YFP 391: 7 Books That Shaped My Money Mindset

Tim Ulbrich shares insights from seven financial books that shaped his journey, offering key lessons on saving, spending, mindset, and building wealth.

Episode Summary

In this episode, Tim Ulbrich highlights seven impactful financial books that shaped his journey, including I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi, Die with Zero by Bill Perkins, and Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. He shares key takeaways on topics like balancing saving and spending, adopting a wealth-building mindset, and spending for happiness.

Key Points from the Episode

• [00:00] Introduction and Financial Moves Recap
• [00:41] Book 1: I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
• [03:25] Book 2: Die With Zero by Bill Perkins
• [06:14] Book 3: Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
• [08:12] Book 4: The Millionaire Next Door by Dr. Tom Stanley
• [10:12] Book 5: The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy
• [14:09] Book 6: Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
• [15:33] Book 7: Happy Money by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton
• [17:47] Conclusion and Call to Action

Episode Highlights

“ It’s about intentional allocation of the dollars that we have and spending them in areas that we drive the most significance.” -Tim Ulbrich [1:35]

“The plan that got them there to work hard and to save, save, save…that mindset was going to require a shift in order to live a rich life. New behaviors need to be learned. And ideally we can build these spending muscles throughout our careers and not just wait until some day off in the future.” – Tim Ulbrich [5:54]

“I can’t think of anyone. I know. Who got rich off of buying whole life insurance policies, buying random alt coins or buying NFTs.”- Tim Ulbrich [10:59]

“Learning is one thing, but learning and taking action with accountability is really where we start to see things happen.” -Tim Ulbrich [18:21]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

• YFP on YouTube
• YFP 390: Financial Resolutions: Top 5 Moves for Pharmacists in 2025
• I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi 
• Die with Zero by Bill Perkins
• Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
• Tax Free Wealth by Tom Wheelwright
• The Millionaire Next Door by Dr. Thomas Stanley
• The Next Millionaire Next Door by Dr. Sarah Stanley Fallaw
• The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy
• The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
• Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton
• YFP 200: An Interview with Sarah Fallaw of The Next Millionaire Next Door
• YFP Disclaimer
• Subscribe to the YFP Newsletter
• Tim Ulbrich on LinkedIn
• YFP on Instagram
• YFP Facebook Group

Episode Transcript

Tim Ulbrich: Welcome to this week’s episode, Tim Ulbrich here we kicked off the new year where I covered five financial moves to make, and we’ll link to that episode in the show notes.

One of those moves was to set your learning plan. So here are seven financial books that have had a profound impact on my journey, such that I often recommend these books to others, gift them, and I’ve implemented at least one, often more than one of the teachings in my own financial plan. All right. In no particular order, let’s jump in with book number one.

[00:02:00] Which is, I will teach you to be rich by Ramit Sethi.

Now I had the chance to hear Ramit speak in 2019 at the FinCon event, the FinCon conference in Washington, DC, and it was fire. He’s a fantastic speaker, a fantastic teacher. And at the time, the theme of his talk, which he talks about in the book, I will teach you to be rich is money dials, money dials, a key concept in that book.

And. Really, the concept of money dials is identifying what areas of spending have the most significance, meaning or impact for you and dialing those up and on the flip side, finding those areas of spending that perhaps are somewhat automatic and we may not even be thinking a whole lot about it. And they have the least significance or meaning or impact and dialing those down, right?

It’s about intentional allocation of the dollars that we have and spending them in areas that we drive the most significance. Now it sounds obvious, but it’s easy to fall into the [00:03:00] trap of spending money on things that you don’t really care that much about at the expense of not having money. To spend on things that mean the most to you.

And I love that he starts off the book with this, right? Because before we implement the X’s and O’s of the financial plan, as you’ve heard me say on this podcast, many times, we have to be clear on what does it mean to live a rich life? Now he’s, he uses the terminology money dials. We talk about living a rich life.

We’re talking about the same. thing, right? Now, this is not about me saying what should or shouldn’t be meaningful, right?

Everyone has different significance and meaning. It’s about getting clear. What are those things that you derive the greatest significance and meaning from? And is your financial plan, is your spending in alignment with those areas? Now, in addition to the concept of money, Dows in this book, his teachings on automation have stayed with me and are ones I’ve applied to my own plan and teach often to other pharmacists.

