Congratulations on being wise enough with your money at such a young age to do your research and ask questions. That's exactly what you should continue doing, as it will pay off in the long run far more than any single investment you can make right now.

Along those lines I would invest a small amount of that money in some basic books about money that will help you develop a fundamental philosophy about your relationship with money and building wealth. Ebook, blogs and apps all have their benefits, but you really should have a basic financial library of physical books you can have on hand.

Your Money or Your Life:
https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780143115762

The Simple Path to Wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1533667926%5D(https://www.amazon.com/dp/1533667926/

The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118921283/

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy https://www.amazon.com/dp/1589795474/

That short list is in no way complete, but will get you started.

As far as websites/blogs/free reads here's a few to consider:

http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page

https://yourmoneyoryourlife.com/book-summary/

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/blog/

https://www.thesimpledollar.com/

It's great that you have a nice little lump sum of money to invest right now, but the key to building wealth generally won't involve lump sums every now and then and finding places to put them. The key is to discipline yourself to set aside portions of any amount money that comes in and have an automatic system to invest it and let it grow without touching it.

Have a plan for every paycheck, bonus, tax refund, inheritance, bank heist money :) you come into to have a portion funneled into your investments before you're tempted to find other, unlimited, things to do with it.

This is the greatest book probably ever written on that concept:

http://www.ccsales.com/the_richest_man_in_babylon.pdf

Having a goal, a plan for getting there, and the discipline to actually execute it will make you wealthy. Wealth gives you choices, freedom, and opportunity, and the earlier you start building it, the easier it will be to have these things. If you don't appreciate how important those are to living a good life, I guarantee you will in the years ahead.

At some point you will hear the name Warren Buffett (if you haven't already). He's the single greatest investor who's ever lived and my personal favorite. Once you have the basics down, and you might have further interest in investing I would recommend studying him. Even though there are countless books and websites devoted to him, he's already left us nearly everything you need to know about investing right there on his simple company website in the form of his annual letters--basically a free master class on investing, written by a genious who also happens to have great wit:

http://berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html

In a much broader sense beyond investing, there is a book more than a hundred years old that discusses getting to wealth in a very interesting and powerful way. I've used it as inspiration from a standpoint as a business person, but I think it's worth studying seriously for anyone trying to build wealth.

I believe you can still get a free copy here:

http://scienceofgettingrich.net/subscribe.html

If you don't want to subscribe, just Google "The Science of Getting Rich".

And here's a good audio version as well:

https://archive.org/details/TheScienceofGettingRich

No matter what philosophy and path you take, I always include another personal recommendation to set aside a small portion of your portfolio into something "alternative" that interests you and might have the potential to build or at least preserve wealth. For me it's basically precious metals, and more specifically collectible silver and gold coins. I've also collected old paper money, stamps, stock certificates, rare books, and music and movie memorabilia all to a lesser degree. Keeps things interesting, and sometimes you can do pretty well with experience and a little luck.

And best of luck to you!


*Edit: Sp+fixed links, and here's my best TLDL:


Buy physical copies of some basic wealth building books. Consider :

Your Money or Your Life: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780143115762

The Simple Path to Wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1533667926/

The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118921283/

Read "The Richest Man in Babylon" and follow the concept of always paying yourself first:

http://www.ccsales.com/the_richest_man_in_babylon.pdf

Warren Buffett is an investing God. If/when you're ready to learn more, just start here:
http://berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html

Read and/or listen to "The Science of Getting Rich":

http://scienceofgettingrich.net/subscribe.html

https://archive.org/details/TheScienceofGettingRich

Diversify a small portion of your wealth with physical assets you can hold and that might have a lifelong interest to you. A quick recommendation would be to start with 5% of your portfolio in precious metals, perhaps a small variety of silver bullion coins and bars. (I'd be happy to give you specific suggestions on these if wanted).

Get comfortable, I wrote you a book.

tl;dr: You want to make a quick buck and you are letting that desire cloud your thinking. You - and you alone - are responsible for yourself and for the consequences of your decisions. Do whatever you want, but recognize that your decisions now are setting up your future. Your decisions. You came here and posted this question and you got good advice. You can reject it if you want to, but own your choices. No one is impressed by "I wasn't really thinking about it." You are just starting life. Who do you admire? Who don't you want to be like? What do you want in life? How can you maximize your chances of making that happen? What do you have to do? Be sure of yourself. Then do it.

---------

I agree with the majority of what has been written. I also wonder if your mind is made up on this. It shouldn't be, but either way:

You would be doing yourself an incredibly good service by taking your motivation and sense of entrepreneurship and putting it toward something that isn't likely to ruin much of your life while simultaneously closing most of the doors which are currently open to you. (Yes, that means doing something legal. Particularly now.).

From what I'm reading, I suspect that it's important you choose something challenging. Something you think is challenging and which you actively decide to do. Put yourself on the line and work your ass off. Be responsible for your own success and be proud of it. Own your life, because - surprise - you already do. Importantly, put your work in toward something where when you fail you can talk proudly about it with anyone; you can put it on your resume, even use it to show people - yourself - that you are capable. And hell, you might succeed. You will succeed if you learn from your mistakes and keep trying. That's how entrepreneurship works -- through failure. (Reference Scott Adams, How to Fail at Almost Everything And Still Win Big. Or here, for free

I'll be straight with you: You seem to have a lot of drive and focus for things that you want to do, but your attitude surrounding that is shit. You also don't seem to have learned from your mistakes. You made some quick money with drugs and you now have none of it. (Also, you're comfortable selling drugs but not comfortable collecting a Government benefit which you would be 100% entitled to? One which probably exists for people in exactly your situation, among others? Accept yourself.)

It seems like you think you know what you want to do so you are seeing everything else as pointing you toward that decision. That's normal. But look at what people wrote here. You may think of yourself as restricted, bound, or labeled because of a charge on your record. A charge from when you were a kid, which is probably going to disappear at some point rather soon. You obviously know that school is important but you are blaming cigarettes for your absences? Dude: You control yourself and you are responsible for yourself. You smoke. There are consequences. They aren't the fault of nicotine. No one but you can change things, and that will never happen through defeatism or shifting responsibility. (I have my own addictions, btw.) I get that you don't like school. Pretty much no one loves it. But have you actually tried? Have you worked hard at something you don't like and done well? When was the last time? Have you even talked to people at your school about what you want and what you dislike? What your challenges are? Do you know what you want?

Figure that shit out, man. It's important. Take responsibility for yourself, because everyone else is going to expect that from you if they don't already. You dictate your future. View that as a huge opportunity rather than something negative and you are on the right track.

It seems like you probably know all these things. You are clearly thinking, which is a good sign and is also more than many other people your age are doing. I suggest bringing people in on your thought processes (beyond Reddit), such as a school guidance counselor or someone who you look up to because of what they have accomplished for themselves. You don't have to listen to what they say.

>I feel like I could do better applying my skills somewhere else - >namely, selling narcotics as well as keeping a job.

"Namely"? Those don't follow. It's also telling that you wrote "selling narcotics" and "keeping a job" as separate things. You are looking to make quick cash. My take - a random person on the Internet who has been successful in business and who also likes drugs (too much): the risks FAR outweigh the rewards. That's why the potential return is higher than the pay for flipping burgers. Not because it's harder, but because you don't go to jail and likely ruin the rest of your life's opportunities for flipping burgers. It's too easy to only see the rewards from where you are standing. Remember how the money you made is poof gone? There are a lot more ways in which that same story is likely to replay itself if you keep following the world it came out of.

You know that growing and selling weed is not your only option. You want to grow things? I bet you could make a solid amount of money growing and selling niche plants. Legal ones. I even know someone who does that, though I'm obviously not saying you should do that specific thing. (And be smart, if you don't know a business don't start it. Plants? Get a job at a plant nursery or something.) I honestly agree with the people who are saying "Get yourself a job." Do that. And take heed to the warnings about girlfriend. I'm sure she's great. Don't think with your dick, and don't get her pregnant any time soon.

There's something else I don't know if you see: There are a lot of ways you can improve your situation in life and improve yourself. Things which you can do to separate yourself from your personal history of rocky family stuff, smoking at a young age, drugs, shaky school, iffy decisions, etc. You can also tie yourself to your personal history - very tightly. That's an ACTIVE CHOICE and it's one you are making pretty much right now. The whole "get a legitimate job and try at life" thing? That is a strong way in which you could show yourself and everyone else that you are capable of running your life. Anything which involves intelligently trying to improve your situation is awesome and people will notice it. Get a job, learn from your mistakes, work hard, be entrepreneurial, be smarter than many people and realize that mental health and fitness is important and deserves serious time and attention, figure out school - whatever that means for you, and don't let yourself be convinced by the thought processes you wrote about here and about which no one else seems to be as convinced as you.

Most of all, accept that you are in control of yourself and your future. Fuck it up because you don't try? That's on you. No one looks down on people who try, though. You came on Reddit and posted this question and you got a lot of good advice. Consider it. Reject it if you want, but if you do that you better do it actively. Own it. Don't pretend this page of solicited advice never existed. Today, tomorrow, always - you are making decisions about yourself, your life, and your future. You are in the driver's seat. What do you value? Who do you want to be? Who don't you value? What kind of person don't you want to be? How do people get where and what you want? How can you maximize your chances of getting there? Talk to people about that and think some more. Reread this if you want to. Go.

(Or don't. Your choice.)

Caution: Wall of text to follow.

Firstly, congrats on caring at a young age about your finances. That's something not a lot of people can say. With that being said I'll like to take each of your paragraphs in turn and answer your questions at the end.

NOTE: If you just want answers to your questions and not my advice skip ahead.

> While I believe that there are some truths behind "Money doesn't buy happiness", it is a lot easier to be happy knowing that you are well-off.

As a word to the wise from someone a little further down the road let me just say there is more truth than you yet realize in those 4 simple words. Many people don't come to see the truth till their old age looking back on a life filled with regret, so take some time now and seriously contemplate it, because the reality is in 85 very short years you'll likely be dead, and all you ever had will belong to someone else. If the only happiness you get in this life is seeing dollars in your bank account you'll miss out on a lot.

> The leading cause of divorces are because of financial issues. I mean, that has to speak for something.

In the vast majority of divorces it's not a lack of money that's the problem, it's a lack of agreeing on what to do with the money that is. Marriage can work below the poverty line, and above the 1% line. The financial issues of marriage aren't solved with just "more money!"

> I want to be able to support myself, other family members who aren't as well off, and be able to buy my kids (if I have them) a car, pay for their college funds, etc.

Supporting your own family is honorable, but beware when helping out "less fortunate" family members. There are many, many problems that can arise from that if not done properly, and enabling a family member will only make their situation worse, not help them.

> I don't want to be a doctor. Or a lawyer. . . . . who can bank at least a million in one year.

That is a very big dream, but it's not unrealistic. Big dreams are good, and as long as you can approach them level headed they help give you focus. I say that your dream is worthwhile, and although I caution against greed as it can destroy you and your life, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be a CEO making $1,000,000.

ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTIONS

> So tell me. Where do I start investing and also building my way up to becoming the CEO of a company?

You start right where you are. There is nothing stopping you from pursuing your dream now. Begin with learning. Learn what it takes to be a CEO, learn how other CEO's have done it, learn what your talents are. There will be much learning for you starting out.

I recommend the internet and a library card. Read a CEO's biography (it's as close as you'll come to getting to interview some CEO's). How is it that Donald Trump was able to go from rags to riches twice?! What would it take for you to do that? Learn all there is to learn about running a business, being a leader, and leading a successful venture.

> At what age?

NOW! Bill gates was already writing software and starting Microsoft at your age (not to say you're behind or anything like that.) There is no age limit on being a CEO, and there is certainly no age limit on learning and working hard.

> What majors in college should I be looking at?

This will be up to you and what you feel you would be good at. Do you want to be a CEO just to be a CEO, perhaps some business major then? Learn from other CEO's stories and what they majored in.

> And at what colleges?

Personally there is little impact based on what school you choose. There are CEO's that never went to college, and there are CEO's that went to Yale/Princeton.

The fact is it takes maybe $200 to start an LLC and call yourself a CEO, no college degree needed. What comes after that is actually making the money! In order to do that you have to provide a good or service that people want. The more people you make happy, the more money you'll get.

Something you should know now is that starting a company, and running a company is HARD WORK. I know some owners of start-ups that had to work 60 - 90 hours a week with little to no sleep to build their business. I know others who fell into the CEO position because their daddy owned the company, and they were lazy, and thanks to their lack of action the company collapsed.

> And of course, looking to do this in a legal way.

Welcome to America :), where hard work, sacrifice and the willingness to learn and strive can and do payoff.

One last piece of advice: Don't be a jerk. When you become the CEO of a company and you are making the millions, when you someday are the hotshot, don't look down on those around you. Remember where you came from, and those that helped you along the way, and there will be those that will help you!

People will always respond better to someone who is nice than someone who is a jerk.

Here is some recommended reading once you get that library card:

• Start by Jon Acuff
  
  
• EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey
  
  
• I will teach you to be Rich by Ramit Sethi
  
  
• The millionaire next door by Thomas Stanley
  
  
• The seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey
  
  There are many more books, but that's a start.
  
  Jon Acuff went from amateur blogger to best selling author, and is a great motivational writer. His books make me want to run a marathon, and are good for motivating you.
  
  Dave Ramsey went from bankruptcy to running a 300 person business and earning in the %1 of earners in the nation with a national brand. His book is about being a leader in business and you'll need to lead if you want to be CEO. It's a hard job, and not nearly as cushy as you might think.
  
  Thomas Stanley is a researcher who studies those with a net worth over $1M and his book will show you that being rich doesn't contradict with a frugal lifestyle.
  
  The others and highly recommended in general!
  
  The fact is you'll need to grow up, turn off the TV, and look weird to your friends. How many 15 yr olds do you know reading books about how to run a company and studying up on what it takes to be a CEO, or how to start a business? I don't know many, but I do know that at 17 years old William Gates III started a joint venture with Paul Allen (their first business). They both went on to make the top 20 richest billionaires list. Bill still holds the top spot.
  
  If you want to be rich, you want to be a CEO, then work at it. Work at it now, work at it often, and work at it always. I have no doubt if you dedicate yourself you can do it. The fact of the matter is that most people reading this are tired just thinking of the work it takes to be CEO, and that's why they never will be.
  
  Best of luck on your future success, and don't forget the little people.
  
  ~ Dragon J.
  
  Edited for formatting.

Rich Dad Poor Dad catches a lot of flak, but it's actually really good at teaching the absolute basics in an easy-to-follow manner. Like, learn what a Cash Flow Statement is, increase your asset column, learn basic accounting language, separate emotions and money, minimize taxes. Just glean the overall principles he's teaching and don't blindly follow his specific strategies.

