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Ask HN: What is the best financial advice someone has ever given you?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the best financial advice someone has ever given you?

#51
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that?

Nobody gets rich from diversification. Its just what they tell uneducated people so that they dont take on huge risk

This statement is so general that I feel it doesn’t really say anything.

It’s true that Larry Ellison didn’t become a billionaire by buying and holding index funds. But for people who don’t feel a strong desire to buy their own yacht, index funds can be a very good investment.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best financial advice someone has ever given you?

#53
post #52
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick with compound interest is to find something that beats inflation, because inflation compounds more quickly than your savings interest.

Index funds?

Yeah, hopefully.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best financial advice someone has ever given you?

#56
https://thetaoofwealth.wordpress.com/2013/02/17/harry-browne...

  1. Your career provides your wealth
  2. Don't assume you can replace your wealth
  3. Recognize the difference between investing and speculating
  4. No one can predict the future
  5. No one can move you in and out of investments consistently with precise and profitable timing
  6. No trading system will work as well in the future as it did in the past
  7. Don't use leverage
  8. Don't let anyone make your decisions
  9. Don't ever do anything you don't understand
  10. Don’t depend on any one investment, institution, or person for your safety
  11. Create a bulletproof portfolio for protection
  12. Speculate only with money you can afford to lose
  13. Keep some assets outside the country in which you live
  14. Beware of tax-avoidance schemes
  15. Ask the right questions
  16. Enjoy yourself with a budget for pleasure
  17. Whenever you’re in doubt about a course of action, it is always better to err on the side of safety

Re: Ask HN: What is the best financial advice someone has ever given you?

#57

Before you invest in something, determine how that thing creates value. If you can’t determine how it creates value, it is most likely a short-lived scheme. Risk aside, it has also become a principle of mine that I refuse to try to generate income or gains from anything that, at the end of the day, isn’t generating real value for society.

i.e. don’t play zero-sum games.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best financial advice someone has ever given you?

#58

Invest in skills that pay money and spend less then you make. Skills are key because they’re inflation-proof, and no person or government can ever take them away

That's what the majority of the planet's population are doing, and as a result they are getting poorer every year.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best financial advice someone has ever given you?

#60
Don't let the world tell you what you want.

A few days before I found out a company I worked at early was going to go public, which ended up 5x-ing my net worth, I had just been thinking, "Even if I had all the money in the world, I don't think I would want to live somewhere else, or drive something else, or own other stuff."

Everybody and their brother had an opinion about what I "should" do with my newfound wealth, but having that "Don't let the world tell you what you want" refrain in my head kept me from blowing it on a bunch of stuff that wouldn't have made me any happier.

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