Now, he says in the book that automating your money will be the single most profitable system that [00:04:00] you’ll ever build. And I would whole heartedly agree with that. It takes time, a little bit of time to set up, maybe perhaps not as much as you think, but once you have a system in place where you’ve thought about and identified your goals.

We’ve accounted for them inside of the monthly spending plan. And then we are automatically funding those goals. And we see that process happening. Boom, right? That’s when we’re really humming with the financial plan in general. This book is a great personal finance one on one read. It’s an easy read.

Again, he’s a fantastic teacher. And I love the principles in this book and our principles that I often apply in my own financial plan. The second book on my list is die with zero by Bill Perkins, die with zero.

By bill Perkins. This book is going to challenge you to think differently about the value of spending and finding that balance with saving or, as we say at Y. F. P. Finding the balance between living a rich life [00:05:00] today and planning and taking care of our future selves.

Now, if you’re an aggressive saver, Guilty as charged. And you find yourself challenged to enjoy spending money today, right? To let go of the reins a little bit. This is a must read for you. Bill Perkins in the book challenges traditionally held beliefs about retirement planning and passing down generational wealth.

One of my favorite quotes from the book is when he says, quote, people who save tend to save too much for too late in their lives. They’re depriving themselves now, just to care for a much, much older future self, a future self that may never live long enough to enjoy the money. 

I’ve come to appreciate and still need a lot of help guidance and reminders from my financial planner, from Jess and our own plan that spending just like saving. Is a learned habit. I was recently reminded of this after listening to an interview on Ramit Sethi’s podcast, where he was talking with a couple [00:06:00] nearing retirement age that had over 6 million in net worth.

It was quite sad to hear the husband rationalized with Ramit for almost two hours, all the reasons why he couldn’t spend and enjoy because he had to quote first, save it up. Or quote work harder to make up for what he was going to spend again, net worth of 6 million. So for all intents and purposes, they achieved their savings goals.

Plus some, right? The plan had worked. They had gotten to that point that they were planning for all along, but despite what the numbers showed, he couldn’t shift his mindset. He was stuck in the grind and the hustle of working and saving. Working and saving. And this is something we don’t talk about often enough with the financial plan that when we work hard for 30 or 40 years to save, that is a big transition.

When we get to the withdrawal phase, right? We need to be planning for that. We need to be preparing for that. And we need training wheels along the way to help us with this learned behavior of spending. And the point that was remit was trying to make and trying to get this husband to see is that in order to live a rich life, the plan that got them there can’t be the same.

As the plan going forward. The plan that got them there to work hard to save, save, save, work hard, save, save, save. That mindset was going to require a shift in order to live a rich life. New behaviors need to be learned. And ideally we can build these spending muscles throughout our careers and not just wait until some day off in the future.

That may or may not come and may or may not be what we have in mind. 

Number three on the book is rich dad, poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki, rich dad, poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki. Now, Robert Kiyosaki has recently come into the spotlight and many different controversial ways. So personality aside, his teachings in this book, in my opinion, remain a classic. This book is all about mindset, not X’s and O’s like some of the other books that are on the list today.

And if you think of the financial plan as a series of decisions that need to be made, I think of this book as being [00:08:00] a philosophy that guides those decisions. It’s the thread behind the decisions that we make. And a few of the things that have stayed with me is that, you know, what we might think is an asset versus a liability. I think he challenges that mindset. Why leverage is an important tool to build wealth.

And of course there’s risk with leverage and we have to balance that. Also, what has stayed with me is why traditional W 2 income limits wealth building. And finally, why business ownership and real estate investing are key legs. Of the wealth building school.

Now this book in particular, along with tax free wealth by Tom Wheelwright, and we’ll link to all of these books in the show notes, tax free wealth by Tom Wheelwright really opened my eyes to the importance of tax as a part of the financial plan. One that is kind of always behind the scenes that probably many of us are not thinking about, and more specifically the strategies.

That can be employed to optimize our tax situation, right? We want to pay our [00:09:00] fair share, but we want to pay no more. And I think through these teachings and really digging into the form 10 40 and understanding how the different components of that form work and what are the levers that we can pull to make our, uh, tax rate as efficient as possible.