The Richest Man in Babylon is another great, easy to read, investing 101 book.

And The Millionaire Next Door is a research-based book on Millionaires in America and what kind of habits and mindsets got them to their current wealth. It's a wonderfully refreshing read after being brainwashed by tv and movies saying that millionaires won it or stole it and live lavish lives. Most actual millionaires are pretty frugal and hard working with modest lives.

---
And here are some resources to help you learn all the new words and concepts:

• Investopedia
  
• Bogleheads
  
• Khan Academy
  -- Microeconomics
  -- Macroeconomics
  -- Finance
  
• Personal Finance subreddit
  
• Investing subreddit
  
• Finance subreddit
  
• Accounting subreddit
  
• Financial Independence subreddit
  
• Business subreddit
  
• Economics subreddit
  
  ---
  And when you get pretty familiar with the basics and want to start messing with stuff, I've enjoyed the Think or Swim paper money route. They give you $200,000 in fake money to play around with and invest and practice your strategies. It helps you get acquainted with the research and the interface and the fees for investing. It's a wonderful tool.
  
  And then The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham is supposed to be a pretty good comprehensive guide the advanced basics (is that a term?) of investing.
  
  ---
  Or if you want to skip alllll of this and just hire someone, I've read in those subreddits that you want to find a fee based financial adviser. Which you can do here.
  
  .
  
  
  I hope I've helped man! It's a lot of fun to learn about. I wish you all the best.

For 2016 I am working on opening a second location for my IT services company in Detroit and growing my client base.

Here are a few books that I really enjoyed.


Without Their Permission by Alexis Ohanian

I found this book inspiring and really showed me the persistence that he has to keep going and the value of just reaching out to other business owners to get things going.


Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance

WOW, Elon is very driven, very focused and keeps his companies on the cutting edge by investing heavily on growth and innovation. He has a very clear vision for his companies with an exit strategy for himself that includes retirement on Mars. That sounds very far out but he has thought so far ahead and to calculate the launch schedules needed to make populating Mars viable.

Smarter Than You Think

This is a good book showcasing how technology is enabling those you who use it in new and creative ways to work and think more efficiently.


Screw Business as Usual

I am a big fan of Richard Branson and in this book he showcases how he has been disruptive to the establishment while at the same time being ethical and environmentally friendly. He touches on social issues and creative ways he has solved those issues.

The Go Giver
This short book by Bob Burg is a story driven book about a fictional character named Joe who is working hard to be more successful but seems to keep falling short. Joe is introduced to Pindar & he introduces Joe to a series of successful “go-givers”. This book showcases the power of connecting with other successful people and show their willingness to help.




I listen to a lot of podcasts mostly IT industry related but there are are good for business

The Art of Charm

They have some great topics on self growth or just ways to handle life situations. Their recent episode with Jay Samit was really good


Triangulation on Twit


I listen to this podcast based on who the guest is. Leo does a good job interviewing and keeping the conversation moving forward.

Entrepreneur on Fire

While I am not the biggest fan of the pumped up over the top style of this podcast they do have some great guests on here that share their failures and successes.

Yeah Wikipedia doesn't seem like the worst place. It really depends on what you enjoy! You can find a lot of free stuff on Youtube, just be really careful with what you watch.

The part of politics that interest me the most is Propaganda. If I can give you a little bit of caution before you dive to deep, I feel like I need to warn you: there are very powerful people that are trying to convince you to join their side. I've been studying how money comes into play with political ideologies...and it scares the shit out of me. Always keep in mind who is talking to you when you are learning. I, for instance, am somewhat of a Socialist-Libertarian. Keep that in mind as I recommend you resources. I learned so much about my own political beliefs by reading and watching stuff I disagreed with. For instance, I watch a ton of super hardcore alt right stuff because propaganda interests me. But even someone as far left as myself began to see my views of the world slowly change, and not in an intellectual way. The racism started to seep into me without me noticing. Some stuff out there downright is made to brainwash you (this sub is a good example). I am being 100% serious.

If you are interested in learning about who shapes political ideology, here are some recommendations.

Here's a short documentary about how the Koch brothers use their money to change ideology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nKgKVxFjSg (By Aljazeera, a highly respected international news outlet). It's inspired by an amazing book named Dark Money, the Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. There is also a documentary about it on Amazon Prime if you have it.

Another extremely interesting book is by John Perkins, named, Confessions of an Economic Hitman. The book is about a man who traveled the world for a company named MAIN, and made up bullshit statistics to convince developing nations to take out huge loans to hire US companies for infrastructure. The plan was to get these nations loaded with debt, making them beholden for the U.S.. If Perkin's failed, the CIA sent people into to organize a coup d'etat. Here's him explaining it in an interview

Another good book is called indivisible hands: businessmen's crusade against the new deal goes over how business interests got together and literally shaped modern political discourse around their own interests.

Noam Chomsky (perhaps the world's most respected living intelectual) goes over what he calls "The propaganda model, which I'll let him explain in an interview interview. If you like the interview, follow the rabbit hole down and see what else he has to say. It totally blew my mind some of the shit he talks about. He also has an excellent film named Requiem for the American Dream that will break down what he thinks the power structures are. Chomsky is an Anarchist BTW.

Another good resource is a website named History Commons. The website puts together newspaper articles and books in timelines that are easy to follow. Just be careful, it is amazing that they put together so much data, but some of it is kinda sloppy. Make sure you follow the links to make sure that they can back their claims up. That being said, they have timelines on all sorts of things, from terrorism to U.S. energy policy. The website is extremely critical of capitalism and U.S. imperialism BTW.

As you may be able to gather, I'm not a fan of capitalism. But the intellectual that has the best defense of capitalism, in my experience, is Steven Pinker. It's always good to get the other side.

If you want more traditional political readings, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has excellent academic articles on every political ideology you can imagine. It is a excellent way to get a good foundation on the terminology. Also, because it is academic, it will be less tainted by corporate biases.

If you want to learn about ethics, which is the basis of political philosophy, I highly recommend Michael Sandals Theory of Justice. It is full, 19 lecture course on what Justice is, by Harvard. Sandel is also a critic of unfettered capitalism btw.

I think that a mixture of History and Philosophy are the best ways to understand politics. It allows you to get an outside perspective on what is going on. The more directly political media gets, I find that it becomes less academic, and more propagandistic it becomes. If you go on Youtube and watch the first thing that pops up, you are playing Russian Roulette. You may get a good explanation, you may also get media designed to play to your hopes and fear, designed to suck you into an ideology that you never wanted. I purposely dove headfirst into Far Right Wing content on Youtube on purpose, and it made me more racist. This guy describes his indoctrination into far Right Ideology, and it is honestly reminiscent of a cult. It seems like you are more left leaning, but it is a good idea to familiarize yourself how ideology can suck you in. It happens with me and Anarchy: I became too attached to the idea of Anarchy and I stopped being critical with it. Whenever you base your identity on a political ideology, that is a huge red flag.

Good luck! If you want any more recommendations or have any questions I'm happy to help. There is so much more, but I don't want to throw too much at you. I want to teach politics one day so this shit is right up my ally.

Homework can be found in the "Recommended Reading" section of our FAQ. I've pasted it at the end of this comment for your convenience.

If there was one book most worth reading I would argue it's Smarter Investing by Tim Hale. It gives you all the basic grounding that you need to know in an easy-to-digest manner.

Another good source for information is www.monevator.com, though the writers are very opinionated and not great fans of people in my profession.

You could potentially seek financial advice, and pay a fixed fee for some recommendations, or even pay Hargreaves Lansdown directly for advice (they offer telephone-based advice for a fee), but at your level of savings the costs may be disproportionally high.

Recommended Reading

Books about investing

Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham

This book was written by the father of "value investing", and the mentor of Warren Buffett, who is widely accepted to be the world's most successful investor.

It was originally published in 1948, but Ben Graham updated it periodically over the years, and it stands as true today as it ever has.

Beating the Street - Peter Lynch

Published in 1994, this is arguably showing its age more than Intelligent Investor. Either way, valuable reading from one of the best managers of money in the past few decades.

Naked Trader - Robbie Burns

Subtitled "How anyone can make money trading shares", this is an entertaining, tongue-in-cheek account of one financial journalist's attempt to quit his job and make £1,000,000 using a short-to-medium term trading strategy. Not very scientific, but an interesting counterpoint to the previous recommendations.

Smarter Investing - Tim Hale

The ultimate counterpoint to attempting to "beat the markets" - after spending 15 years working in active fund manager, Tim Hale concluded that the best outcomes for most investors in most situations would be a simple portfolio of "passive" investments (that is, funds which attempt to track a market, rather than outperform it). This style is favoured by the likes of Monevator, and many of the subscribers here.

Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder letters - Warren Buffett

Not a book, but a series of essays over the years from the world's most successful investor. Makes interesting reading! Notably, the 2014 letter (not published in the above link but published here in abridged form) implies that he now feels most investors would be best served by low-cost trackers.

The Financial Times guide to investing - Glen Arnold

A great starter guide, going from the very basics (why businesses need shareholders) to more in-depth explanations of different types of investment, and step-by-step guides on how to execute trades.

The purpose of frugality is to save money in some areas of your life so that you can live the life you want. What are your goals in life? If you want to travel, travel. If you want an iPhone, get an iPhone. If you want to learn to fly, learn to fly. If you want to buy a house in 5 years, save! I want to retire pretty early and build a house, so I am saving/investing a large portion of my income like you.

It sounds like you've got this Frugality thing down pretty well, so here are some Personal Finance basics:

1. Start an emergency fund in a new savings account with 3-12 months of expenses. Don't touch this unless there is an emergency (job loss, car repairs, etc.). This will keep you from acquiring any debt and allows you to be bold with your savings/investment and other life goals.
   
   
2. Take advantage of any/all tax-advantaged investment vehicles that Australia offers. (American equivalents would be 401Ks, Roth IRAs, etc.)
   
   
3. If you've made it this far, all you have left to do is live your life. You're making all the right decisions, so do what you want. Save for a house or a car, start a family, give to charity, take time off from work, travel, etc.
   
   
4. If you don't know what you want, continue to save, save, save so when you DO find out you can do what you want. If you can max your retirement accounts every year, you'll be well on your way to financial security. But those are your retirement savings, and you won't be able to utilize them for a while. So your best bet is to save and invest a large portion of your remaining income - this will ensure that you will not have to take on any additional debt and can save thousands if not hundreds of thousands along the way (think paying cash for a house vs. a 30 year mortgage)
   
   I would also start reading some about personal finance. It sounds like you might benefit by reading Your Money or Your Life - it's a good philosophical read for those that are thinking about a money/life balance. For a little motivation to keep up your frugality, try The Millionaire Next Door - It's pretty eye-opening and I recommend that to everyone regardless of their personal finance goals. For starters in investing, The Boglehead's Guide to Investing is great, and a lot of the information can be found free at the wiki.
   
   Good luck!

I havent read "Candlestick Charting Explained", but as far as candlestick charting goes... Steve Nison's "Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques" is considered the bible. Candlesticks is really a discussion on price action... I think candlesticks can get you into a lot of trouble.

I think that Edwards and Magee "Technical Analysis of Stock trends" is looked upon more more favorably than Murphy for an overview of TA and methods. Though, IMO they both leave a lot to be desired. Really the best way to learn technical analysis is to find someone who uses these methods to execute trades and can explain the reasoning and risk-reward metrics behind their trades. If this interests you, I recommend Peter Brandt https://www.peterlbrandt.com/ He has a track record and has even written a book.

If i were to recommend a couple books

For true beginners in investing and don't want to spend time doing the "work": I recommend "4 pillars of investing" it discusses asset allocation and investing in a broad sense 4 Pillars

For beginners that want an intro to stocks: Greenblatt's "Little Book that beats the market" is the best book that I know of for an intro to stock investing. And it can be read in one sitting. Little Book

If you want to be a more active trader/investor in the market then I recommend:
Oneil's [How to make money in stocks] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00916ARYS/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)
Minervini's [Trade like a stock market wizard]
(https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C1NKPUE/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)
Lynch's [One Up On Wall Street]
(https://www.amazon.com/One-Up-Wall-Street-Already/dp/0743200403/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)
Cramer's [Real Money]
(https://www.amazon.com/Jim-Cramers-Real-Money-Investing/dp/0743224906/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0743224906&pd_rd_r=156ZB32KPJ8XN7V9K1HQ&pd_rd_w=Anlpz&pd_rd_wg=aZn7O&psc=1&refRID=156ZB32KPJ8XN7V9K1HQ)
Town's [Rule 1] (https://www.amazon.com/Rule-Strategy-Getting-Rich-Minutes-ebook/dp/B000GCFCQE/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1479913887&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=rule+no+1+investing)

These picks are all different styles and have something different to offer. A lot of the advice you are going to get is going to be bent towards value investing, diversification, and asset allocation... This is good advice, and will make you a smarter investor but not a richer one.

If you are interested in day trading or swing trading then you will probably need to find some personalized training and I wish you the best because there is a ton of crap out there... I dont think that many people are willing to put in the time and effort to be sucessful at this and so I don't recommend it.

The best advice I can give you about not knowing what to do with your life is changing the way you look at your future, at least for now.

In his book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00COOFBA4?ie=UTF8&redirectFromSS=1&pc_redir=T1&noEncodingTag=1&fp=1

Scott talks about how he found success, not by being a goal-oriented person, but by being a systems oriented person. Even though having goal is a good thing, setting up specific goals for yourself can be very limiting. If you live your life by using systems, you give yourself more avenues and opportunities to become more successful.

A great example of this is instead of setting a goal for yourself to "lose x amount of pounds in x amount of time" you instead focus on setting up a system of continuous exercise, good diet, and good lifestyle habits. Eventually success will come to you because you instead focused on the system, not the goal. Good coaches don't focus on winning the title at the end of the season. Good coaches focus on winning each game at a time.

Focus on good mental and physical habits. Form good habits with your money. At your age it is hard trying to figure out exactly where you want to be in 10 years. It is much easier to figure out how to be the best you can be at this moment in time. Eventually you will have built up yourself to a point where you will be prepared for the opportunities that might come your way in the future. Focus on the process not the outcome.

