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Ask HN: Good resources to become financially literate

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Re: Ask HN: Good resources to become financially literate

#21

Post by onion2k »

token8791 wrote: post #11

1. Spend less than you earn. 2. Learn about investing and develop an investing mindset. Investing can mean stock, but also a personal skill like cooking or a small business, a thing you can rent out, whatever. 3. Repeat. My friends live paycheck-to-paycheck and I got $300k stashed in cash and a mix of investments. I'm not living for the money, but this world is full of costly stuff you definitely do not need - and it…

I got $300k stashed in cash and a mix of investments

Why?

I can understand if you're saving to buy a house outright for cash, or to invest in a startup that needs a chunk of capex at the beginning, or something, but just sitting on a pile of depreciating cash assets is silly in an economic market where retail inflation is running at ~10%. If you're literally just holding cash because you can't think of anything fun to spend it on then that's quite sad.

Re: Ask HN: Good resources to become financially literate

#24

Post by jvanderbot »

The subreddit personal finance has straightforward advice, and a very nice algorithm for determining where to put your money (and an exit criteria after which you can do whatever you want).

That basic flowchart has helped me set my goals for years, and to maximize my progress towards those goals.

It's very simple, a 10 minute read, and backed by most the books and advice you're likely to receive anyway, including basic stats about emergency funds, etc.

Unfortunately, it can seem mundane, as financial responsibility is about time in investment and good lifelong habits, not easy tricks.

Re: Ask HN: Good resources to become financially literate

#25

Post by LVB »

William Bernstein has written many finance/investing books, though most of them can get quite advanced. But he also wrote a much more approachable, 27 page booklet available for $1 called “If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly” that is a good intro to the space. I greatly appreciate the wit and no BS style of his writing.

Re: Ask HN: Good resources to become financially literate

#26

Post by patrickwalton »

jjice wrote: post #3

/r/personalfinance has some solid stuff in their sidebar/wiki. I'm big into Financial Independence as a concept and community, so I'm partial towards that. Some recommended reading (some which you may like and some you may not): - /r/financialindependence sidebar/wiki - https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ - Bit more radical on the frugality side but a personal favorite - https://www.madfientist.com/ - Podcast and blog.…

Another new resource I've discovered is qubemoney.com. Great way to set a budget and stick to it. They issue a debit card that declines unless you "open" a budget first on the app. That way you always have to think about what you're spending before you spend it and you always know how much you have in your budgets.

Re: Ask HN: Good resources to become financially literate

#27

Post by oi_ocha_please »

tharne wrote: post #23

Dave Ramsey is very good. A lot of folks object to him because he can come off as extreme, but his advice is simple and effective.

he's good for people who are in massive debt and can't control themselves. people need to graduate themselves from him once they don't fall into those categories as his advice will hold people back if you blindly follow his hard advice.

Re: Ask HN: Good resources to become financially literate

#28

Post by seanhunter »

The best book bar none on investing is "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham. So if you want to learn about investing in a way that is a sustainable way to build wealth for the long term, that is the one to read. The original is pretty old, but the advice remains sound. The modern edition with the original text + chapter updates from Jason Zweig is the one to go for.

That said, it sounds like you have some financial foundations to build before investing is a realistic option.

Re: Ask HN: Good resources to become financially literate

#30

Post by wruza »

amelius wrote: post #9
trabant00 wrote: post #5

If you're living paycheck to paycheck I'd say learn to walk before you run. Keep it simple, open another account and transfer 20% or whatever you feel comfortable from every paycheck. After you save more than a year of living in that you can start to look into more advanced stuff.

You should at least provide some motivation to do that.

For some people it happens automagically once there’s more than you can let yourself to spend in a moment. You see money, you think “good, better keep on keeping on”. For me it actually created motivation to seek and earn more.
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