Top 5 Money Reads for Cozy Season: A Reading List for Radical Financial Wellness, Justice & Abundance (2025)

As we drift into winter, there’s something magical about curling up with a book that deepens your wisdom on meaningful relationships with money, people, and society.

The following five books are grounding, challenging, and inspiring money reads that help reframe the way we think about money in both personal and collective ways.

📗 1. Your Money or Your Life

by Vicki Robin & Joe Dominguez

This modern classic offers a compassionate, values-based guide to money as life energy, not just numbers in a bank account. Robin and Dominguez walk you through nine steps that help you uncover the beliefs, emotions, and choices that shape your financial life — and how to align what you spend with what you care about. At its heart is the idea of interdependence: our financial lives are deeply connected to family, community, and the planet, not just individual balance sheets.

This book is part mindfulness, part practical guide, and deeply human — perfect for reflecting on how money supports life, not runs it.

🔗 Learn more: yourmoneyoryourlife.com

📘 2. Tax Planning To and Through Early Retirement

by Cody Garrett, CFP® & Sean Mullaney, CPA

This book cuts through the jargon of taxes with clarity, simplicity and humor. Garrett and Mullaney walk you through various tactics to minimize taxes over a lifetime, with deep dives into popular retirement account strategies and drawdown planning.

The authors of this book are colleagues of mine with a penchant for avoiding the overwhelm and fear tactics of many retirement planning reads. Because tax planning can also feel warm and fuzzy.

🔗 Learn more: Barnes & Noble

📙 3. The Psychology of Money

by Morgan Housel

Morgan Housel doesn’t teach investing formulas — he teaches how humans think about money. Through short, elegant stories, he shows that personal finance is really about behavior, mindset, and emotion. That makes this book a fantastic cozy read: it honors curiosity, humility, and reflection over formulas.

You won’t just learn from this book- you’ll feel your money mindset shift while you're reading it.

🔗 Free open library pdf

📕 4. Finance for the People: Getting a Grip on Your Finances

by Paco de León

Paco de León blends practical, empathetic advice with lively illustrations and an inclusive perspective that meets readers where they are. This book is designed for people who feel left out of traditional money conversations — creators, freelancers, and anyone navigating financial life in a world of inequality. It’s approachable, action-oriented, and rooted in the realities many of us live.

This read is a warm, practical, and feels like a friend explaining the system so you can take clear next steps.

🔗 Learn more: pacodeleon.com — and don't miss this PBS special on Paco and her book.

📗 5. Broken Money: Why Our Financial System Is Failing Us and How We Can Make It Better

by Lyn Alden

This sweeping history and critique of money connects the dots between how money evolved and why our current system leaves so many behind. Alden — who was raised with experiences of poverty and instability herself — brings a human lens to macroeconomic systems, showing how money’s structure impacts economic inequality and everyday survival.

This book is deep but grounding- a winter solstice companion for big questions about why money works the way it does and how we might reimagine it.

🔗 Learn more: Lynalden.com

🌟 Runner-Up Money Reads Worthy of Your Bookshelf

If you are still wanting more, consider these status quo challenging money reads:

• I Survived Capitalism and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

  • Madeline Pendleton’s memoir/critique of extractive systems; raw, hopeful, and deeply human.

  • 🔗 Learn more: Penguinrandomhouse.com

• Robin Hood Was Right: A Guide to Giving Your Money for Social Change

  • A fresh take on a classic story about thoughtful, justice-oriented generosity.

  • 🔗 Learn more: Better World Books

Closing Thoughts

The books listed here aren’t just about money management; they’re about vision, values, equity, and shaping our financial lives to nurture community, connection, and justice.

Whether you’re sipping tea and wrapped in a blanket or taking a midday walk break accompanied by a good audiobook, may these reads warm your mind and fuel your sense of financial wellness and abundance.

Author's Note: I provide links to the authors' websites and mainstream bookstores above for convenience, but please be encouraged to check your local library or book shops first. I've personally found all of these titles on Libby with my four library cards.

Fun fact: Did you know that many libraries allow state residents to become a library member? For example, most public libraries in California, including those in Los Angeles County, San Francisco, Berkeley, and Orange County, offer free library cards to California residents. Not me over here collecting digital library cards like Thanos 👀

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