Here are all the books with amazon links, Alphabetical order :)

---

• Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1591396190
  
• Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh et al. Link: http://amzn.com/160941280X
  
• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown Link: http://amzn.com/0804137382
  
• Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston Link: http://amzn.com/1590597141
  
• How Google Works by Eric Schmidt et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1455582344
  
• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World by Gary Vaynerchuk Link: http://amzn.com/006227306X
  
• Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way by Richard Branson Link: http://amzn.com/0307720748
  
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1400064287
  
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck Link: http://amzn.com/0345472322
  
• Never Eat Alone, Expanded and Updated: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0385346654
  
• Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable by Tim S. Grover et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1476714207
  
• Rework by Jason Fried et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0307463745
  
• Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin Link: http://amzn.com/1591842948
  
• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss Link: http://amzn.com/0307465357
  
• The Choose Yourself Guide To Wealth by James Altucher Link: http://amzn.com/150100994X
  
• The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: *God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison by Mike Wilson Link: http://amzn.com/0060008768
  
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz Link: http://amzn.com/0062273205
  
• The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business by Clayton M. Christensen Link: http://amzn.com/0062060244
  
• The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries Link: http://amzn.com/0307887898
  
• The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime by MJ DeMarco Link: http://amzn.com/B004BDOUAI
  
• The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday Link: http://amzn.com/1591846358
  
• The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1885167776
  
• The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0984999302
  
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell Link: http://amzn.com/0316346624
  
• Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth by Gabriel Weinberg et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1591848369
  
• Unlabel: Selling You Without Selling Out by Marc Ecko Link: http://amzn.com/1451685319
  
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0804139296

> That might be true for a small minority. Almost all rich people get rich by virtue of being born rich.

That used to be more or less true, but since about the 1980s, the new rich have vastly outnumbered the old rich, especially in the USA. Now inherited wealth accounts for a really tiny percentage of the population of millionaires. Go check out the Forbes list of the richest people in America and you'll see that most of the richest people in the country are first-generation billionaires.

> If you really believe that a substantial number of rich people are rich because they saved every penny and ate beans, you're being naive.

Actually, if you believed that, you'd be not too far from the truth, though obviously simply eating beans doesn't guarantee wealth.

If you want a detailed exploration of the trends around this (based on actual research), The Millionaire Next Door is a good place to start. Most people worth over a million dollars got that way either by living frugally while running their own businesses, or via a liquidity event such as their company being bought out.

This is true, but it's a deal the US offered. The guy who made the Saudi deal wrote a book about it. It's one of my favorites because when I read it, it was the first time I felt like I was getting an honest look at a how the world worked.

9/11 was basically a direct response to what is described in the book and what has come to be known as the "Washington Consensus". The "Washington Consensus" at its core is International politics run essentially by the military industrial complex.

Long story short, the US would offer to modernize a country and would construct loans, provided by USAID, to pay for this modernization but required American companies to do the work. Furthermore, the loans were constructed to make the country unable to pay them within 3 years. When the country couldn't pay, they had to offer up their natural resources and/or UN votes in addition to continuing to make payments.

Leaders of countries were approached with the plan to modernize along with a strong financial incentive for themselves ($100 million, as an example), those that said yes chained their countries to this destructive process. Those that didn't tended to die in plane crashes. Those that could evade assassination got their countries invaded.

The Saudi deal is a more complicated version of this basic deal constructed with more mutuality in mind. At its core the Saudis bought/buy American financial instruments. The interest from those payments goes to companies in the military industrial complex to fun building modern cities where tents once stood. In return, Saudi Arabia agrees never to shut off its oil supply. It's explained in detail in the book.

I know it's easy to start sounding nutty when terms like the "military industrial complex" comes up, but I'd encourage anybody interested to check out the book. It practically reads like a thriller. Very illuminating.

The answer, as usual is: it depends.

If you want to invest your money, then there's no better time than now. However, the implication is that when you invest that money you have to leave it sit long enough to do it's work.

At 19 and wanting to invest, you have time on your side. You need to be able to stomach volatility in the market and not get excited when your stocks rally for 30%, nor should you despair when the stocks plummet by 40%.

Traditionally speaking, the stock market averages between 6%~8% a year, which is much better than any savings account you're going to find. However, you shouldn't treat it as a savings account because volatility will almost certainly put you in a bad position to sell whenever you need the money most.

If you feel like you can stomach that volatility and turn a blind eye to both the rallies and collapses, then the stock market may certainly be for you. If you are NOT looking to place your money in good companies for a long period of time (10+ years), then it's my opinion that you are simply speculating... in which case you may as well go to the casino.

If at this point you have decided that you would like to invest in the stock market, you now need to figure out the degree of involvement you would like to dedicate.

If you're looking for a simple hands off investment, then you should just invest in an index fund such as VFINX, SWPPX, or QQQ.

Index funds closely track the performance of the market and charge minimal fees. They are pretty much totally hands off on your part, and are the Ronco of stock investing. Just set it and forget it, and enjoy your ride on the market.

A step above that are mutual funds. They actively try to beat indexes, but charge a fee to do so. There are mutual funds for any style of investing, and people tend to choose mutual funds that coincide with where they think success will lie. That means choosing foreign or domestic, stocks or bonds, and even individual sectors like technology, retail, energy, etc.

The world of mutual funds is vast, and provide an opportunity to beat the market, but it comes with a price. I'll leave the rest up to you to do your research.

Finally comes individual stock picking. Picking individual stocks is the highest risk, but also have the potential for the highest returns. Also, there are no fees except for the fee for purchasing your shares.

There is also a lot to this world, as I'm sure you know, but if this route interests you, then I would suggest you pick up a few books, beginning with The Intelligent Investor.

This book is, in my opinion, the best introduction out there to investing for long term wealth.

Finally, since you're so young and you seem to have an eye out for your personal finances, I absolutely recommend you read The Millionaire Next Door.

Good luck!

Scott Adams calls this the 'Moist Robot Hypothesis'. Like a dog being trained, he views people as machines (or moist robots) responding to stimuli. Instead of fruitlessly trying to motivate yourself he advocates changing your environment to reinforce the behaviors you desire. I think this is the basic idea that Perry is advocating. And they both recognise that you act as the 'owner' setting the incentives and the 'dog' being trained.

A related idea that both Perry and Adams touch on is that it's more effective to be systems driven not goals driven. Don't focus on "I'm going to run a marathon", focus on incentivising yourself to go running four times a week. Focus on "I'll write blog posts every Tuesday and Thursday" over "I'm going to make Scott Alexander look like an amateur." Perry describes this as the difference between “getting things done” from “doing things.”

The practical implications will be different for everyone however it means acting as the owner to understand the reactions to stimuli (diet, incentives, sleep routine, emotional states, etc) and then setting up processes / systems that reinforce the positive behaviours and disincentivise the negative. The general idea Adams words:

> Take a volunteer and ask him all of his favorite sensations. This could range from the taste of his favorite food, to foot massages, to sexual stimulation, to warm baths, to his favorite song. Then spend a few weeks showing the volunteer a particular and not-too-common object whenever the positive sensations are applied. For example, you might pick a sock monkey as your object because you don’t see them often, and they don’t carry with them any sort of special association beyond generic fun. After two weeks of intensely associating sock monkeys with favorite sensations, the volunteer’s brain would make a permanent connection. Thereafter, any time he wanted to turn a bad mood into a good mood, he would look at his sock monkey and his brain would execute its happiness subroutine. It’s safer and quicker than pharmaceuticals. The only risk is that the volunteer might fall in love with his sock monkey. But I’m not judging.

This has high cross over with the ideas of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) which is considered pseudo-scientific by many. NLP practitioners call this 'anchoring'.

If you're interested Adams goes into some detail on what this practically means in his book 'How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big'.

I'm going to try to unpack this one point at a time. I'm going to preface this with the statement that all of the below is "to my understanding", and "as best I can recall". I'm not going to keep hedging all the below statements; I'll hedge once for this entire post unless stated otherwise below. A lot of what I am putting below is stuff I've either picked up over the years, or read in this book (or found on wikipedia while writing this post)

>Reddit was supposed to be a non-profit too,

I don't think this is the case. Steve and Alexis are probably the only people who can say for certain what their goals were. To my understanding, they approached Paul Graham with a completely different idea, which got rejected from the first class of YCombinator. They were well liked by a couple of the YC folks though, despite their idea, and were told to come up with a new idea and then pitched Reddit. Now, I don't know Paul so maybe I'm off base here, but I doubt that YC gave Reddit a space (in exchange for, iirc, 10%) to create a non-profit.

>Until the founder with that vision got assed out by a couple of multimillionaire VCs with dollar signs in their eyes

Paul Graham (the "multimillion dollar VC") was involved in Reddit before Aaron was. Aaron got introduced to Reddit at YC, after Paul had already invested.

>Anything you'd like to know about archive.org, you can ask them

You're making claims about their budget (though since they're a non-profit, this is probably public info somewhere), their hardware, staff, and bandwidth; you have to back up your claims, not me.

>their engineering staff would be fully capable of creating a platform like Reddit in a matter of days, on their existing hardware,

That claim is just shenanigans. I'm going to skip over this. Short of them actually doing it, there's no way to validate this claim.

>Not counting the bloat that exists solely to milk as much profit as possible

Ah, of course. Not counting all the parts of the business that are meant to actually pay for the business to run.

>They are engineers who have worked throughout the valley tech industry, like myself, helping to create sites much bigger than reddit

Sure. Sites like Youtube, Amazon, Snap, Facebook. All much bigger than Reddit (depending on whose numbers you look at, of course). All sites with a much larger staff than Reddit has.

>I don't have much insight into reddit anymore, even though I knew the aforementioned founder

Aaron left Reddit in 2007. That's 12 years ago. Any insight you had then, was of a vastly different company. Hell, the Reddit of 5 years ago was vastly different than it is today.

>Nobody has any insight into reddit anymore

I may not know as much about the company as maybe the executives, but I like to think I have a pretty good idea what's going on there.

>I do know that they burned through about 500 million dollars this year

No you don't. You know Reddit raised money. You don't know how much of that has been spent, how much of it has been invested, how much of it is left, or how much of it is sitting in a box under my mattress, for that matter.

>and they pay their programmers better

How much does Wikimedia pay? According to glassdoor, pay is a fair bit higher at Reddit.

I just came across this post via I-don't-know-how (this isn't my area of subreddit), but really enjoyed your posts.

> I was being "brainwashed" into choosing this life

What society thinks it knows about successful marriages couldn't be further from the truth. Given that you play the crucial role of housemaker, you will truly appreciate, and learn from, this read:

Millionaire Next Door

Research shows how vital you are to your family's success, and so many of your details line up with the demographic in the book. You are truly an unsung hero in society today, and a blessing to your family.

> I struggle with the opinions of others frequently as my friends will make snide/rude remarks regarding my life

Haters gonna hate. They wouldn't know what a strong woman looked like if they were slapped in the face by one. (You will really enjoy MND)

I think that sort of forgetting about the inheritance is maybe the best thing you could have done.

most inheritance is wasted.

you knew you were over your head, so you did nothing and went about your life as normally as possible. many people wouldn't have the discipline to do what you did. they'd have bought a new BMW, flown to Cabo 8 times, etc. and now they'd have only $15k left and be kicking themselves wondering where it all went.

I think you're trying to honor your grandmother's memory, and don't want to screw it up. is so, that's the right attitude. and I think you have the right foundational skills. you also live frugally, you made wise choices with your education etc.

if you want to visit a financial adviser, I'd recommend a few things.

• first, shop around. visit multiple people until you find someone who makes you feel comfortable.
  
  
• second, look for someone who is more a teacher and less a salesman. they shouldn't bully you, pressure you, or talk to you like you're inferior. they should use their education and expertise to give you advice and help you decide. don't do something simply because an MBA tells you. do it because you understand it and think it's a good idea.
  
  
• keep it simple. one of professor thomas stanley's findings (see below) was that most wealthy people have investment strategies of almost brutal simplicity. they don't go for the fast buck, get rich quick. they invest slowly, steadily and consistently over a period of decades. they rarely invest in anything other than mutual funds and property.
  
  
• finally, don't mention that you're sitting on half a million during the first consultation or two. you want someone who's gonna give you good advice, respect your time and goals, and take you seriously as a client, whether you've got $4000 or $4million to start investing.
  
  > She was by no means living a fancy lifestyle
  
  most millionaires are actually very frugal. you might want to go to the library and see if they have copies of Thomas J Stanley's books. he was a professor who studied finance, specifically high-wealth people. he basically found that you can either be rich (lots of cash or investments) or you can look rich (fancy lifestyle, cars, etc). many who earn high incomes are actually broke, because they're spending all their income on status items, high-end new cars, huge houses in upscale neighborhoods, boats, etc. they're so busy trying to look rich that they don't have cash left over for savings and investing. in contrast, people like your grandmother are truly wealthy specifically because they lived modestly, didn't care about impressing anyone, didn't go to the country club, and made a priority of building wealth.
  
  his first and maybe best known book was "The Millionaire Next Door." one of his findings was that there were more millionaires in blue collar/middle class areas than in upscale/white collar areas. why? because doctors and lawyers etc are under more pressure to live a fancy lifestyle. nobody expects a farmer or a plumber to drive a BMW and send their kids to private school. so if a farmer and a lawyer both earn good incomes, who's actually more likely to save and invest? That's right: the farmer. https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1478299059&sr=8-4&keywords=thomas+j+stanley
  
  I also like his book Stop Acting Rich. https://www.amazon.com/Stop-Acting-Rich-Living-Millionaire/dp/1118011570/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478299059&sr=8-1&keywords=thomas+j+stanley
  
  and stanley's website. he died only last year. http://www.thomasjstanley.com/publications/

Elon Musk's [biography] (http://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/0062301233) if you don't own the book look [here] (http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=37839.0):

"I mean, if you do a densified liquid methalox rocket with on-orbit refueling, so like you load the spacecraft into orbit and then you send a whole bunch of refueling missions to fill up the tanks and you have the Mars colonial fleet - essentially - that gets built up during the time between Earth-Mars synchronizations, which occur every 26 months, then the fleet all departs at the optimal transfer point."

“And then one of the key questions is can you get to the surface of Mars and back to Earth on a single stage. The answer is yes, if you reduce the return payload to approximately one-quarter of the outbound payload, which I thought made sense because you are going to want to transport a lot more to Mars than you’d want to transfer from Mars to Earth. For the spacecraft, the heat shield, the life support system, and the legs will have to be very, very light."

I think MCT is going to be really really big and feature a lot of Raptor engines so that it can cut the travel times to Mars. It is probably going to have the highest propellant to mass ratio ever. Every drop of performance is required, but SpaceX isn't a fan of having multiple fuels, Merhane/Lox is going to be the only fuel type to reduce complexity and cost (Methane is the cheapest hydrocarbon.)

Earlier posts by me:

"The performance gain for a fuel tank using densified propellants vs a non densified one isn't so great but it certainly gives a small boost to the rocket. You aren't doing a densified rocket because you want more thrust from the engine, you want slightly more fuel to fit in the tanks so that it has increased performance. As I (amateur rocket scientist) understand it, the reason why Merlin 1D+ has more thust is because the LOX and RP-1 molecules have a higher density so that the mass flow increases. By consuming slightly more mass with the same volume as well as driving the turbopump harder the engine has more thust with no physical changes. By using Methane the same applies, only that here the slightly higher performance of using densified propellants is essential to be able to transfer really heavy cargo to Mars in a fully reusable configuration. Here every single drop of performance is needed and example the heatshield, and landing legs need to be very light."

