Real Wealth: Make Money Work for You

From financial educator and social media star Tyler Gardner, a clear-eyed guide to taking control of your financial life.

When Tyler Gardner first became a financial advisor, he realized that the industry cared more about commissions than education. Fed up, he began posting informational videos. No jargon, no gatekeeping, just honest financial education to help his now 4+ million followers build real wealth.

Real wealth isn’t someone else’s formula or number. It’s a life built with intention. It’s confidence that your money is doing what you need it to. It’s the flexibility to live how you want to―to confidently protect and grow your money, whether you’re starting with $1,000 or $10 million.

Drawing on vivid stories from two decades as an educator and financial advisor, Tyler helps you define your priority, understand your portfolio, and weather volatile markets to create and navigate greater wealth. Essential, practical, and readable, Real Wealth shows you how to make money work for you―instead of the other way around.

Tyler Gardner is a former financial advisor, portfolio manager, and lifelong educator who left the traditional financial industry after realizing it cared more about commissions than the people sitting across the table. His response was to start posting honest, practical financial education online —the kind the industry had spent decades making deliberately complicated. Over four million followers later, he hasn't stopped.

Tyler studied economics and English at the University of Vermont before earning a Master of Arts in Literature from Georgetown, a Master of Letters from Middlebury, and an MBA from the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst. He spent years in the classroom and in client meetings before building one of the most engaged personal finance audiences in the country entirely without paid advertising.

He is the host of Your Money Guide on the Side, a top-ranked podcast on Spotify and Apple that simplifies the complex, adds nuance to what seems simple, and connects listeners with some of the brightest minds in finance, investing, and business.

His first book, Real Wealth, published by Norton, is the culmination of two decades of teaching students, advising clients, and answering the same questions from four million strangers on the internet who just wanted someone to be honest with them about money. It is the book he wished existed when he started.

Tyler lives in the woods of Vermont with his wife Stephanie and their bloodhound Dixie, and can most reliably be found on a hiking trail, thinking about index funds and adopting seven more bloodhounds.

"Tyler Gardner brings the same clarity and honesty to the page that he brings to every conversation about money. This is both a roadmap for building financial security and a refreshing reset on what money is actually for. "
― Chris Hill, host of Money Unplugged

"Clear-eyed effective real-world financial advice that just happens to be extremely well written and entertaining."
― JL Collins, New York Times-bestselling author of The Simple Path to Wealth