How to Be a Rich Old Lady: Your Guide to Easy Investing, Building Wealth, and Creating the Wild, Beautiful Life You Want

by Amanda Holden

A life-changing path to the financial freedom we all How to Be a Rich Old Lady is filled with humor, heart, and real-world perspective.

Amanda Holden spent years working in investment management, where she saw exactly who gets access to the power, ease, and opportunity money can bring—and it wasn’t people like her friends. She also saw how the financial system is designed to feel exclusive and confusing, and how it blames individuals for economic problems they didn’t create. So, Amanda left her finance job to launch Invested Development, a financial education company where she has taught more than twenty-five thousand students how to invest with radical clarity, accessibility, and joy.

Here, all her expertise is packed into a guide that won’t feel like getting cornered by a crypto bro. Instead, it reads like a text from your smartest “Let’s figure out money, so we can stop thinking about money.” Because this practice isn’t just about planning for your wild and glorious future—it’s about the relief of knowing you’re doing everything you can right now. In these pages, you
Set up a fully automated investing strategy—so you can move on with your life Use hands-on tools and worksheets to guide you to financial independence Learn about investing in a way that is truly memorable Demystify retirement accounts and tax rules Learn who to trust in the finance world—and who to avoid Master how to research, buy, and track the right investments for you Explore what it means to live a wild, beautiful life beyond Roth IRAs
How to Be a Rich Old Lady is a step-by-step road map to financial freedom. It’s not just about numbers on a spreadsheet but building a life that feels secure enough to dream into. Maybe your Rich Old Lady is wearing belly chains at the beach, tanned and wrinkly and totally unbothered. Maybe she’s befriending the birds at her cozy forest cabin. Maybe she’s leaving $500 tips on her diner coffee. Whatever your vision, this approachable guide to investing and wealth-building will help you build a plan to greet her with confidence, security, and genuine hope for tomorrow.

Genres: Nonfiction, Finance, Self Help, Money, Business, Audiobook, Book Club

336 pages, Hardcover

Published January 13, 2026

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Reviews

[Sophia June · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m obsessed with personal finance, and there’s no other book, article, podcast, or influencer who has made me feel quite so in command of my finances than Amanda. When I say, I literally would pause, contribute an extra $150 to my IRA, then start reading again…she’s already made me richer!

But truly, this book doesn’t just break down complex financial topics into tangible advice, it explains WHY YOU SHOULD CARE: why you should care despite late-stage capitalism, despite billionaires, despite the fact that it feels like the world is ending. Amanda just gets it and she wants to help you not get screwed over by a system designed to screw you over. This is a really important book. Also, great cover.

[Morgan Music · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gatekeeping finance bros hate to see this book coming!!!

Amanda Holden masterfully weaves humor and irreverence with a tremendous cache of knowledge and genuine heart. Her own investment in empowering her readers by demystifying the world of finance shines through, and she speaks with refreshing clarity in both her critiques of the system and her insistence that we engage.

If you weren’t particularly enthusiastic about becoming a rich old lady when you opened this book, you will be by the time you close it. More than a roadmap, this is your designated driver to the party.

[Sarah]

This is a really well structured and explained book on investing. It cuts through a lot of the noise you get when bros are writing about the topic. And honestly that’s not who I want to hear from here!

Some of the info wasn’t applicable to me because I’m not US based but I have come away knowing more about investing than I did before. And I will certainly be referring back to this book in the future

*read via Edelweiss

[Haley Lawrie]

All finance books should be couched within the context of larger financial systems and how we got here. While I personally didn’t learn a lot of new information from the book, that is because I’ve previously listened to a lot of “dumpster doggy” content previously. I think Amanda is an excellent teacher and breaks down financial jargon with ease. Highly recommend this book for any of my friends that need to buff up their financial literacy.

[Sarah Mead Jasperse · Rating 5 out of 5]

YES! This is the book about investing / personal finance that I have been waiting for! Finally a book that actually taught me how to invest — from the theory to the buttons to click to the social justice implications. Everything else I’ve read or tried to read has either been too jargony and way over my head or so simplified that I learned nothing useful. This Goldilocks of Investing finally found the book that was juuuuuust right.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I laughed, I cried... it genuinely changed my life! Probably the most useful money book I've ever read and I've read a lot of them.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is for anyone ready to stop pretending money is too complicated. Amanda Holden tells you exactly- no, exactly - what to do to get your money sorted so you can get on with your gorgeous, creative, chaotic, life.