"Yes, currently boil off is a great deal but long term storage of cryogenic liquids are possible as long as the fuel tanks have good insulation properties which would also increase mass. Supercooled Liquid Oxygen would boil of at a higher rate than a supercooled liquid Methane tank. A Methane rocket can have a common bulkhead and requires no pressuration system which would decrease the mass of the vehicle. This 'lost' mass can be used elsewhere, example to insulate the tanks or make a cooling cycle."

Summary:

If the MCT has an efficient fuel cooling cycle the vehicle doesn't need to be fueled with densified propellants because it will cool them down by itself when the time comes to depart or the final refueling ship arrives. When coasting between Mars and Earth the tanks will be mostly empty and the contents will float inside the tank only needing a little insulation in the tanks and a cooling system that maintains the temperature. When it arrives at Mars the fuel is cooled down and the MCT lands propulsively.

It's very important that the rocket engines uses densified propellants to not encounter combustion problems! Otherwise it would be like trying to run a petrol car with diesel. The Raptors are made to combust densified methane and lox, not wormer methalox

Congratulations on your new job!

I applaud your desire to learn more about investing and finances. One of the earliest influences (and had the biggest impact) on my life in that area was my high school American History teacher, and I'll never forget what he taught me. I learned that it was important to save early, use the power of compounding, and take advantage of employer matching whenever it is offered. If you can do the same for your students, you will change their family trees forever.

You don't need a financial planner. They don't have a crystal ball that tells them how the markets are going to perform. You have what it takes to become educated in the world of finance, and are intelligent enough to choose your own investments. It's not even that complicated, what it boils down to is LBYM (living below your means), saving regularly, and investing your savings. Read about, and practice the Bogleheads investment philosophy. There is a lot of information in that link, so take your time and go through it all. If you want some reading that isn't so dry, you can check out The Wealthy Barber from your library. The Millionaire Next Door is also a great read. And if you want an inspirational read, The Millionaire In You is one of my all time favorite personal finance books.

Good luck!

This is like a super-sized version of the Globe and Mail's Financial Facelift column: Our net worth is $2M, can we afford to retire?

Personally I'd start by reviewing The Millionaire Next Door. The authors point out that most millionaires -- i.e. people with net worth of $1M or more -- basically live the same way as everyone else. It's a good perspective to keep in mind: it's a lot easier to do financial planning when you're planning for a normal lifestyle ($50,000/year, maybe up to $100,000/year), not something crazy.

They also have some useful advice about making sure your children don't become financially dependent on you. (Not sure that buying your child a house is a good idea. From the child's point of view, being able to say "I did it on my own" is worth quite a lot.)

How old are you? Planning is easier if you're older. You'll probably live to about 85; say 95, to be safe. If you're 50, you need to plan for 45 years. If you're only 30, you need to plan for the next 65 years.

Are you going to continue working? Or will you need to support yourself entirely from your capital?

Let's assume you won't be working, and that you have a long time horizon.

The usual advice is to follow the "investment pyramid" idea: have more of your money in low-risk investments (the bottom of the pyramid), with less money in higher-risk investments.

I'd suggest putting 3/4 of the money into GICs (you don't need to take big risks, so it's probably a good idea to keep most of the money safe); that'll earn about 2% at the moment, maybe 3-4% over a longer time period (expected nominal return on bonds is about 3.7%, according to the Canadian Couch Potato). At 2%, that would be $300,000/year.

Bank deposit insurance via the CDIC (covering the risk of bank failure) only guarantees $100,000 at each institution. If you're trying to make sure your entire $15M of GICs are covered, you probably want to look into provinces which have unlimited guarantees for credit union deposits.

And then I'd put the remaining 1/4 into equities. Canadian Couch Potato suggests 1/3 in the Canadian index (VCN), 2/3 in equities outside Canada (VXC). This portion will go up and down, but over the long term, expected nominal return is 7.2% (again, according to the CCP).

> Realistically, what sort of lifestyle do you think I can afford now? How much money would you spend on a house, how much would you save for a rainy day?

I'm basically saying I would put all of it away for a rainy day, and continue to live a regular lifestyle. You may be thinking, well, what do I get out of having $22M in the bank?! Two things: you don't need to work, ever (of course you can continue to work if you enjoy it), and you have ironclad financial security. You're only living off your investment income, not your principal.

What if you want a more extravagant lifestyle -- say, putting $5M into a house in Vancouver, and spending $500,000 a year?

Then I'd start looking at annuities. If you're getting closer to the margins, you want to make sure you're not going to outlive your money. You want to find an insurance company that you're pretty sure will be around 65 years from now (!), and that will sell you an annuity. Basically you give them a giant lump sum, and they pay you a fixed amount every year until you die.

I think you should also submit this question to the Globe and Mail's Financial Facelift, see if they print it.

> The urge surfing recording is pretty good too. I think the key is that you have to keep doing something. Whenever I was bored and had nothing to do, I just defaulted to watching porn. Just fill your day with activities that are engaging. DON'T fill your day with stuff you know you won't do (for me it's reading, english class has ruined that for me lol) but do stuff you legitimately enjoy.

Hey man, you should try reading, there are men and women who spent like 35 years of wisdom in a field, and put their entire life's wisdom in a few pages. Schools ruined it for us but there are A LOT of books out there. Take for example Sam Walton, he made billions, richest man on Earth right? He wrote, on his deathbed, a book, and for like $7 on Amazon you can have the man's lifetime of wisdom.

https://www.amazon.com/Sam-Walton-Made-America/dp/0553562835/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1540042946&sr=8-3&keywords=made+in+america

Reading is AMAZING. All fields. I hope you keep an open mind. As soon as you close down and say "I know that" it's very dangerous, you go like blind.

For everyone that 'agrees' with the sentiment of this meme, I highly recommend the book "Confessions of an Economic Hitman". It is an amazing book, and truly eye opening.

> EDITORIAL REVIEWS
>
> Amazon.com Review
> John Perkins started and stopped writing Confessions of an Economic Hit Man four times over 20 years. He says he was threatened and bribed in an effort to kill the project, but after 9/11 he finally decided to go through with this expose of his former professional life. Perkins, a former chief economist at Boston strategic-consulting firm Chas. T. Main, says he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business. "Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars," Perkins writes. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is an extraordinary and gripping tale of intrigue and dark machinations. Think John Le Carré, except it's a true story.
>
> Perkins writes that his economic projections cooked the books Enron-style to convince foreign governments to accept billions of dollars of loans from the World Bank and other institutions to build dams, airports, electric grids, and other infrastructure he knew they couldn't afford. The loans were given on condition that construction and engineering contracts went to U.S. companies. Often, the money would simply be transferred from one bank account in Washington, D.C., to another one in New York or San Francisco. The deals were smoothed over with bribes for foreign officials, but it was the taxpayers in the foreign countries who had to pay back the loans. When their governments couldn't do so, as was often the case, the U.S. or its henchmen at the World Bank or International Monetary Fund would step in and essentially place the country in trusteeship, dictating everything from its spending budget to security agreements and even its United Nations votes. It was, Perkins writes, a clever way for the U.S. to expand its "empire" at the expense of Third World citizens. While at times he seems a little overly focused on conspiracies, perhaps that's not surprising considering the life he's led. --Alex Roslin --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
>
> From Publishers Weekly
> Perkins spent the 1970s working as an economic planner for an international consulting firm, a job that took him to exotic locales like Indonesia and Panama, helping wealthy corporations exploit developing nations as, he claims, a not entirely unwitting front for the National Security Agency. He says he was trained early in his career by a glamorous older woman as one of many "economic hit men" advancing the cause of corporate hegemony. He also says he has wanted to tell his story for the last two decades, but his shadowy masters have either bought him off or threatened him until now. The story as presented is implausible to say the least, offering so few details that Perkins often seems paranoid, and the simplistic political analysis doesn’t enhance his credibility. Despite the claim that his work left him wracked with guilt, the artless prose is emotionally flat and generally comes across as a personal crisis of conscience blown up to monstrous proportions, casting Perkins as a victim not only of his own neuroses over class and money but of dark forces beyond his control. His claim to have assisted the House of Saud in strengthening its ties to American power brokers may be timely enough to attract some attention, but the yarn he spins is ultimately unconvincing, except perhaps to conspiracy buffs.

Based on your questions and lack of knowledge, keep your money in a savings account. Spend a couple of months learning about investing, how to read financial reports, how to decipher an 8k and 10k report. I don't mean this to be condescending, but if you start investing now or in six months, there will be almost no difference in your earnings, but there could be a huge difference in your losses unless you take some time to learn about the various investing methods, theories, and the actual hows and whys.

Start reading Peter Lynch's One Up on Wall Street, Beating the Street and Learn to Earn.
Each brings different things to the table. Again, please take no offense, but Learn to Earn is probably where you should start. It's aimed at teens/young adults learning about investing for the first time.

I'd recommend hitting up the library for these. When you get to the library, you'll find shelves of books on how to invest. Some are useless and others really good. Read a few chapters in each. If you have questions, run it by this board. There are plenty of people here who are more than happy to share their mainly educated opinions. And the good thing about reddit is that if one of us says something wrong, others are quick to correct or offer their two cents.

I'd also recommend The Millionaire Next Door, The Black Swan and the Richest Man in Babylon. while these last ones aren't how to invest, they are books about why and how we invest.

I'm a Taleb groupie and read everything by the man. I loved Black Swan, and also loved Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorderso you may want to try that one when your reading pile dwindles.

Keep saving, but take your time investing. Learn the basics, stick your toe in and then take the plunge.

Your Money or Your Life was a pretty good book that explained this well. The audiobook is narrated by the author and if given the chance, I'd hold her underwater until the bubbles stopped. She had the worst voice I've ever heard.

The Millionaire Fastlane was also a readyy good read. Highly recommended.

The Millionaire Next Door was a fantastic read and the book that got me started thinking about financial independence and the concept of FIRE. It's a bit dated (late 90s I think) but still some amazing information in there.

Check us out at /r/financialindependence and /r/leanfire. If you haven't, definitely visit /r/personalfinance and check out the sidebar and wiki - there's some AMAZING information and guides for all ages and walks of life.

I wish so hard that I found out about this stuff and had the resources available now when I was 18, and not when I turned 31. But oh well, such is life.

/u/typhuslol do feel free to PM me if you want to chat! I'm happy to share the lessons I've learned in the past few years of pursuing financial independence!

Similairly, it is the first generation(s) of imigrants who historically in America are very productive and start more businesses, while their children often don't inherit that trait at all, but instead already have the wealth they need because of their parents. Read about it in The millionaire Next Door (classic)

Feels like the wealth and riches are more a product of what makes a person productive and happy, but the wealth itself doesn't necessarily create more happiness when only inherited.

> I am fairly ignorant on the different options available to me as far as investing goes, but that's what investment companies are for, isn't it?

Absolutely. We have a financial advisor that keeps a close eye on our money, and he's more than earned his pay. But I think it important to educate yourself enough to develop a functional BS detector. Otherwise, you won't know what to expect in different market conditions and will have a tough time picking an advisor.

We got in with our guy nearly ten years ago because he maintained the value of his clients' portfolios in the dot-com crash while still delivering good returns during market upswings.

I'd recommend interviewing a couple of advisors before picking one. Don't be shy to ask how they get paid. Many of them get commissions based on selling particular financial products. Get up and leave as soon as you hear that. Others are limited to selling a particular set of products. That would also make me nervous. Part of the reason we picked our guy is that he takes a flat commission off the value of our portfolio (originally 1%/year, now around 0.75%) and can get us into all manner of financial products including options, commodities, etc. We primarily hold mutual funds and individual stocks, though.

> but if people who are making moves on Wall Street do what they have done recently, there is no guarantee that my retirement fund will have any value by the time I'm ready to draw on it. My dad has been investing in his retirement for decades, and in the last two years, it lost $50k in value.

There's no sure thing. You have to do something with your money and realize that holding cash has its own set of risks, particularly now that we have a madman with printing press in charge of our central bank.

FWIIW, our portfolio value dipped in 2008/2009, but we were fully recovered in value by mid 2009. We recognized the housing bubble for what it was and stayed out of that sector. My parents were blindly turning over their money to a manager who had them heavily invested in Fannie and Freddie. They lost a couple hundred large in the 2008 crash, and it's not coming back.

> Do you have any advice on where to start learning without having to spend every hour after work piddling with it?

Four of my favorites include One Up on Wall Street, Fail-Safe Investing, The Black Swan, and How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes. The first book talks about picking individual stocks (gave me the confidence to load up on AAPL back when it was trading under $100/share), the second about structuring a portfolio for growth while still playing defense, the third about common fallacies and hubris, and the last about what drives an economy (particularly useful for recognizing bubbles).

Is this at all helpful?

Stock and bonds are a good way for the middle class to "keep up" with the wealthy. To catch up, you most likely have to provide a good or service in a new and unique way and build a successful company out of it. The vast majority of millionaires earned a lot of their income from a private business. They some of them invested in securities.

There is a good book on this by Thomas Stanley, a professor that researches wealth, called The Millionaire Next Door. Here is the NYT displaying the first chapter for free. It's a good read, it will tell you a great deal about how people in the United States get and stay wealthy.

That's typically not the way people think of income vs house expenditure. Let's say a couple made only $50k per year, but at age 60 they have a million dollars in the bank as savings. Can they afford to buy a house worth $1,150,000 million? Yes, they can use up their saving and then spend another $150k (3x their income) for their mansion. However, this is not an appropriate house for them, the "3x rule" applies to the total house price. This is an important factor because the costs of a house is not just the purchase price. It's upkeep, mortgage payments, property tax, etc.... which all tend to go up with higher priced homes.

General rule, your home price should not exceed 3x your yearly income. If you guys really want a $320k home. Try to increase your income well above $110k per year.

I would also recommend you read "The Millionaires Next Door." It's a wonderful book and illustrates how to build wealth and the benefits of not spending beyond one's means.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising/dp/1589795474
You can buy it used for $4 (including shipping).

I'm a self made millionaire but from all the hostility and drama I see here I would NEVER do an AMA.

I've quickly learned that most people don't have the resolve to live by basic principals that have gotten me to where I am now. So in a very general nutshell here it is from me for the umpteenth time...and for the few who say these are obvious, then I counter, why the fuck aren't you guys REALLY doing this...

1. Learn to live FAR below your means and DELAY gratification. I basically gave up most of my 20's working my ass of to raise the principal required for investing. And I REALLY MEAN WORKED MY ASS OFF.
   