These two resources, rich dad, poor dad, and tax free wealth have really been instrumental in opening my eyes to the significance and importance of tax as a part of the financial plan. All right. Number four on my list is the millionaire next door. By Dr. Tom Stanley, the millionaire next door by Dr. Tom Stanley and the updated version, the next millionaire next door featuring Tom’s daughter, Dr.

Sarah Stanley flaw, which we had the pleasure of having on the podcast on episode number 200. This book examines the key behavioral traits. Of millionaires. One of my favorite quotes from the book is when he says, quote, one of the reasons that millionaires are economically successful is that they think differently.

They think differently. What he’s talking about is one of [00:10:00] my key takeaways from that book is that net worth, not income net worth, which is your assets, what you own minus your liabilities, that really. Is a true indicator of your overall financial health, right? Net worth, not income as the financial vitals check is really going to help us as we think about this mindset of, is our income being translated into building our assets and paying down our debt, some of my other key takeaways from this book is that, you know, we often wouldn’t know who the people are that are millionaires or multimillionaires.

When you look at the research that’s presented in the millionaire next door, as well as the updated version and the next millionaire next door, the spending behaviors and patterns would say that they probably aren’t the people that we think are millionaires that more or portray. To be millionaires, they often have a frugal mindset.

Doesn’t mean that they’re cheap. Doesn’t mean that they don’t like investing in good experiences. Doesn’t mean that they’re not a philanthropic or givers, but they often have a frugal [00:11:00] mindset. They’re they’re typically not trapped. Millionaires are not trapped by what I think of as the big rocks, right?

They’re not house poor. They’re not car poor. They do take calculated risk often in business or real estate. And most millionaires, as the research suggests in that book are self made. It’s not typically inherited money, fascinating research and concepts. I would highly recommend that the millionaire next door, the updated version.

If you haven’t already read it. Alright, number five on my list is The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy it was one of those books I, I, I remember exactly where I was when I read it, uh, at our old house up in northeast Ohio during the summer.

I read it outside and, and a couple hours I couldn’t put it down. And one of those books, you’re just constantly highlighting, taking notes. You’re like, yes, yes, yes. And this is not exclusively a personal finance book, but I love the applications here. And I was recently reflecting on those in my life that have been financially successful, because I think it’s helpful to learn and grow [00:12:00] from those who have actually done it right.

And as people came to mind that I thought of, okay, who has been a long term financially successful in building wealth, not short term success, long term financially successful. And as I thought more about that, I was like, I can’t think of anyone. I know. Who got rich off of buying whole life insurance policies, buying random alt coins or buying NFTs.

And I’m not saying that people don’t exist that have built wealth in those ways. Rather, what I’m saying is that I don’t know anyone that took this path, and I feel confident in saying the perception is much greater than the reality when it comes to these types of vehicles being a viable path to building wealth, right?

Often these are short term solutions that are band aids when we really need to look at long term consistent behaviors. Rather, when I think of those people that have built long term wealth, it was a long methodical, patient journey. One intentional step after another [00:13:00] where those decisions and good decisions, not to say there weren’t mistakes along the way, but those good decisions compounded over a long period of time.

And I think, unfortunately, we’re hearing less of these journeys, right? Because these aren’t great clickbait. These aren’t great. In terms of social media algorithms are often boring stories in the, in the literature really supports that. And the book, the millionaire next door, which I just mentioned previously, Yeah.

And several, when I thought more about who are these people, several, not all have multiple pathways of building wealth. Typically it’s traditional investments. It might be equity in a business. It might be real estate, and those aren’t always in balance, but I’ve noticed that as a theme and those that have been really long term, uh, Successful in building wealth and often being philanthropic is a part of that wealth building.

These individuals that come to mind are taking calculated risks on opportunities where they see that the upside dramatically outweighs the downside, and they have a strong financial [00:14:00] foundation in place such that if that calculated risk doesn’t work, They’re not going to be impacted in a significant or catastrophic way, right?

They’re able to take that calculated risk because they have that strong base and foundation in place. As I think of these people that come to mind, I would describe them as overall fairly conservative yet willing again, to take some level of risk if an opportunity presents itself. So they’re not risk averse, but they’re also not flashing.

In fact, they’re quite humble and they’re often very philanthropic. And they really do embody some of the teachings that have stayed with me from this book, the compound effect by Darren Hardy. He has a formula in this book that I often reference back to. And that formula is small, smart choices. Plus consistency, plus time equals radical difference, small, smart choices, plus consistency, plus time equals radical difference, right?

