money is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.