   
2. SAVE at least 40% of your take home pay
   
   
3. LEARN to do the math and homework of investing and I mean DO IT yourself, no stock "tips" (which are 99.9999% bullshit). Don't know how? Educate yourself. A decent start is Phil Town's Rule #1 Investing and Peter Lynch's One up on Wall Street. Again, not the end all be all, but it's a start. Also, it's fucking amazon, be smart and buy those books USED. Sites like the Motley Fool can be helpful but I suggest read the articles and DON'T buy their products...lots of good stuff for FREE there. LEARN what an exchange trade fund and dividend reinvestment plans are.
   
   
4. DON'T choose to live like the Jones'...they are fucking broke.
   
   
5. ABSOLUTELY budget for adequate health insurance as one single catastrophic event could wipe out years of earnings quickly.
   
   
6. Learn to be on the POSITIVE side of compound interest. If you can't afford to pay for something outright in cash, then don't fucking buy it. Credit cards are for SUCKERS.
   
   
7. DO THE MATH if you want to buy a home. Honestly, sometimes renting is the better choice.
   
   I STILL to this day buy groceries with coupons, wear the SAME Timex watch I did when I was in high school, drive a car from the 1960s, and RENT a small but nice house with an incredible view, most of my close friends have no idea how much I'm worth and many complain about how "cheap" I am.
   
   I don't give a rats ass if you decide to believe me or not. The sun will rise tomorrow and I'll still never have to call anyone boss or punch another fucking clock in my life EVER. You follow the basic advice, you might stop living paycheck to paycheck.
   
   
   Don't be a dick. I just gave you free legit advice. Now you're on your own. I'm not your mommy.
   
   
   /retired in my 30's with liquid assets in 8 figures.

You have to understand that the majority of Reddit has this belief that those who are successful got there mainly because of luck.

Oh, this entrepreneur found a niche market and it exploded? How lucky, I wouldn't have that much success if I started a business.

People who are rich, and who stay rich, often work their asses off. There are a lot of intelligent people on Reddit who don't want to admit that.

</soapbox>

To anyone who believes that the rich are lucky, fat-cat type people, go read The Millionaire Next Door.

I don't buy into the idea of freedom as an all or nothing option, and I certainly don't view it in a vacuum. I'm happy to take Amazon's freedom to be given to people. We aren't talking about a mom & pop local wholesaler, Amazon is a trillion dollar company with multi-trillion dollar potential (Jeff Bezos likely wants Amazon to replace the Internet and brick & mortar retail). I don't give a fuck about their "rights."

​

Read about United Fruit on Wikipedia or this book. Unchecked companies do shit like overthrow governments, let their workers get killed with untested chemicals, and all sorts of other unsavory behavior. Amazon treats their workers like garbage and even patented a worker cage, so I have no interest in giving a company like that the authority to determine which books pass the ethical sniff test. I am 100% OK with them being treated like a utility that people are entitled to, especially as a platform for selling books with controversial ideas.

I'm reading Elon Musk's biography right now and think it might be helpful if you're talking about career success. The dude seems like a jerk but has an incredible work ethic and drive to succeed.

You can say pretty much the same exact thing about Augustus' biography.

Outliers really helped me a lot, because it made me realize talent wasn't nearly important as skill/effort. You put in the time and effort and you will develop your skills.

If you're an introvert like me these books helped me "fake it till I make it" or just want to be more socially capable: Charisma Myth, anything by Leil Lowndes, Make People Like You in 90 Seconds. Not a book but the Ted Talk about body language by Amy Cuddy

A book on leadership I always hear good things about but haven't read yet is Start With Why.

Thanks for the question. Wish I was there myself but not yet ;).

The average Millionaire is not what you think.

Thomas J. Stanley wrote "The Millionaire Next Door"

He highlights critical pieces of advice for any entrepreneur.

First income doesn't equal wealth. We see this a lot on r/entrepreneur that people have a lot of revenue but their margins are slim. Net Worth is what matters.

Also, work your budget. If you don't have a budget get one. You Have to do it. It's a pain but table stakes.

He also speaks about how where you live has an enormous impact on how you spend your money. The key is to live in a neighborhood where most people earn less than you.

And here's an interesting fact: 86% percent of “prestige/luxury” cars are bought by non-millionaires. If someone looks rich they probably aren't.

In the end, save money.

As a way of background I have newsletter where I share proven case studies of successful entrepreneurs. Many of them are quiet successful. If anyone's interested let me know and I can PM you the link. (I've gotten about 10 PM's asking for the link so I thought I would include it here.)

• The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham
  
  
• Security Analysis - Benjamin Graham
  
  
• The Interpretation of Financial Statements - Benjamin Graham
  
  
• Financial Shenanigans: How to Detect Accounting Gimmicks & Fraud in Financial Reports - Howard Schilit
  
  
• Applied Value Investing - Joseph Calandro
  
  
• Analysis for Financial Management - Robert Higgins
  
  
• Margin of Safety - Seth Klarman
  
  
• Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings - Philip Fisher
  
  
• One Up On Wall Street - Peter Lynch
  
  
• Beating The Street - Peter Lynch
  
  
• The Essays of Warren Buffett - Warren Buffett
  
  
• Snowball: Warren Buffett and The Business of Life - Alice Schroeder
  
  
• Buffett Beyond Value - Prem Jain
  
  
• Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond - Bruce Greenwald
  
  
• You Can Be A Stock Market Genius - Joel Greenblatt
  
  
• The Little Book That Beats The Market - Joel Greenblatt
  
  
• The Big Secret for the Small Investor: A New Route to Long-Term Investment Success - Joel Greenblatt
  
  
• Reminiscences of a Stock Operator - Edwin Leferve
  
  
• Fooled By Randomness - Nassim Taleb
  
  
• The Black Swan - Nassim Taleb
  
  
• Poor Charlie's Almanack - Charlie Munger
  
  
• Rediscovered Benjamin Graham - Janet Lowe
  
  
• The Theory of Investment Value - John Burr Williams
  
  
• Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger - Peter Bevelin
  
  
• Security Analysis and Business Valuation on Wall Street - Jeffrey Hooke
  
  
• Value Investing: Tools and Techniques for Intelligent Investment - James Montier
  
  
• Investment Valuation: Tools and Techniques for Determining the Value of Any Asset - Aswath Damodaran
  
  
• The Dark Side of Valuation - Aswath Damodaran
  
  
• Financial Statements: A Step-by-Step Guide to Understanding and Creating Financial Reports - Thomas Ittelson
  
  
• Buyout - Rick Rickertsen
  
  
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Robert Cialdini
  
  
• Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes: Lessons from the New Science of Behavioral Economics - Gary Belsky
  
  
• The Warren Buffett Way - Robert Hagstrom
  
  
• The Most Important Thing - Howard Marks
  
  
• Competition Demystified - Bruce Greenwald
  
  
• Accounting For Value - Stephen Penman
  
  
• Distressed Debt Analysis - Stephen Moyer
  
  
• Bankruptcy Investing - Ben Branch
  
  
• The Vulture Investors - Hilary Rosenberg
  
  
• Creating Value Through Corporate Restructuring - Stuart Gilson
  
  
• Distress Investing - Martin J Whitman
  
  
• The Aggressive Conservative Investor - Martin J Whitman

It's not a book, but it's a really interesting YouTube documentary series I stumbled upon while in a "History of Games" class which didn't even scratch the surface of the modern businesses and games. In fact, it only talked about stupid old analog shit. I know there's value in the older counting and race games, but this stuff is more important in the present to someone looking to get traction in the industry.

The channel is called All Your History.

It was a good show until Machinema ruined it in the final season. It's just a great documentary series in general though.

Just noticed this was for a gift. In that case, "Masters of Doom" is a great book. Covers the rise of one of the first indie software companies to AAA dominance. A lot of the people that are mentioned in the book are big developers in their own right these days. It covers ID software's success through about 2003. It would be really interesting to read an updated version, but I digress.


Beyond that, hmm...

>Maybe it’s networth that makes you feel better and not necessarily the income?

Think of it like this, who is truly wealthier in this scenario the person making $60k\year and saving $15K after taxes or the person making $200k\year and only saving $5k?

I would suggest you read "the millionaire next door" by Thomas Stanley it changed my entire outlook on money. https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474

It seems like you have a lot of expenses right now and at your income level you should be able to easily cut back in certain area's in order to save over a million dollars in a few short years which will probably help to alleviate those feelings of "not feeling rich." If I was at that income level I would be living like I only made $75K\year and saving the rest and within 10 years would probably never have to work again. It seems lifestyle creep is what significantly delays building true wealth and could delay your retirement.

Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg

7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey

The Millionaire Next Door - Thomas J. Stanley

How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie

How to Get Rich - Felix Dennis

The Lean Startup - Eric Ries

Never Split the Difference - Chris Voss


The Richest Man in Babylon - George S. Clason

The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham

*****

You can look at these books if you like. The Millionaire Next Door would probably be the one I would gift him first.

>I really don't buy that one's wealth can indicate so much about an individual's character.

It very well may be that it's not necessarily "wealth" that indicates these tendencies, but rather these tendencies seem to correlate with a higher likelihood of attaining that higher level of wealth at some point. From the research that I've seen, these tendencies are present in the majority of the test sample.

>I have a feeling that socioeconomic status of your family is much more important than whether or not they are 'excessively educated".

It could. I think the level of education point was meant to demonstrate either:

• Concordant with their tendencies towards entrepreneurship and working more hours, they value entering the market as soon as possible at the expense of further education, and seem to view a bachelor's degree as the minimum bar to clear before "getting to work."
  
  
• Concordant with their tendencies towards frugality and heavier emphasis on financial planning, they generally view continued education beyond the minimum as a poor return on investment.
  
  It's not really clear, unfortunately. The research on this topic is not particularly deep or ubiquitous, and is primarily reliant on what's effectively a census -- it's not as a result of controlled experiments or peer-reviewed psychology materials. It's demographics, polling, and interviews, which can establish trends and correlations but not the full explanation of the "why" behind it.
  
  Additionally, these tendencies are simple majority percentages, and while some show very clear trends (hours worked, age, level of education, starting economic class, etc) in the form of very high percentages, others are in the 55-60% range, which is not always indicative of a trend and could be in the margin of error for any conclusions that might be drawn.
  
  >Have a source for all those stats?
  
  There's a few. To be fair most of this is recalling my notes from a freelance article I did 6-7 years ago on the traits of millionaires. I used these two books and an aggregate of data I found on Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and a few others. As I stated earlier in my post, the data and the methods behind it appear to be sound, but they don't provide the amount of depth that I'd prefer.
  
  >The rate of millionaires who are 3 generations of less removed from an immigrant has no bearing on how likely everyone else is to become one, unless you are assuming there is a fixed amount of millionaires in the U.S. or those are two separate statistics.
  
  I may have misrepresented that one, or at least worded it poorly. The research showed that people whose grandparents or parents were immigrants to US achieved millionaire status at a higher rate than those who came from families that have been present in the US for longer than 3 generations.
  
  Overall, even if the research isn't perfect, it still seems to clearly demonstrate to me that the incentives behind work are far more complex than what OP posited.

hey OP, when i was around your age, i felt/acted quite similarly. it took me years, but now people often express complete surprise when i reveal that i am actually an introvert. so, alongside all the good advice already in this thread...

social skills can be learned. many times us INFJs don't want to make any moves until we feel that we understand the landscape. so, go learn the landscape. pick up some self-help books on conversational skills (and just about living a better life), and then put that learning to use. one of my favorites is How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. that one is not about conversation, per se, but it's written by an ENTP and i found it wonderful.

the other side of the coin is that, when you talk more freely, you will end up saying things that come out wrong, or stupid, or whatever. that's just life. you will never be perfect. you will never put out the perfect words all the time. mistakes happen, so teach yourself through mindfulness to accept them. sure, you'll cringe for hours when trying to fall asleep one night about something you said and what if the person you said it to thinks you're a total moron now? in those moments, do some breathing exercises, distract yourself, don't wallow in it, and i promise you, you will get over it. and not only that, you'd be repeatedly proving to yourself that life goes on and not to stress the minutia so much, and you will eventually lead a freer life that revolves around who you are as a human and not the opinions of others.

there's nothing inherently wrong with you. growing into yourself is a process, so try to be cognizant of that. do your best and don't be so hard on yourself, and try to teach yourself the skills you will need to get to where you want to be. the thing that turned my social anxiety upside down was working customer service jobs. it's awful, but it's basically akin to exposure therapy. just my two.

For me, the short answer is I spend less money.

The long answer, though, has to do with the YNAB method, reading some key financial books and ultimately changing the way I view money. Earlier this year my soon-to-be father-in-law gifted me The Millionaire Next Door. Then I read Your Money or Your Life. Those two books, combined with being so exhausted from living paycheck to paycheck, got me started down the path of actually really caring how I handled my money.

I had been using a basic spreadsheet to track income and expense but after finding YNAB, via Reddit of course, things just started to change. I stopped buying stupid shit I didn't need. I eliminated impulse buying. I stopped buying coffee and going out to eat a few times a week. Those little things add up. I saved for things I wanted instead of putting them on credit and paying for them later.

It sounds like you've got a lot of that under control already though. Like /u/ASK_IF_IM_PENGUIN said, it's the method. The four rules. You can absolutely incorporate those four rules into your existing spreadsheet and not pay a dime for the software. But the software they've developed is so goddamn good it just makes doing it myself so unappealing.

The other thing that helps is their support system. There is so much content available on YouTube. The podcast is awesome. You can even take their online courses for free.

Give the trial a go. You can use it fully featured for 34 days I think. There's a good chance it'll drop to $15 whenever the steam sale happens in a week or two. Pick it up then if you like it. If not, no harm!

Read The Millionaire Next Door. It goes through the difference between inherited and earned wealth. The TL;DR of thr portion you're interested in is that those who inherit wealth squander it, those who earn it raise their children in a way that allows them to earn it as well. If you want your kids to be wealthy, teach them the value of money and give them the tools to earn kt themselves.

I am considering setting up a trust fund for my children that will make them FI once they turn 30 or 35 or something, but I'll give them very little before then. I'll also give them lots of opportunities to earn extra money so they can support themselves through school.

My parents could have paid to put me through school, but instead they only paid half. It was just enough that I could work my way through school without taking on extra debt. They also gave me a 0% loan to buy a house, but I had to pay it back on a schedule. I think this is the right approach to wealth propagation.

And you're right, I don't know any really wealthy people (well, some, but not inherited, it was earned). And I'm glad I don't.

https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Chessboard-Dulles-Americas-Government/dp/0062276174

https://www.amazon.com/JFK-Unspeakable-Why-Died-Matters/dp/1439193886/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

https://www.amazon.com/Family-Secrets-Americas-Invisible-Government/dp/1608190064

https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/0452287081

https://www.amazon.com/National-Security-Government-Michael-Glennon/dp/0190206446


Those are the books that you should read.