That is the definition of compound interest when we think about saving over a long period of time. So this is the [00:15:00] path I will follow. This is the one that I have seen work a path defined by working hard, taking calculated risk. Investing in tax efficient, appreciating assets, building equity that can be converted to other assets.

Developing a habit and priority for giving and doing this over and over over a long period of time to allow those results to compound. All right. Number six on my list is total money makeover by Dave Ramsey, the total money makeover by Dave Ramsey. Now I’m not an avid follower of Dave Ramsey and his principles and the baby steps, but I have to give credit Where credit is due, reading the total money makeover, going through financial peace university, listening to Dave Ramsey’s podcast was really like a wake up call over a decade ago that inspired the journey that Jess and I took to ultimately pay off our 200, 000 of student loan debt and really led to is the really beginning steps of the place that we are today.

And the journey that we would take to get there, that [00:16:00] book. The total money makeover, listening to the podcast really lit a fire under me to want to learn more, right? As I mentioned, it was kind of a wake up call to create our own path, our own plan. Even if we didn’t follow the path in plan that he prescribes to so many through the baby step formula.

The baby steps I will admit early in our journey, it was a grounding framework, a grounding framework for us that we needed at the time. As we were trying to balance many things, we weren’t doing any of them particularly well, and we didn’t have an intentional plan in place. And that really was the footing that we needed to get started.

That would ultimately allow us to build momentum, to build our emergency savings, to get out of debt, and then to have a prioritized approach. To achieving our goals. So that’s number six, a total money makeover by Dave Ramsey. Number seven last on my list is happy money. The science of happier spending by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton.

Now I would assume many of you have heard of. All [00:17:00] perhaps the first six books that I mentioned, but maybe not the case with this one. I ran across this, uh, several years ago and I intentionally book ended my list of seven here with this one per particular, because I think that it’s an important reminder that money is a tool, right?

I mentioned that when I talked about die was zero by bill Perkins. Money is something that affords us the opportunity to pay for our basic needs. And if we’re able to live our rich life and to give to others. And next time you hold a bill of any value in your hand, remind yourself that it’s a piece of paper.

In fact, it’s a piece of paper that I recently learned is 25 percent Linden, 75 percent cotton, but this is a piece of paper that has value because number one, we all agree that it has value. Number two, it’s backed by the faith and credit. Of the U. S. Government. So what’s my point? My point is that it’s finite, right?

And if we’re not careful, we can miss the boat on a crewing while losing sight of the so what? [00:18:00] And that reminder comes, I think, strongly in the book. Happy money. The science of happier spending. By Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton. This book provides what the research has to say on the science of spending and the connection between money and happiness.

Now, happiness, how you define that, right? That’s an important component to consider. But my takeaways from this book were that the literature supports to no surprise, but an important reminder, the link between happiness and Monday. Typically lies in two main areas. Number one, spending money on experiences and memories that will come for those.

And number two on giving, when you look at the connection between happy and moneyness, it strongly points to giving and experiences as an important part of the financial plan. And I think if you talk to anyone who’s been at this for a while, You start to see this come out again, especially as they short up some of the basis of their financial plan.

These are the areas that you typically see people light up when they talk [00:19:00] about their financial plan. All right. So there you have it. Short and sweet. Seven personal finance books. That have had a profound impact on my journey and our books that I would recommend you read or reread . We’ll link to all of these books in the show note.

And if you have a book that you often recommend or that has had a profound impact on your journey, I want to hear about it. Shoot me an email at info at your financial pharmacist. com. Let me know what I left off the list. I’d love to read it and perhaps share it with our community. In the future. Again, you can reach us at info at your financial pharmacist.

com. Now we all know that learning, right? Reading books, listening to podcasts, learning is one thing, but learning and taking action with accountability is really where we start to see things happen. And that’s why we’re so excited about the work that our team at YFP planning is doing through our fee only certified.

Financial planning service. If you want to learn more about what it looks like to work one on one with a fee only certified financial planner from your financial pharmacist, yes, to learn and grow in your financial IQ [00:20:00] and knowledge, but also to take steps and implement those in your financial plan and be held accountable to achieve those results, you can book a free discovery call at YFP planning.com again. That’s YFP planning. com. Thanks so much for joining me on this week’s episode, and we’ll be back next week. Have a great rest of your day.

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