Her advice is seared into my brain (I'll never forget the David Lee Roth 401k thing). After taking her investing course, I saved enough money to quit my job, travel for two years, and accidentally build a new life in Spain. Coincidence? No. Amanda.

When's the last time you spit water out ya mouth laughing while reading about money?!? When's the last time you were able to spit searing facts back to your weird uncle always giving backwards, slightly misogynistic money advice at the family gathering? And most importantly, when’s the last time you actually did the thing a self-help book told you to do?

Because after this one (honestly, 30 pages in), you’ll feel like you just hit the jackpot: a hilarious, been-there-done-that money auntie who drops timeless wisdom, gives you the tools to get your finances together without spiraling, tosses you some Mardi Gras beads for reasons that feel spiritual, and sends you back out into the world calmer, richer, and a little more dangerous, in the best way.

[Brijeet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read a number of personal finance books, including some specifically geared to women (e.g. Financial Feminist). Here Holden presents financial guidance from the angle of helping women achieve their vision for whatever being a "rich old lady" looks like for them (the freedom to be eccentric and carefree? etc etc). This angle ultimately doesn't feel particularly relevant once you dive into the financial chapters, which if anything suffer from being overly detailed. I could imagine if this were my first book on retirement investing, I would feel overwhelmed. A novice reader will be much better served by The Simple Path to Wealth (and, in fact, Holden goes into topics such as crypto and picking stocks, which is a departure from the generally accepted guidance to focus on a simple strategy of low cost index funds).

So in short: the person who would enjoy this book is someone who really wants to deep dive into all aspects of investing. If you are energized by visions of old wealthy you with blue hair and a caftan and less so by investment strategy, check out JL Collins, or the "rich life" approach of Ramit Sethi.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the e-ARC.

[Machaia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am inordinately pleased that this book exists, and I plan to gift this book to all my girlfriends because they too deserve to be rich old ladies. I've been following Amanda online for some time, and I've taken her Invested Development course. When I saw she was writing a book (with a fantastic title), I immediately went to NetGalley to request an ARC. I was curious to see if this book would add anything new to the course, or if it would be basically the same thing in written form. I am very happy to report this book builds upon her course beautifully. It's the same kind of advice, but so much more. You don't need to have taken the course to read this book, but you can still read this book if you've taken the course. A win for everyone! Furthermore, I deeply appreciate Amanda's goal to make investing and building wealth accessible for women who are often viciously left out of financial conversations and the financial world. This book does the best job I have ever seen of taking our intentionally labyrinthine financial systems and making them understandable in fun and hilarious prose. She also touched on many subjects that I've seen financial books avoid including "What if the world ends? What's the point in investing?" which has become a new and popular slogan of some, and she answers the question with real thoughtfulness.

Truly I only have two critiques of the book - one of which I honestly don't know how to fix. I don't know how it can be possible to write a book on investing without it getting technical and in the weeds at some points, and it may lose some readers. But hopefully, most will be willing to power through and realize it is part of the conversation if you truly want to learn how to invest. My other critique is that I do think women older than millennials may be off-put by some of Holden's more colorful language and analogies. I adore Holden's voice and moxie - it is a big part of why this book shines, so I do not want her to make herself smaller to make this book sell better. However, I do want to be able to put this book in the hands of my mother and her peers as much as I want to put it in the hands of my friends and I think fewer references to nipple pasties and sex partners as analogies would aid in that.

[Jessica Astrella · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have ever put off learning how to invest your money because it's intimidating or seems confusing, please listen to me when I insist on gently placing this bible of a (beautiful) book in your sweet hands. The author, Amanda Holden, has made it her life's work to educate and inspire people like us and my god, how lucky we are. She basically holds your hand through it all, starting with the mechanisms and history of the US stock market and then explains step by step how you, personally, can access and invest in it- couching all the "boring" stuff in funny anecdotes and shiny baubles of wisdom to keep it from being too dry or opaque.

I love the framing of the information Holden generously shares in this book - that the wealth we want, while obviously material, is to support a *mindset and lifestyle of our own choosing*. That being "rich" does not (necessarily) mean Lora Piana, Labubus on our Birkins, and Lambos - it means FREEDOM, and she gives us actual actionable instructions to achieve that freedom, while being always mindful of the systems and built-in roadblocks or privileges from which her audience may be operating. She is openly conflicted about capitalism but recognizes we still have to protect ourselves and wants us all to succeed within the confines of it - perhaps with bigger, community-minded imaginations than our selfish ass forefathers.