Here are also some good resources:

Paul Craig Roberts worked in the Reagan administration: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

This is a good multi-part article excerpted from one of the books above: http://whowhatwhy.org/2013/09/16/part-1-mr-george-bush-of-the-central-intelligence-agency/

Michael Glennon’s abstract about his book: http://harvardnsj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Glennon-Final.pdf

A PDF of the “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” book if you don’t want to buy it: http://resistir.info/livros/john_perkins_confessions_of_an_economic_hit_man.pdf

This is when the reporter asked Bill Clinton about Mena: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDMktUYvC7k

Article on the coup attempt in France: http://whowhatwhy.org/2015/10/20/jfk-assassination-plot-mirrored-in-1961-france-part-1/

All of whowhatwhy.org is very good. There is probably a lot of good information there most haven’t heard of. The main guy, Russ Baker, is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist.

Bet you didn’t know that Bob Woodward was a state intelligence asset/disinformationist? https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/710466456941686784

All part of the record…. Enjoy.

Second GPP won these playoffs. Didn't win during regular season but developed a good cash game grind. Started in December getting my ass whooped for 30 days straight. Developed my process. Looking to get better, want to be a top DFS player. http://imgur.com/cElzZZD


Here is some helpful guides

Better decision making http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/conquering-complexity-simple-rules?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=05012016&utm_campaign=gsbbrand

Haralabos https://twitter.com/haralabob?s=09
Lowe Check out : https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA?s=09

Bballbreakdown http://bballbreakdown.com/

Great book on how become a stock picker totally applies to dfs Check out
http://www.amazon.com/Beating-Street-Peter-Lynch/dp/0671891634

Team blogs
http://www.sbnation.com/blogs

This guys article http://www.fantasylabs.com/articles/charlize-theron-fantasy-debt-and-the-proper-valuation-of-designated-hitters/

Podcasts 1
http://pca.st/YuLB

Podcasts 2
http://pca.st/8dO6

• JOB: Go for the Hartford position with the better company and leadership rotational program. This type of position is geared to get you fantastic experience and a better shot at increasing your salary. The East Coast location will also help with future international positions versus something in the midwest.
  
  
  
• BOOKS: Start with The Millionaire Next Door: Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy
  
  
  
• CAR: There's no return on your investment here. Buy used, buy reasonably priced and follow the guidelines in "Millionaire Next Door."
  
  
  
• Pay off your student loan - both due to the 6% "return" you would make (not lose) on the interest and the freedom you gain by not having debt.
  
  
• Max out your employer match for the 401k
  
  

I highly recommend "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins if you're interested in learning more about how governments, NGOs, and businesses profit from developing countries.

"Perkins writes that his economic projections cooked the books Enron-style to convince foreign governments to accept billions of dollars of loans from the World Bank and other institutions to build dams, airports, electric grids, and other infrastructure he knew they couldn't afford. The loans were given on condition that construction and engineering contracts went to U.S. companies. Often, the money would simply be transferred from one bank account in Washington, D.C., to another one in New York or San Francisco. The deals were smoothed over with bribes for foreign officials, but it was the taxpayers in the foreign countries who had to pay back the loans. When their governments couldn't do so, as was often the case, the U.S. or its henchmen at the World Bank or International Monetary Fund would step in and essentially place the country in trusteeship, dictating everything from its spending budget to security agreements and even its United Nations votes. It was, Perkins writes, a clever way for the U.S. to expand its "empire" at the expense of Third World citizens. While at times he seems a little overly focused on conspiracies, perhaps that's not surprising considering the life he's led."

Start with The Prize. If you want to understand the economics of oil you need to understand the history of the business, the player's, the Middle East (especially Saudi Arabia) and the Caspian.

These are some great books to help you understand the industry better:

The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich

The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea

Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power

The Seven Sisters: The great oil companies & the world they shaped

The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century

The Handbook of Global Energy Policy

What do you define as successful?

SpaceX has won contracts to resupply the ISS (not sure if they still do this or not)
and
also won a contract to bring US crews to and from the ISS
.


Not to mention their huge progress toward re-usable rockets. Fairly recently they landed a rocket on a platform after it had been launched into orbit. I can't really go into the science because I don't understand it, but I'm pretty sure that by almost all accounts, SpaceX has been VERY successful. They entered a "market" that had zero competition and were told by everyone that they'd fail.

Read the book about Elon Musk.

SpaceX is pretty lit.

>>The jets and all that other crap seem like a better value renting.
>
>Huh? $3 million in total wealth isn't much, especially for that. Please, don't do that. I strongly recommend that you read The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy.

Yeah, that bit made me laugh. $3m isn't even remotely close to private jet territory. Try $300m. Lol

Most people that receive a large windfall like this do not fare well OP. At all. Be extremely careful with this money and do not tell anybody. Check out the "Windfall" section in the /r/personalfinance wiki. Also check out /r/fire and /r/fatFIRE.

If you want to be an active investor in any way...

• I'm a really big fan ofWarren Buffet's Ground rules. Somewhat biased since it was the first book I read, but it's a great analysis of Buffet's evolution as an investor. Buffet has never written a book himself, but he HAS written a lot of letters through his hedge fund and then later Berkshire Hathaway. This book basically breaks down all of those letters, and provides commentary on his style and how he has invested over the years. IMO, it's a much better read for value investing these days than something like Graham's Security Analysis, and even goes over some items of how value investing has changed, what is different now than back in Graham's days, etc. I do a lot different from this book now, but I think it laid a great foundation for me.
  
• I haven't read it myself, but I've heard One Up on Wall St. is a generally good read.
  
  Beyond these, I would 100% say, get some practice buying stocks / funds. Open a Robinhood account with a very small amount of $. Buy some individual stocks and set rules about when you can or can't sell them. At the end of the sell or hold period, evaluate what went wrong or right. Learn to understand if there was an error in your process / analysis, or if it's just the nature of the market as a whole. These things will never be straightforward, but I know I personally learned a lot when I started as I tended to get caught investing in a lot of value traps. Alternative to Robinhood, you can use Investopedia, although it's probably better to learn when you actually have some skin in the game so you can understand aversion to loss.
  
  If you don't care to be an active investor...
  
  Just buy an index fund. You can read stuff like Boglehead's guide to investing, a Random Walk on Wall St, or any other index fund bibles, but the main conclusion to all of these books is that you are going to suck at beating the market, and you should just buy index funds. So if you don't care to try to beat the market, you can just skip most of the reading, find a passive portfolio (3 fund, all-weather, or just buying SPY since you're young) and just build up a base in a passive way and ignore returns until you're over 50 years old.

John Gribbin is a favorite science author of mine. In Search of Schrödinger's Cat is a cornerstone for understanding quantum physics as a layman and the follow-up Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality is also very good.

Michio Kaku is another good one. Rudy Rucker's nonfiction is definitely worth a look.

Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age is a pretty awesome account of the lab that pretty much single-handedly invented the modern computer age.

And lastly (offhand) there's nothing better than The Structure of Scientific Revolutions for a view on how our notions of what the Big Ideas are in science change.

This is just from me having read 20% of a biography about him. Note that this was not a biography by him and he originally did not even want to contribute to it. He did end up contributing, but the book is based upon interviews with hundreds of people and the writer makes very clear that it is not 'Musks truth'.

He made his own rockets during his childhood, including rocket fuel.

He coded a lot of stuff, releasing a video game at age 12

The only reason he ever studied anything is because he thought it was advantageous for him. He always visited the least amount of classes necessary, and only got good grades when he needed to. At first, he sucked at school. Then someone told him you need certain grades to advance. Next time he got the best grades possible. Other examples of this is him inquiring about the highest paying job possible and ending up shoveling out boilers in a hazmat suit for 18 dollars/hour. He was one of 3/18 to keep doing it after a week.

If he has a goal, he works until he reaches it, no matter what anyone tells him. There are plenty of examples were engineers told him something is impossible, and he then went ahead and fixed the code behind their backs. With his first startup he worked 16, 18 hours a day, sleeping in front of the computer, instructing employees to kick him awake when they arrived at the office.

He apparently takes active part in the design of SpaceX and Tesla components. As in, he actually stays up to date on everything and gives his input. He is definitely not just a CEO doing buisiness stuff in the background. Read his twitter and it will be apparent that he takes active part in the engineering side of things.

In fact, he can be considered a pretty bad manager. If someone is wrong about something, using wrong equations or whatever, he is very brusque about correcting them. He expects everyone else to work as hard as he does, and is not really a charming, social, outgoing guy. It seems like the only reason people work for him is that they share his vision (to colonize mars).

you should read this- a lot of millionaires live a pretty modest life. part of "being rich" is all about being better than someone else. i don't mind everyone having a certain standard of living that most people would consider "millionaire" lifestyle of free healthcare, good housing, free higher education. that's too easy. https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474

> My degree is in civil engineering.

Well, you are smarter than me, so you have the intellectual horsepower to make a lot of money.

I would read up on just the very basics of what a bond is this weekend otherwise what I tell you is not going to make a lot of sense. Bond discount, bond premium, yield to maturity, credit worthiness, duration, etc. You don't have to be super detailed, just know the basics of how bonds work.

This is the best book I have found as a starter for learning about value investing. Used is a penny.

This is the kindle edition of the latest edition - worth the money.

Shot in the dark, have you ever taken an accounting course?

I interviewed for a lower level job there as a jr acct manager - what sticks out in my mind is the question 'explain a time you improved upon an existing process'

if you have the time, definitely skim through this book https://www.amazon.com/How-Google-Works-Eric-Schmidt/dp/1455582344

it has great information on what type of people Google hires, their culture, and what's made them an empire. Super well written and informative.

Best of luck!!

Well the thing with older cars is that there's never just "one last repair". When things start breaking, there's no end to it. I'm currently wondering about replacing my wife's 2011 Peugeot 508, the only standing cost for it is insurance at about €110/year, but it has cost me about €1800 in repairs in 9 months and I can only see it going downhill from there.

​

On the subject of luxury vehicles - a surefire way to never get rich is to try and look like one from the getgo. Sure it's pointless being 100% frugal in everything and as a young man one must also has a ride the ladies would be interested to ride in. But speaking from experience if I had only known anything about money that 7-series BMW on steamroller wheels I bought at 25yo would have been better off as a decent stock portfolio by now.

​

I suggest reading this book before going into stocks, definitely an eye-opener for me: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0743200403/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=AR4DC9FBOWIX7&psc=1

​

What are you saving up for? The more money you just bury away, the less profit you see from your investments, as inflation eats it away.

For a lot of my basic knowledge I browsed investopedia and clicked on anything blue I didn't understand and held legitimate conversations with peers both on and off of reddit.

For example, take this submission about CDOs

Just start reading. If you don't understand something that's highlighted, like "derivatives" or "defaults", click on it and read that page. This can help you understand a lot of the technical terms and see how they're all related to one another.

I don't read many investing books as much as I try to absorb things about economics itself. Understanding how an economy functions is essential to trading. A good youtube channel that talks about economics can be found here. The videos are dense in information, but the input the creator gives is very solid. Not all of what he says should be taken as fact, but really it's just an analysis by a fundamentally sound economist.

Netflix has a few documentaries that are captivating. One is called Betting on Zero

The series "Dirty Money" has some interesting content within as well.

The Big Short is a movie that has valuable content if you watch it while considering what we know in hindsight of the 2008 financial crisis.

The most important part of investing is understanding what stimulates an economy or drives one into a recession.

My father is a successful investment banker and the two books he's always recommended are:

The Intelligent Investor

The Millionaire Next Door

According to The Millionaire Next Door, 80 percent of millionaires are first generation wealthy.

Other interesting notes:

"PNC Wealth Management conducted a survey of people with more than $500,000 free to invest as they like, a fair definition of “wealthy,” and possibly “millionaire” once you begin including home equity and other assets. Only 6% of those surveyed earned their money from inheritance alone. 69% earned their wealth mostly by trading time and effort for money, or by “working.”"

Source

"about 90% of people who "become millionaires" do so through gradual accrual of assets — they "earn it” — whereas only about 10% are given a million bucks by mom or dad, or inherit a business worth that much, or something."

Source

"Overall, the research revealed current millionaires are, on average, 61 years old with $3.05 million in assets."

Source

"Most Americans with $1 million or more in assets made their money on their own, according to a study by BMO Private Bank released today. Sixty-seven percent of high-net-worth Americans are self-made millionaires, according to the survey. Only 8 percent inherited their wealth."

Source

Yea actually I agree with this, I thought about it and I think unlocking weapons is not that big of a deal.

Yesterday I was thinking maybe the good in-between solution to this grind horror would be to have at least proper essence reward scaling as it sort of was in last beta. If I get 500 essence for W2 at recruit difficulty, I should get at like 1.5X or 2X of that for normal recruit run since its longer than weave. Than it should scale up, with difficulty so Legend should do I don't know ... 3 000 - 5000 or something ? And Cata should do at least 10 000 - 20 000. Because how many players can do it... at least it would now reward you something meaningful. If boxes don't provide crap... (another failed decision btw.)

If you are at the competence level that you can do Legend/Cataclysm ... than you should get crapload of that purple juice so you don't have to farm and slog thru recruit weaves because that is basically just waste of time and nobody will enjoy that.

So you would do few Cata runs and than you could upgrade your weave equip at least for one char for max level super fast and than the key part comes !

And I will again use Path of Exile, because they again solve this kind of problem easily ! And there is no need to try playing genious and invent some crazy mechanics when others already solved the problem

(I very much doubt anyone will argue that Sam Walton had dumb approach : https://www.amazon.com/Sam-Walton-Made-America/dp/0553562835 , short book, very relevant on this topic, the guy did very well with Walmart I think)

In short POE had one league called Delve, which is basically endless dungeon where you progress from easy to harder stuff, running thru "short chunks" of maps (see... kinda like weaves !) But if you play normal game... and do let's say whole storyline, and you are at level 60-65/100 , kinda buffed by that point, you sure don't want to go and run level 30 delve "chunks", forcing players to do that would be just dumb. So what happens there is that it automatically progresses for you up to certain level. It's like up to 60 or something. Which is +- where storyline ends and final endgame mapping system starts.

So... if you are 60-70 level and you did no Delve "chunks" at all, what you do now is just start running the level 60 chunks! And it doesn't feel like complete waste of time. Even if you are L75 lets say, you can do L60 chunks fast, get possibly some nice loot and it's very easy to burst thru 15 levels of chunks to get to L75 area where it will start getting more and more dangerous and interesting!

What a crazy concept! Right ?

So they could do the same thing here, make this kind of automatic progression or just let us farm the essences properly by core game hard content much faster if we can do the hard content so we can than burst thru the boring weaves fast. But imo there should be similar system to POE, meaning if I am L35 and doing Cataclysm with my group easily, I SURE AS HELL SHOULD NOT BE FORCED TO PLAY 100 OF EASY WEAVES so I can reach the Legend/Cata weaves.

