- Alvaro Munevar Jr. retired at 59 after building a real estate side business.
- Reading business and personal finance books helped him prepare for an early retirement.
- The books gave him insight into strategies like owning index funds and knowing when to quit.
I retired from my tech career in 2024 at the age of 59 after working for over 30 years.
The secret sauce to my early retirement was staying in middle management positions, where I kept reasonable work hours.
I spent my free time learning about how to become financially secure. I threw myself into learning everything I could about money management by reading personal finance books.
Taking inspiration from my research, I built a real estate side business that provided me with the additional income I needed to eventually leave my job.
Here are five key books that helped me on my journey to retiring early.
1. "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki
Robert Kiyosaki's 1997 book taught me how to think differently about my money.
Kiyosaki, a personal finance writer, tells the story of his father, the 'poor dad' — an educator with limited means who followed very basic money thinking.
Meanwhile, the author's wealthy mentor, the 'rich dad,' owned businesses and taught Kiyosaki a more informed approach to building wealth through entrepreneurship.
I found Kiyosaki's definition of assets as things that put money in your pocket like stocks or rental properties, and liabilities as things that detract from your pocket like car loans and clothing, particularly helpful.
The book helped me understand the impact of my own purchasing decisions and the importance of purchasing rental properties as assets that could produce a passive income.
2. "Bogle on Mutual Funds" by John C. Bogle.
This 1993 book by John C. Bogle, the founder of investment advisor The Vanguard Group and the person who popularized the index fund, gave me insight into investing my money.
The book supports owning broad market low-cost index funds, which track the performance of market indexes like the S&P 500, instead of more costly actively managed mutual funds, which involve fund managers buying and selling the financial assets in your portfolio.
Once I understood that most actively managed funds fail to meet and exceed the returns of the S&P 500 over long periods of time, I converted the actively managed funds in my portfolio over to low-cost index funds that Bogle had recommended.
Of course, picking stocks in an attempt to "beat the market" is exhilarating, but much like gambling, very few individual investors can actually succeed in doing so long term.
3. "The Addictive Organization" by Anne Wilson Schaef and Diane Fassel
"The Addictive Organization" presents a telling perspective on what can go wrong in the corporate world, written by Anne Wilson-Schaef, a clinical psychologist, and Diane Fassel, a management consultant in the 1980s.
The book explains how some organizations can demonstrate unhealthy approaches in their work culture that resemble personal addictions. Companies might deny there's a problem with unethical behavior or promote obsessive productivity that burns out employees.
The authors suggest that these addictive management approaches create leaders who leverage more control over their employees and an atmosphere of fear.
Reading the examples in this book made me less inclined to climb the corporate career ladder and spurred my desire to start my own business outside my job.
4. "Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away" by Annie Duke
Reading Annie Duke's 2022 book was a wake-up call that furthered my desire to leave corporate America and retire.
Duke is a former professional poker player with a background in cognitive psychology. Her book explains how to be strategic about quitting and, most importantly, when to quit.
In the prologue, Duke discusses the later boxing career of heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, saying he continued to fight even as he got older and simply did not know when to quit.
This book helped me understand that investing more time into a career that had become less challenging and interesting was a mistake. Also, I realized that you can lose opportunities when you stay in a position too long.
5. "Die with Zero" by Bill Perkins
The book that guided me into the final chapter of my retirement was "Die with Zero," 2020, by Bill Perkins, a hedge fund manager, entrepreneur, and poker player.
It helped me understand the actual utility of money. In it, Perkins reminds us that as we get older, we have less time and energy to enjoy our money.
The value money holds changes as you age. When you're younger, $1 million or $10 million has tremendous value. You can use it to travel, visit new places, explore hobbies, and spend time with others while you are youthful and energetic.
$1 to $10 million doesn't have the same value to you as an 85-year-old. Even if you are still relatively healthy in your eighties, you won't be able to enjoy the same activities that require energy and vitality.
I learned from this book that my money has a higher value to me today than it will when I'm in my 70s or 80s. It made me want to enjoy my wealth earlier while I still can.
Books helped to educate me about personal finances
I'd credit these books with helping me master personal finances and retire before I turned 60. Their publication dates span multiple decades, but I believe that the lessons provide as much value today as when they were written.
By reading these books, I learned how my money should flow, how to build an investing strategy, and why I shouldn't get stuck in a corporate job forever.
