Books: Money
Dividing what there is, and running your own finances afterwards. Two different problems, and most people arriving here have only thought about the first one. Every entry says who it is not for, which is the useful part and the part nobody else prints.
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Money: 5 books
Ordered by how well evidenced they are rather than by how good they are, because those are different questions and the second one depends on who you are.
Helaine Olen · Portfolio · first published 2016 · 251 pages
Helaine Olen is a financial journalist; the book is co-written with Harold Pollack, a University of Chicago public-health professor.
Expands a single index card of ten financial rules — pay off credit cards, buy inexpensive index funds, save automatically — into a short, readable explanation of why each rule holds up.
Read it if Someone overwhelmed by personal finance who wants the shortest reliable primer available, post-divorce or otherwise.
Do not read it if Anyone needing divorce-specific financial guidance — QDROs, asset division, support calculations. This is generic personal finance, deliberately so.
Well evidenced
Open Library 4.0 from 2 ratings. Checked 2026-09-02.
Violet Woodhouse · Nolo Press · first published 1992 · 304 pages
Violet Woodhouse is a certified financial planner and family-law attorney.
Covers the financial mechanics of divorce — valuing and dividing pensions, businesses, and real estate, tax consequences, and post-divorce budgeting.
Read it if Someone who needs a primer on how assets actually get valued and divided, provided they get a current edition.
Do not read it if Anyone relying on this specific 1992 printing for anything tax- or retirement-rule specific — do not use it for numbers.
Check the edition This listing is the original 1992 edition. The book has been revised roughly a dozen times since; the 1992 text predates essentially every tax and retirement rule now in force, so seek the newest edition rather than this one.
One caution. If you can only find this exact printing, treat it as a conceptual overview only — none of its dollar figures, tax treatment, or account rules are current.
No rating we could verify — we leave this blank rather than repeat a number we have not seen at its source.
Beth Kobliner · Simon & Schuster · first published 1996 · 333 pages
Beth Kobliner is a personal-finance journalist and former Money magazine writer who served on a presidential advisory council on financial capability.
A general personal-finance primer aimed at people in their twenties and thirties — budgeting, debt payoff, insurance, and getting started with retirement saving.
Read it if Someone newly managing money solo after divorce who wants a plain-English refresher on financial basics.
Do not read it if Anyone looking for divorce-specific guidance — this book was never about divorce and doesn’t touch asset division, support, or the financial mess a split leaves behind.
Check the edition This is the 1996 edition; a substantially revised edition exists from 2017. Retirement rules, tax brackets, and account types referenced in the older text have changed.
No rating we could verify — we leave this blank rather than repeat a number we have not seen at its source.
Ramit Sethi · Howes Limited, W. F. · first published 2009 · 272 pages
Ramit Sethi is a personal-finance blogger and entrepreneur, not a licensed financial advisor or CFP.
A script-driven system for automating money — setting up specific bank and brokerage accounts, index-fund investing, a ‘conscious spending plan,’ and negotiating fees and salary.
Read it if Someone with stable income who wants a concrete, step-by-step system for automating savings and investing going forward.
Do not read it if Someone in financial crisis mode during divorce — the book assumes a stable paycheck and a wealth-building mindset, not stabilization after a sudden income or asset shock, and the tone is brasher than most people want mid-crisis.
Popular, weakly evidenced Sethi is not a credentialed advisor, and portions of his advice (starting a side business, strategic splurging) are personal opinion presented with more confidence than they’ve been tested. This listing is the original 2009 edition, before his 2019 revision.
Open Library 4.266667 from 15 ratings. Checked 2026-09-02.
Morgan Housel · Harriman House Publishing · first published 2020 · 289 pages
Morgan Housel is a finance writer and partner at an investment firm, not a licensed advisor or researcher.
A collection of essays on how psychology — fear, ego, luck, envy — shapes financial decisions more than raw numeracy does. It is about mindset, not mechanics.
Read it if Someone who wants to understand their own money behavior and emotional relationship to risk, not someone looking for a how-to.
Do not read it if Anyone who needs concrete, actionable steps for the financial mechanics of a divorce — this book gives no specific tactics for dividing assets, budgeting post-split, or rebuilding credit.
Popular, weakly evidenced The book is anecdote- and essay-driven rather than research-based; its claims about behavior are illustrative stories, not tested findings, despite its wide popularity.
Open Library 3.9976134 from 419 ratings. Checked 2026-09-02.
Every title, author, publisher, year, page count and ISBN here was checked against a bibliographic database rather than typed from memory, and the candidates that could not be confirmed were dropped rather than guessed at. Ratings are shown only where we could see them at source, which is why several books have none — a blank is honest and an invented four-point-three is not. The judgments about what a book is worth are ours, they are opinions, and you are entitled to disagree with them. Tell us when we are wrong.
Compiled 31 August 2026. Bibliographic data from Open Library. Prices, editions and availability change constantly; the links go to the current listing.
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