I should be able to start with the "level 60 chunks like I can in POE" which would here translate to something like spot where Legend weaves starts. All the recruit/vet/champ weave chunks would get unlocked automatically as I would complete lets say all Helmgard maps on recruit/veteran/champ !

POE Delve Chart : https://www.goldkk.com/upload/20190220/6368627945052864627267035.png (You can go anywhere in the dungeon but down = higher level, up = easier, and the middle line is the one that will just progress automatically as you level UP your character so you don't have to do the stupid easy chunks when you are high level, up to mentioned certain point - the endgame/relatively hardcontent)

We all love the stock market. Yeah, but slightly off base here. Baseball betting, it's legal in New Jersey now. If you are into stats and ALGO seems like a natural, picked 6 winners in a row. That's never happened to me in the market. :-)

​

Baseball is all stats, if you put your time into it, think you can come out ahead. Lots.

Back to the dow ... :-)

Here's a former trader saying how he does it:


\> Trading Bases: How a Wall Street Trader Made a Fortune Betting on Baseball

https://www.amazon.com/Trading-Bases-Fortune-Betting-Baseball/dp/0451415175/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

​

Have you seen balance sheets/know true net worth for these people who you think are wealthy? Or do you assume they are wealthy based on conspicous signs of "wealth" (aka cars, houses, boats, etc.)? Most people who flash their cash really have a low net worth, and finance most of those purchases. Meanwhile the truly wealth, are usually self made millionaires who do not show their wealth. They live in working class neighborhoods drive a used car and send their kids to public school.

Most millionaire who inherit their wealth blow it soon after and have to be supported buy their parents, because they over consume for their income level.

Read The Millionaire Next Door for more insight into how most people become rich and stay that way. It is typically the small business owner not the trust fund baby.

>The jets and all that other crap seem like a better value renting.

Huh? $3 million in total wealth isn't much, especially for that. Please, don't do that. I strongly recommend that you read The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy. I know several that make that amount in less than 2 months, and you wouldn't know it, because they live frugally and humbly, including driving beat-up old minivans. Some of them do have nice shit (e.g. palace-sized mansions) but out in the street, they don't flex, and others live in small, modest homes in middle class neighborhoods. At best, they might have a Model 3, S, or X that they also use.

​

For the sake of argument and with some fuzzy math, if you put all $3 million into an index fund that's earning you 6%, that's $180,000/year. That is a lot of money for a 20 year old, and an obligatory Uncle Ben quote goes here. You're virtually set for life and can do anything that you want, and I'd probably use that time and money to go become a full time student in any number of mediums: Udacity, College, Trade School, Real Estate, etc. which would further your skill level for other interests, including but not limited to said rental houses. If you got licensed in trades, you'd be able to legally (well, from a liability angle - nothing is really stopping you from your own maintenance anyways) do your own repair work on your properties, which would save you even more money. I'm not saying that's the most logical option, but it's something to bear in mind.

​

To answer the relationship/cash aspect (and because I got f'd on this) you'd want a pre-nup, and as others have advised, a great attorney. Some of the relationship warning signs that I wish that I had known, and was covered in this forum yesterday. When it comes to getting serious about a relationship (and until then, if you're going to be active, use protection - child support and/or divorce rape should be a part of your threat vector) then you might want to ask an attorney about shifting assets around to where you're then an employee of yourself (e.g. form an LLC, hire yourself, and pay a meager wage, with the option for bonuses.)

I would recommend "One up on Wall Street" by Peter Lynch. It does have some formulas but it is otherwise a pretty easy ready and shows you how to value companies. Hope this helps! http://www.amazon.com/One-Up-Wall-Street-Already/dp/0743200403/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417723295&sr=8-1&keywords=one+up+on+wall+street

Good self-help books are underappreciated. They can provide the push needed to us in critical moments of our lives, e.g. to overcome short-term pain / excessive risk-aversion when making an important decision, and let us change the fundamental frames / instill useful mantras into our lives, changing our trajectories significantly. These two self-help books definitely changed my life, providing both motivation and timeless advice:

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life by Scott Adams

Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odd by David Goggins

I recommend these to all my friends and everybody who read them so far loved them (note that for max effect probably best to space them out and to first read Adams and then Goggins a few months later).

> is because my ability to focus for non-trivial stuff has been completely shot by years of doing nothing but surf the web (literally), I'm having a hard time getting anything systematically done, even basic reading.

Here's a method that doesn't work very well:

• Visuallize long-term goal for your life
  
  
• Think of how much smarter you need to be to fulfill the goal
  
  
• Collect large stack of books (or websites) with information you think should be in your head
  
  
• Try to read and memorize all the books
  
  
• Lament your lack of willpower
  
  Here's a better method:
  
  
• Visuallize long-term goal for your life
  
  
• Figure out specific short-term goals (not abstract self-improvement goals like "read a book", but specific accomplishments like "write a program to do x")
  
  
• Aggressively search books (and websites) for the specific information you need for each step of the short-term goal, ignoring everything else
  
  
• If you get curious about something else from your stack of books, go ahead and read it only until your curiosity is satisfied, then go back to your goals
  
  > rationalism is appealing both by virtue of the people I've been meeting and the practical effects it has been having for me on the occasions that I've managed to use it. But I'm more than a little intimidated by the SSC backlog: there's so much there! And that's just SSC. I have no idea where to begin.
  
  It is likely a mistake to think that rationality will be a philosophy that will change your entire life by virtue of reading things. There is a lot of very interesting material to read in the "rationalsphere", but most of it is not self-help material and you may be disappointed if you expect it will all be highly applicable to your daily life.
  
  What you will find is a lot of material that can help clarify your thinking and give you more knowledge about many intriguing domains. The "Sequences" (long series of blog posts collected into an E-book) by Yudkowsky are the standard resource that much of this community has read (or pretends to have read). If you have not studied science, probability, psychology, and philosophy, then it is pretty eye-opening stuff! Like taking a seminar course from a brilliant but highly eccentric professor. That said, some of it is boring or hard to read, so just skip around and follow the hyperlinks to the parts that interest you.
  
  If the main thing you have done for the past two years is to browse websites, then you must already know that reading good material is compulsive and so I am not sure what is stopping you from spending all your spare time reading the entire archives of LessWrong and Slate Star Codex. Either you are enjoying it and you keep reading, or you are not enjoying it and you stop.
  
  HOWEVER, if you are trying to force yourself to read through the annals of Rationality because you think it will fix your flaws as a person, or make you a genius, you will probably be disappointed.
  
  If you are really looking more for a self-help book of how to change your life with logic and rational behaviour, a decent one is How To Fail At Almost Everything by Scott Adams.

The following books:

• Hackers by Steven Levy
  
  
• Masters of Doom by David Kushner
  
  
• A history of the Amiga - a series of articles by Ars Technica which are great.
  
  
  Films/documentaries:
  
  
• Tetris: From Russia With Love - About the creation of Tetris by Alexey Pajitnov and the whole market explosion that came after. It's pretty nice.
  
  
• Pirates of Silicon Valley is the best film made to date about Microsoft and Apple.
  
  
• Silicon Valley - New show about the start-up scene. Just finished its first season.
  
  
  If I remember something else I'll edit the comment :)

The bit your missing is those on the FIRE path generally come in one of two version: the first group approach FIRE by driving down their living expenses extremely low. Examples approaches are living off-the-grid tiny houses and eating rice and beans. Another low-cost tactic is living in low cost of living places (COLA) and in the extreme means moving to poorer countries ("retirement hacking"), e.g. Mexico with it's good weather and your USD goes further. MMM (build all my own stuff) and Market Timer (living in a cheap country) are two examples. I have a feeling this group is actually the minority of the two, but I don't have any surveys. I've only met two this type IRL (well, living this way by choice).



The other type are high income earners who save a high percentages of their income. Bogleheads's survery's income (column U) has some eye-popping numbers and clearly skews towards highly educated/high income. WCI and Financial Samurai are both good examples of people who both have/had high incomes and decided to convert those incomes into wealth/FI through savings and investing. In the data that's out there(Millionaire Next Door and the little bit of self-reported data in the BH survey), this appears to be the more common path to FI. It certainly is easier to save lots when you earn a lot rather than try to squeeze every expense out of your life day in and day out for decades.

• Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence: Revised and Updated for the 21st Century
  
  
• Early Retirement Extreme: A philosophical and practical guide to financial independence
  
  
• Rich Dad Poor Dad: What The Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!
  
  
• The Richest Man in Babylon: The Success Secrets of the Ancients--the Most Inspiring Book on Wealth Ever Written
  
  
• The Wealthy Barber, Updated 3rd Edition: Everyone's Commonsense Guide to Becoming Financially Independent
  
  
• The Automatic Millionaire, Expanded and Updated: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich
  
  
• Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy
  
  
• I Will Teach You To Be Rich
  
  
• The Total Money Makeover: Classic Edition: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness
  
  Ich habe jedes dieser Bücher gelesen und kann es empfehlen. Ich würde jedes davon wieder kaufen und wieder lesen.
  
  
• The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing <-- Steht noch auf meiner Lese-Liste

I am reading We Are The Nerds: The Birth and Tumultuous Life of Reddit, the Internet's Culture Laboratory. Its huge but makes for an awesome story. Anyone interested in learning about the birthplace of this site, inspiration for getting involved in a tech startup, or just a good read should definitely snag a copy. https://www.amazon.com/Are-Nerds-Tumultuous-Internets-Laboratory/dp/0316435376

On What to Read


Here are some suggestions on books and websites:


The Millionaire Next Door by Stanley and Danko - https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474


If You Can by William Bernstein - http://efficientfrontier.com/ef/0adhoc/2books.htm


Free version is here - https://www.dropbox.com/s/5tj8480ji58j00f/If%20You%20Can.pdf?dl=0


The Investor's Manifesto. Preparing for Prosperity, Armageddon, and Everything in Between by William Bernstein - https://www.amazon.com/Investors-Manifesto-Prosperity-Armageddon-Everything/dp/1118073762


The Bogleheads Guide to Investing - https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/1118921283


The Coffeehouse Investor - https://www.amazon.com/Coffeehouse-Investor-Wealth-Ignore-Street/dp/0976585707


The Bogleheads' Guide to Retirement Planning - https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Retirement-Planning/dp/0470455578


The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio by William Bernstein - https://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portfolio/dp/0071747052/


Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey - https://www.amazon.com/Total-Money-Makeover-Classic-Financial/dp/1595555277


Personal Finance for Dummies by Eric Tyson - https://www.amazon.com/Personal-Finance-Dummies-Eric-Tyson/dp/1118117859


Investing for Dummies by Eric Tyson - https://www.amazon.com/Investing-Dummies-Eric-Tyson/dp/1119320690/


The Millionaire Real Estate Investor per red-sfplus’s post (can confirm this is excellent) - https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Real-Estate-Investor/dp/0071446370/


For all the M.Ds on here and HNW individuals, you might want to check out https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/ and his blog – found it to be very useful.


https://www.irs.gov/ or your government’s tax page. If you’ve been reading, you know that millionaires know more than your average bear about the tax code.


https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/7vohb3/money/


https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/3hzcvn/financial_advice_from_a_financier/


https://www.artofmanliness.com/2017/09/22/4-money-tips-4-personal-finance-legends/


Personal Finance Flowchart from their wiki - https://i.imgur.com/lSoUQr2.png


Additional Lists of Books:


https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Books:_recommendations_and_reviews


https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/books-4/


Subreddits


https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/


https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/ - I would highly encourage you to spend a half hour browsing their wiki - https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/index and investing advice - https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/investing


https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/


https://www.reddit.com/r/SecurityAnalysis/


https://www.reddit.com/r/finance/


https://www.reddit.com/r/portfolios/


https://www.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/


MRP References


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/40whjy/finally_talked_to_my_wife_about_our_finances_it/


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/67nxdu/finances_with_a_sahm/


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/488pa0/60_dod_week_6_finances/ (original)


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/6a6712/60_dod_week_6_finances/ (year 2)


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/3xw015/how_to_prepare_for_a_talk_about_finances/


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/30z704/taking_back_the_finances/


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/2uzukg/married_redpill_finances_and_money/


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/3637q5/some_thoughts_on_mrp_and_finances/


https://www.reddit.com/r/askMRP/comments/8dwaqt/best_practices_for_finances_within_marriage/


https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/588e5o/gain_control_of_the_treasury/


Final Thoughts


There are already a lot of high net worth individuals on these subs (if you don’t believe me, look at the OYS for the past few months). This should be a review for most folks. The key points stay the same – have a plan, get out of the hole you are in, have a budget, do the right moves for wealth accumulation. Lead your family in your finances. Own it.


What are YOU doing to own your finances? Give some examples below.

Judging from the broadness of your question, I'd suggest buying (or checking out from the library) a couple of books about investing. Start with the basics like: Charles Schwab, Peter Lynch, and Burton G. Malkiel. Right now, education is probably the best investment you can make (besides enjoying your life).

Ninja edit: It's good to be thinking and asking about investing, but, if you are serious about investing a serious chunk of money, learn the basics for yourself. You'll be better prepared to make the best decision for your money and your lifestyle.

A very long time ago Andre Gunder Frank and Sue Brandford and Bernardo Kucinski showed that barely 8% of the total of IMF and World Bank loans "given" to a country actually ever reach said country. The majority is never given out at all, but stays in the West to service odious "debts" that these countries supposedly owe. The rest of the money is then given to corrupt elites who share it among themselves.

These "debts" have usually been built up by Western countries giving loans to dictators they put in power, overthrowing democratically-elected politicians who tried to stand up to these banks. These dictators usually keep that loan money in Swiss bank accounts and spend it lavishly in the West. When they are overthrown themselves, the people they were oppressing are saddled with huge bills at exhorbitant interest rates.

Finally, former "economic hit man' John Perkins details that these infrastructure projects like damns and the like usually only benefit a small percentage at the top of society, were uneconomical to begin with, and were used as a trap to get poor countries indebted to rich ones so they lost their sovereignty.

You should probably read the biography written a year or two ago about Musk. You tag him as rich, but the reality is that he put everything on the line multiple times to save his companies. No one man can accomplish what SpaceX and Tesla do, but it is clear that Musk is a leader in the tech industry. Those were all pipe dreams, but he had the thought to make dreams reality by bringing the right people together under the right conditions.

Link

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns (Little Books. Big Profits) - Jack Bogle - Vanguard Founder. No gimmicks. Simple, low-cost, and passive indexing for buy and hold investors.

