Today I want to talk about a book that my good friend Andy Hart describes as the greatest

personal finance book ever written.

High praise indeed.

Unfortunately Andy wasn't talking about my own book the

Meaningful Money Handbook as epically good as that is. Instead he was talking

about this book the simple path to Wealth by J.L. Collins.

It was written in 2016 and I'd like to give you my thoughts on it as well.

So let's put five minutes on the clock.

Say a quick thank you to my good friends at 7 Investment Management for continuing to sponsor the show and let's crack on.

Right at the start, I'd have to say that if you were to read just one book on investing and wealth building over time this is definitely it. Its focus is narrow

but that's intentional. Mr Collins is a massive fan of equities as an asset class and he focuses almost exclusively on that

as an asset class for building wealth for the future

and of course he's absolutely right to do so.

He does talk about V bonds as a way of mitigating the volatility of

equities a little bit and as such he reminds me very much of Lars Croia

author of Investing De Mist, who you remember I interviewed a few months ago now.

The book reads like an extended in-depth advert for Vanguard because J.L. Collins uses Vanguard exclusively for his own portfolio and

now he's at the liberty to do that. He's not a regulated advisor like I am. I can't say things like that. But it's not a regulated advisor like I am I can't say things like that but it's not a sort of blind loyalty

Jail Collins

explains why he loves Vanguard so much and why he thinks that it is

Arguably as good a home as any for your investments.

He talks about the mutual nature of the company and their aggressive pursuit of cost reduction

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