A couple friends have reached out to me asking to share resources to help them learn about personal finance and investing. Below is a list of concepts and resources that I wish someone had given to me 10 years ago. I hope this serves as a helpful stepping stone to help you reach your goals and live the life you want.
Initial thoughts
Before we jump in to the list let me share a few things I wish I learned a bit earlier in life:
–Clarify what you want first.
Maybe you want to sleep in a van and surf 5 days a week. Maybe you want 3 catamarans and a house in the islands. Knowing what wealth means to you will inform your thinking of how you’ll get where you want to go.
–Increasing income can be better than cutting spending.
You can only cut so much spending before it begins to significantly impact your quality of life. Increases in income do not have the same boundaries to the upside, especially if your pay is not tied to an hourly wage. Starting a business on the side can lead to big opportunities you never thought possible.
–Time is the ultimate resource.
If you’re rich but have a miserable commute and no social life it is not likely you’re going to be happy day to day. Wealth creation should be focused around creating or obtaining assets that help you live the life you want.
–Investments in Yourself, Now.
Invest in yourself. Moving closer to your office to save time commuting, buying a comfortable new bed that you spend 8 restful hours a night in, or time spent learning a new skill or exploring a new country are non-financial investments in your quality of life that are not easy to value. It’s important to have a plan to get what you want in the long term, but you only ever live in the present. Enjoy it.
–Not taking any risk is a risk:
One theme I’ve noticed in my life is an overemphasis on potential downsides of taking risks and a dramatic underestimation of the potential upsides. The future is uncertain, but calculated asymmetrical risks with big upside can change your course in life for the better.
Alright, on to the list.
Reddit spending flowchart
This flowchart from Reddit Personal Finance is an easy to follow guide to managing money. This is the TL;DR I send to people if they are looking to learn about personal finance and retirement saving but don’t care to spend a ton of time.
Podcasts, Blogs and other resources
–The Investors Podcast: Listening to Preston, Stig and their guests has helped me understand a lot of what I don’t know about investing. I always finish one of their podcasts with a bunch of topics to go do more research on. The range of guests they have on helps me constantly challenge my assumptions. The podcast started off fully focused on value investing and over time as the macro environment has shifted they seem to be talking more about topics outside of the value investing sphere.
–Lyn Alden: Lyn is one of the most talented people writing about finance at the moment. She brings a good blend of high level macro viewpoints and analysis on individual stocks, commodities and markets. Read her blog or check out a podcast featuring her, you’ll be impressed.
-Balaji Srinivasan: Balaji has a knack for seeing the future – in ways that are both exciting and terrifying. His podcasts will likely push you to consider a lot of ideas that seem crazy – and a serious percentage of the time he ends up being correct about the future.
–Naval Ravikant: Naval explains the principles of leverage and wealth building in simple terms. This thread is short but rich. Naval’s podcast explores these ideas a bit further.
How to Get Rich (without getting lucky):
— Naval (@naval) May 31, 2018
–FRED Economic Data: The graphs put out by the Fed can help you understand pieces of what’s going on in the economy. For example, this chart below shows the staggering increase in M2 money supply since the COVID-19 Pandemic. What are the implications of this for the average person? My summary of Jeff Booth’s book The Price of Tomorrow explores the causes and impacts of money printing more in depth.
What other resources have you found helpful in planning for the future? Reach out to me on Twitter @callmetylerhall and share your thoughts. May you be happy, healthy and surrounded by abundance.