While I am THRILLED we all can have this book now, I am also SAD for the generations of people before us who have felt left out of investing education and didn't have an evergreen guide like this. If our moms and aunts and grandmas had access to this warm, hilarious, meticulous how-to guide there would be soOoOoO many more Rich Old Ladies for us to look up to. This book has reinvigorated my own personal Rich Old Lady goals and I can't wait to buy a copy for all my gorls.

[Emma Pattee · Rating 5 out of 5]

"a guide that won't feel like getting cornered by a crypto bro"

First, let me say that I'm biased because Amanda is a really dear friend.

Second, I will say that this book is **OBJECTIVELY** the funniest smartest most useful investing book that has ever been written. Here's why:

1. Amanda is actually qualified to teach investing. 99% of the personal finance influencers online have zero credentials or real world experience with investing. Amanda worked in investment management and has taught thousands of people how to invest.

2. Investing for regular folks is actually pretty simple. The things that make it complicated are all the grifters and the scammers and the get-rich-quick schemes and the aforementioned crypto bros. It's all the bullshit that leaves people like us feeling confused and alienated. this book is so straightforward, easy to read, and practical. it also works as a resource so you can easily find answers to questions as they pop up. For example, I had the goal this year of opening a college savings account for my kid, and she has a section that speaks just to that, and I easily found it when I needed that info.

3. This is one of those very rare money books that acknowledges that capitalism sucks and makes life worse AND ALSO that it is the system we live in, and when it comes to saving for the future, we cannot just opt out completely.

4. This book says nipples three times!!! and buttholes twice!! Seriously, Amanda is one of the funniest people I've ever met. And this book is just full of bizarre stories, and ridiculous metaphors and truly delightful turns of phrase. The book opens with a wild trip to Reno and just keeps going from there... it's the only money book I've read where sometimes I forgot that I was reading a money book.

[Marnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been following Amanda (Dumpster Doggy) on social media for several years and have taken some of her classes - which were amazing. As soon as I saw she was publishing a book, I rushed to see if I could get an ARC. After having finished it, it was every bit as good as I had hoped. She has a way of cutting through finance bro bull$h!t that is so sensationalized and literally everywhere. She is honest about the realities of building retirement savings; it's not sexy or flashy, and it doesn't happen overnight. I also appreciate the pragmatic advice. There are many famous finance influencers that harp on the "right ways" to pay off debt or invest and even assign morality to it. She breaks down different options and encourages people to choose what they will be most consistent with. Many chapters have worksheets that help you apply the principles to your personal situation.

I would recommend this book for not only the information inside, but to support someone who is just a genuinely good person. She gives away scholarships to her financial literacy courses to hundreds of women per year and is continually fighting for financial equality and just human decency in general. Thanks to netgalley for a copy of this book to review, I will be buying a physical copy when it is released for sure.

[Liza Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went into this book with no particular finance goals, but I cannot stress how much I took away from it. I had so many personal circumstances that I thought were too specific for any finance book to cover, but Amanda managed to hit them all. Not only was the information incredibly helpful but it was FASCINATING! I learned so many things that I still mention as fun party facts and a few things that were so mind-blowing that I immediately called people to discuss

[K · Rating 1 out of 5]

Half a page in and the author has already cursed twice and made two references to female body parts that should not be mentioned in polite society. I thought I was going to get an approachable financial book, but unfortunately the author is trying WAY too hard to be sassy "hey girl, we're besties" with the reader. I absolutely hate when authors speak to young women this way.

[Chloe Devine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot even begin to describe how much I am not only
loving this book but truly feeling like it will change mylife and many others. Many of us were not taught to understand the way finances work, or investing, I didn’t even know what the Dow Jones really was until I read this book. Amanda is brilliant and funny and makes everything so easy to comprehend. It’s a 10/10!!

[Taryn]

This would of been better without the vulgar humor

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This had a lot of good info, but sometimes the tone didn't work for me. A lot of the jokes fell flat and when it got overly sentimental or talked about the larger political landscape, it felt a bit preachy.

[Samantha Lankford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every woman should get this book when they graduate from high school. 10/10

[Alissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Investing 101!

[sam | paperbacks.and.tea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good high-level overview for those just getting into investing and money management. I wasn't a big fan of the writing style, but that didn't take away from the information being useful.

[Jo Ledda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book should be mandatory! I had my heart warmed and learned so much, I really appreciate the tactical approach.