|  | How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt, and Live Prosperously by Jerrold Mundis. This is the book, the one that is absolutely necessary. |
| Earn What You Deserve: How to Stop Underearning and Start Thriving by Jerrold Mundis. If earning is an issue, you’ll want this one.
|  | Making Peace with Money by Jerrold Mundis. For doing just what the title says – creating a relationship with money that is free of stress, fear, or discomfort and that is instead satisfying, pleasurable, and life enhancing. This book deepens and expands recovery from debt and underearning.
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 | To Buy or Not to Buy: Why We Overshop and How to Stop by April Lane Benson, PhD. Best book I know on compulsive or chronic shopping and spending. |  | What Color Is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers by Richard N. Bolles. Want to find a job, change jobs, switch your career? This book has been helping people do that for years. |
 | FeelingGood: The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns, MD. Effective cognitive techniques for overcoming the depression and anxiety that often plague people in debt. |  | Letting Go of Debt: Growing Richer One Day at a Time by Karen Casanova. Daily meditations and suggestions for people in debt. An excellent companion to How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt, and Live Prosoperously. |
 | The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason. A slim volume on personal finance presented in the style of parables. Clear, comprehensive treatment of basic principles. Effective and useful. |  | One-Minute Wisdom by Anthony de Mello.Small parable/lessons drawn from the mystical traditions of the East and West. Pleasurable and illuminating. |
 | Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn. A powerful program out of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center for easing and grounding yourself, using a secular approach to meditation. |  | The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing byTaylor Larrimore, Mel Lindauer, and Michael LeBoeuf. Simple introduction to investing – safely. Clear, basic, and sound. |
 | Perfect Breathing: Transform Your Life One Breath at a Time by Al Lee and Don Campbell. Increased vitality, steadier emotions, better psychological balance. This book will help you establish those. Its techniques are simple and easy to implement. |  | Solve Your Money Troubles: Debt, Credit & Bankruptcy by Robin Leonard J.D. and Margaret Reiter Attorney. Legal strategies for coping with debts of various kinds, from student loans to alimony. Good short-term nuts-and-bolts material. |
 | How to Meditate by Lawrence LeShan. A classic. One of the earliest books on meditation in the U.S., this remains an excellent introduction to the subject and its practice. A very good place to start. |  | Unstuff Your Life!: Kick the Clutter Habit and Comletely Organize Your Life for Good by Andrew J. Mellen. Debtors sometimes have a problem with clutter. Underearners often do. Eliminating it or even lessening it can help backwards, up the line to money. |
 | Shelter for the Spirit: Create Your Own Haven in a Hectic World by Victoria Moran. Graceful, pleasant. The book instructs gently and effectively on how to transform one's home into a place of peace and comfort, into what Thomas Moore, in his forward, calls “deep home.” | 
| Money and the Meaning of Life by Jacob Needleman. Man, says Needleman, a philosopher and professor of comparative religion, is unlikely to be successful in a spiritual quest unless he can deal effectively with the fundamental issue of money, which has come to contain practically the whole of human activity. Insightful, wise. |
| Stretching, 20th Anniversary Revised Edition by Bob Anderson. Excellent for all-around physical well-being.
|  | Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Psychologically, philosophically, spiritually brilliant. Many translations. I favor Staniforth's – available only used now. |
| The Five Things We Cannot Change . . . and the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them by David Richo. There are certain “givens” in life – everything changes and ends, for example – that we simply cannot stop or alter, no matter how much we want to. These five are among the most powerful. How we respond to them influences and even sometimes dictates how happy we will be.
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| The Wall Street Journal Complete Personal Finance Guidebook by Jeff D. Opdyke. A readable introduction to contemporary personal finance. Easy to follow, covering all the basics from banking, home-buying, and insurance to mutual funds, taxes, college tuition, and retirement plans.A good foundation.
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 | The Overspent American by Juliet B. Schor.This is an important book. Blaming neither consumers' lack of discipline nor powerful and pervasive advertising for the problem, the conclusions Schor draws – she is a leisure economist and university professor – as to why spending is now the ultimate social act are original, compelling, and valuable. |  | Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow: Discovering Your Right Livelihood by Marsha Sinetar. Unfortunately the title has become a catch phrase over the past decade, with millions of people tossing it around as if that were all there was to know about it.There's much more to it than Just up and quitting your job to do what you love. Sinetar lays out a careful plan that, if followed, will help. |
 | The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko. There are many millionaires in the country today. Most don't live flashily and 80 percent are self-made, didn't inherit any of their wealth. This excellent, comprehensive study of who the millionaires really are, how they live, and how they got that way will surprise most people. Revelatory. |  | The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need by Andrew Tobias. The most recent edition of a very good book that comes close to living up to its title. Amusingly written and sound, most of it deals with clear, accessible, down-to-earth investment strategies, with some good comments on dealing with money in general to boot. |