Financial-Independence Expert Shares His Top Personal-Finance Books

• Andre Nader, a financial-independence writer, built a seven-figure net worth before 40.
• The former Meta employee shared his top money-related books, including “The Simple Path to Wealth.”
• He said another favorite, “Die With Zero,” helped him become more comfortable spending his money.

At 37, Andre Nader has enough in savings that he doesn’t expect to ever have to work a 9-to-5 again.

After 15 years working in tech — nine of which were at Meta — he was laid off in 2023. Rather than search for a job, he leaned into the Substack publication he started in 2021, FAANG FIRE, and started doing one-on-one coaching. FIRE stands for “financial independence, retire early.”

He and his wife, who works as a designer for Uber, had been preparing to retire early and had already built a seven-figure nest egg. Between her tech income and their savings, they had enough to sustain their family of three in San Francisco. While Nader is technically retired in his 30s, he says he’ll consider himself “semi-FIREd” until his wife walks away from her job.

The financial-independence blogger and coach shared three books that changed his money mindset and helped him build wealth.

‘The Simple Path to Wealth’ by JL Collins

Collins’ 2016 book is a popular choice within the FIRE community.

The author delivers on his promise of providing a simple path to wealth — his main advice is to buy stocks via Vanguard’s Total Stock Market Index Fund — which Nader said he appreciated as a former tech employee. “Particularly in tech, a lot of our work involves being hypercreative or being extremely analytical and doing very complicated things in our day-to-day,” he said. “We think we need to take the same approach to our finances.”

Collins rejects that belief and suggests the opposite, Nader said. “It doesn’t have to be complicated,” he said. “You can rely on the math that other people have done and then keep it boring.”

Nader didn’t always keep things simple: He said he lost a good chunk of money trading options in his early 20s. When he learned about low-cost index-fund investing, he was sold on the effective and hands-off strategy. He’s built wealth by investing primarily in Fidelity and Vanguard index funds, including VTI and VXUS.

‘Die With Zero’ by Bill Perkins

Nader says his spending philosophy shifted after reading Perkins’ unconventional financial guide.

While saving money came naturally to Nader, which was a good quality for someone pursuing FIRE, his frugality sometimes prevented him from spending on things that would enrich his life.

Perkins’ book was “a good counter for me,” he said. “I’m naturally frugal and naturally live within spreadsheets. ‘Die With Zero’ forced me to think about experiences more in the same way that I think about my finances: Just like my finances can compound, life experiences can also compound.”

Nader said one of the frameworks detailed in the book particularly resonated with him: Think about your life in five-year buckets, then maximize the experiences that make the most sense during those times.

For example, in the first five years of his daughter’s life, “maybe those aren’t the best years for going to Disney World,” he said. “Maybe that’s going to be when my daughter is 5 to 10.”

At 37, he’s also thinking about prioritizing more adventurous activities while he can. “In my 55-to-60 bracket, I probably don’t want to be downhill skiing because maybe my knees aren’t going to be in a place they are while I’m in my 30s and early 40s,” he said. “So having those experiences matched up with my life stages is helpful.”

‘Enough’ by Jack Bogle

When Nader decided to pursue FIRE, he established his “enough number,” a concept he read about in the Vanguard founder’s book. It’s essentially the amount of money that would allow him to never have to earn another dollar.

“‘Need’ is the big thing,” Nader said. “You can continue earning more, but you don’t necessarily need it to hit your goals and to live the life that you want. For me, that was always a big motivating factor.”

As of late 2024, his enough number was about $5.6 million, which he calculated by considering his family’s annual spend in San Francisco and future costs like healthcare and his daughter’s education.

Having experienced a layoff in 2023, he’s aware that life happens and his expenses and circumstances will continue to change. For that reason, he said, “I’m constantly running my numbers and trying to calculate how much enough is.”