One Up On Wall Street: How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money In The Market Peter Lynch was a fund manager of one of the most successful actively managed funds. Active investing. Buy companies that are really successful at getting you to buy their product. Observe the world around you type of investing.

http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/0452287081/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426248828&sr=8-1&keywords=economic+hitman

>Perkins writes that his economic projections cooked the books Enron-style to convince foreign governments to accept billions of dollars of loans from the World Bank and other institutions to build dams, airports, electric grids, and other infrastructure he knew they couldn't afford. The loans were given on condition that construction and engineering contracts went to U.S. companies. Often, the money would simply be transferred from one bank account in Washington, D.C., to another one in New York or San Francisco. The deals were smoothed over with bribes for foreign officials, but it was the taxpayers in the foreign countries who had to pay back the loans. When their governments couldn't do so, as was often the case, the U.S. or its henchmen at the World Bank or International Monetary Fund would step in and essentially place the country in trusteeship, dictating everything from its spending budget to security agreements and even its United Nations votes. It was, Perkins writes, a clever way for the U.S. to expand its "empire" at the expense of Third World citizens.

I guess this is just a coincidence though.

I've yet to implement all my new found knowledge b/c i'm still a student but I'll tell you what convinced me and helpful tools/books i've found.

"millionaire next door" got me to take budgets seriously. It tells you how half (or1/3; forgot) of america's current millionaires are first generation. It then shows that high income isn't the main factor. Hearing that couples on 80k combined incomes were able to reach the millionaire status by living below their means, budgeting, and investing left me in awe. also gives you advice on making sure your kids retain a "saving" lifestyle.

"I will teach you to be rich" is decent. I like how it has scripts for haggling 101. it recommends automating your deposits between your bank and investing accounts so that you never see the extra money and thus aren't tempted to spend it. also goes over investing, choosing banks, buying cars.

lastly, should you need excel sheets for marking your yearly budgets, i downloaded this redditor's spreadsheet (scroll down a bit). I modified it to include 12 months (i.e "1" = january; "1p" = january planner). negatives are displayed in () so -50 becomes (50). my modified version

There's also pear spreadsheet. if you don't like the other.

edit: the faq in the sidebar also has book recommendations.

fair point. maybe the quotes mean more if you have some context of his investment principles. i like the quotes because some of them are good reminders to keep you ontrack. if you're interested he is well worth looking into. i read two books on him a few years back that i found very interesting.

The Warren Buffett Way

The Warren Buffett Portfolio: Mastering the Power of the Focus Investment Strategy

one of them in particular (a cant remember which) went into a lot of detail about the criteria he used to select solid companies. if you want specific unique advice about his investment style, id recommend them to anyone that is looking to invest.

Irrelevant game? Maybe you've heard of a game called Doom? Pretty popular. A company named id software developed that game. Guess where they got the money to develop that? From their previous wildly successfully series, Commander Keen. Since you seem to like books, I'd recommend picking up a copy of Masters of Doom, which tells the whole story of id's success. A little history goes a long way.

Yes that one sorry I did not clarify further. https://www.amazon.ca/How-Fail-Almost-Everything-Still-ebook/dp/B00COOFBA4

I've found similarities between successful and those still trying about them using a system rather than goals. My friend decided to be good at sales and uses that system to teach others in his brokerage and has made millions. Look at the franchise model vs opening 1 really good restaurant. Usually the prior will succeed (obviously with proper processes aka systems in place)

I don't change prices very often since it just seems like it would be annoying if I were a customer. Technically I do make lots of changes to pricing and plans, just not "in production" and instead in the design phase via user studies.

Yes, I'm a technical founder. Changing pricing for me is as simple as editing some numbers in a text editor and publishing.

People responded positively because they loved the product and I priced it as low as possible. Just before I started working on my product I read Sam Walton's bio and loved the passages about pricing. I'm working on a consumer product which has a physical component, so the fulfillment and other infrastructure costs make pricing a bit more challenging than a pure software product. There's a fine line between setting prices so people from all walks of life can enjoy my product and paying my bills.

I have an eccentric obsession with the oil/energy industry. Some of these books were mentioned already, but below are my absolute favorites:

• The Prize
  
• The Frackers
  
• Oil 101
  
• The Big Rich
  
• The King of Oil
  
• Fundamentals of Investing in Oil and Gas
  
• The Smartest Guys in the Room
  
• The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels
  
  If you're looking for a history of oil and gas check out The Prize, and The Frackers covers the more recent energy revolution. Oil 101 and Fundamentals of Investing in Oil and Gas deal more with the technical side.

I like The "New" Turing Omnibus for small pieces from a lot of CS areas. Since it covers a bunch of topics, you can read it in any order. It's a good way to see what specific areas you might want to dive into more deeply.

For more general, "fun" books to get excited about CS and its origins, I recommend Dealers of Lightning which is an amazing look at the work done at Xerox PARC in the 70s and Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution which is about many of the people who paved the way for personal computers.

Rex is actually a pretty damn smart and good businessman. Pulitzer Prize winning author Steve Coll wrote a whole book on ExxonMobil and Rex takes up about half of it. It's a good look at what he was like running the company.

https://www.amazon.com/Private-Empire-ExxonMobil-American-Power/dp/0143123548/

Oh, sure; I'm a huge believer that we are not a classless society, though the demarcations I would make have more to do with how individuals handle money (and the reserves available to them) which then determines socioeconomic status, autonomy, and (as I noted above) ability to speak freely without being hampered by work considerations.

Part of the problem is that these lines may not land where we traditionally think of them. Meaning in the 16th century, the lines were clear: the aristocracy owned the means of production, the peasants worked for the aristocracy, and a small (but growing) "middle class", the supposed "petite bourgeoisie", who sat in the middle. If you were in the upper aristocratic class, you were rich; the middle class remained roughly in the middle wealth wise, the peasants were poor.

And these designations (rich, middle class, poor) also were related to relative autonomy: the rich have the autonomy to pursue "work" as the saw fit, and often saw themselves as caretakers of a legacy to pass down to their children. The middle class did not answer to the aristocracy and thus had greater political autonomy (and, as the middle class grew, so did many philosophies tied to it, such as Locke's notions of the pursuit of happiness, or Hume's observations on moral sentiments). The peasants were poor and had little (if any) voice, at least until recently.

But today? Fuck, it's all a blur.

You have ostensibly "rich" people who are paid extremely well but who are ultimately beholden to an employer for employment. You have people who make a solidly average income who save for a retirement of complete independence--who may never really be able to afford a luxury car but who can afford to take a year driving around the country. You have people with all the trappings of wealth (fancy cars, expensive houses, luxury everything) who are so leveraged to the hilt the first economic headwind knocks them to poverty faster than I can complete this sentence. You have the "millionaire next store", the family who lives average lives but who lived below their means for so long they no longer work for a living but live off their investments--yet hide their wealth so as not to stand out.

And hell, you have radio personalities who are trying to help create more "millionaires next store" by helping people get out of debt and start investing through living beneath their means. You even have groups here on Reddit devoted to /r/financialindependence.

----

So the whole notion of "class" becomes difficult to nail down in this country, not just because we're ostensibly a "classless society", but there is a severe disconnect between culture, wealth, financial independence and the freedom that brings.

----

More frustratingly I predict this will be downvoted to oblivion, because we also have a fucking huge blind spot in this country to what wealth is, what it means, and what it can do. Someone will undoubtedly sing the "but you can't save to retire unless you make a gazillion dollars a year, so take your white patriarchal bullshit out of here" song, while another will sing the "but it's so expensive I can't survive living here on my measly salary (that is twice or three times the national average)" song.

Hell, most people in our country couldn't name the three types of wealth, or characterize in real terms what the "means of production" is for professions like plumber or carpenter. A lot of folks certainly have no sense when it comes to financial matters.

Instead, to them, money is something only the lucky have, freedom is the freedom to buy two Ferraris and a Porsche, and the rest of us are going to die miserable lives of wretched poverty.

And when talking about economics, it's easier just to look at anonymized tax return data, group them into quintiles, and study that instead.

read this book then. It is probably going to be interesting for you
http://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-Computer/dp/0887309895/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322594175&sr=8-1

...Dealers of Lightning is a fascinating journey of intellectual creation. In the 1970s and '80s, Xerox Corporation brought together a brain-trust of engineering geniuses, a group of computer eccentrics dubbed PARC. This brilliant group created several monumental innovations that triggered a technological revolution, including the first personal computer, the laser printer, and the graphical interface (one of the main precursors of the Internet), only to see these breakthroughs rejected by the corporation. Yet, instead of giving up, these determined inventors turned their ideas into empires that radically altered contemporary life and changed the world.
...

Although I recommend Indexed Investing, I really enjoyed "One Up On Wall Street" by Peter Lynch. It is a different perspective than indexed investing. I plan on following the 90% Indexed funds and 10% "Peter Lynch Style" for my portfolio

Note: It is about stock picking (buy and hold - so long term, not day trading) and doesn't touch indexed funds...in the book, Peter says you should get some value by paying a higher MER otherwise it is not worth it. He has since corrected himself, and both Peter and Warren Buffet say indexed investing is best for Most investors.


https://www.amazon.ca/One-Up-Wall-Street-Already/dp/0743200403/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487691453&sr=8-1&keywords=peter+lynch

Millionaire teacher alone should be enough to start your indexed portfolio. If you enjoyed Millionaire teacher, and have a basic grasp on personal finance, you can check out Andrew Hallams recommended book page...he has some more advanced books listed

https://andrewhallam.com/books/

Congratulations on your winnings. If you end up spending any time at /r/personalfinanace, you'll note that one of the handfull of books they recommend in their sidebar is "The Millionaire Next Door". It's a fantastic read (great audiobook too) that really opened my eyes to money and wealth.

i think we're saying similar things but yeah sorry if it wasn't clear. PG didn't come up with the idea on his own but he was definitely influential. If you're interested I really liked this book (it's a little long tho) on the story of Reddit - https://www.amazon.com/Are-Nerds-Tumultuous-Internets-Laboratory/dp/0316435376/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=reddit+book&qid=1557806676&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Definetly check out the book
https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/0062301233


I went for the audio book on audible. Was a good commute listen. If Ashley Vance is actually a fan boy, he did a great job hiding it and I'd like to thank him for that.

Some Musk facts from the book:


-photographic memory


-intense, innate drive


-mastery of physics visualization


-loner through childhood


-rough paternal childhood


-future keystones, determined in college: internet, renewable energy, space


-thought both Tesla and SpaceX would fail


There's way more stuff, really consider the book. If there was a perfect person to become 'Elon Musk', it was Elon Musk. I'm glad we have him.

This explains it:

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy https://www.amazon.com/dp/1589795474/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fMnJBb0GAZ99M

Essentially: the super super wealthy are less than 1% of the population. Meanwhile much of the actual top 10-1% tend to be in jobs that go along with conspicuous consumption. Think lawyer, banker, accountant, doctor. They tend to feel that they have to maintain a certain type of lifestyle to be “respectable” in their profession.

There’s also a lot of people who work in tech, many of whom are young and may not save much because they want to “enjoy life” and aren’t necessarily thinking ahead. (Although they do tend to have stocks.)

Here are some I've enjoyed:

• Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time by the CEO of Starbucks
  
  
• Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by the founder of Zappos
  
  
• Raising the Bar: Integrity and Passion in Life and Business: The Story of Clif Bar Inc. by the founder of Clif Bar
  
  
• Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by the founder of Patagonia Sportswear
  
  
• The PayPal Wars: Battles with eBay, the Media, the Mafia, and the Rest of Planet Earth by PayPal's first senior director of US marketing
  
  
• Against the Odds: An Autobiography by the founder of Dyson
  
  
• The Rebel Rules: Daring to be Yourself in Business by the founder of Joie de Vivre Hotels

Yeah, the questions been asked before. But here's a summary.

Wish you the best.

Video Tutorials

• Khan Academy
  
• Yale University / Robert Shiller
  
• the rather basic ones at our site
  
  Great Books
  
  
• Peter Lynch: One Up On Wall Street
  
• Joel Greenblatt: The Little Book That Still Beats The Market
  
• James Montier: The Little Book of Behavioural Investing
  
• Richard Oldfield: Simple But Not Easy
  
• Phil Fisher: Common Stocks and UnCommon Profits
  
  Stock prices & news
  
  
• Google Finance
  
• Yahoo Finance
  
• CNNMoney
  
• CNBC
  
• Reuters
  
  Investment commentary & ideas
  
  
• MarketWatch
  
• Seeking Alpha
  
• Business Insider
  
• The Motley Fool
  
• Bloomberg BusinessWeek
  
• Forbes
  
  Stock screeners & stock picking tools
  
  
• FinViz
  
• Google Finance Screener
  
• MarketWatch
  
• Reuters Screener
  
• Stockflare DISCLAIMER: this is our site
  
• Yahoo! Stock Screener
  
• Ycharts
  
  Stock exchanges & useful wikis
  
  
• Nasdaq
  
• Nasdaq's list of all recent IPOs
  
• NYSE
  
• Wikipedia's List of Stock Exchanges
  
• Wikipedia on Value Investing
  
• Wikipedia on Growth Investing
  
  Great investors profiled on Wikipedia
  
  
• Warren Buffett
  
• Ben Graham
  
• Phil Fisher
  
• Shelby Davis
  
• Hetty Green
  
• Peter Lynch
  
• John Neff
  
• Sir John Templeton
  
  Relevant Subreddits
  ================
  
  
• /r/business
  
• /r/economy
  
• /r/finance
  
• /r/invest
  
• /r/investing
  
• /r/InvestmentClub
  
• /r/pennystocks
  
• /r/options
  
• /r/stockmarket
  
• /r/theartofsimpletrading
  
• /r/wallstreetbets
  
• /r/securityanalysis
  
• /r/stocktraders
  
  

>Ouais enfin là en face c'est pas Madame Michu mais des États avec des moyens quasi-illimité donc pour l'intimidation on repassera...

Ces 20 dernières années, on a vu émerger des entreprises multinationales qui détiennent un pouvoir considérable et qui vont jusqu’à contester l'autorité et le pouvoir même des Etats.

Christophe De Margerie le patron de Total n'a été élu par personne, il ne répond pas devant l'Assemblée Nationale, mais il est négocie directement avec le Président Vladimir Poutin et le Président Omar Bongo. Il est allé jusqu’à se mêler de la politique étrangère de la France en exerçant des pressions sur le Quai d'Orsay pour limiter les sanctions en Ukraine.

Le journaliste américain Steve Coll a mené une enquête pendant plusieurs années sur le pouvoir de Exxon. Il en a fait un livre intitulé Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power.

Exxon est la deuxième entreprise mondiale par capitalisation boursière, elle emploie plus de 75 000 personnes. Une enquête absolument fascinante qui révèle que l'entreprise dispose de ses propres services de renseignements et d'une diplomatie parallèle dans plusieurs dizaines de pays du monde. Elle est capable de monter des opérations de manipulation médiatique sophistiqués pour éliminer des responsables politiques et est allée jusqu’a menacer directement des Ministres et des Chefs d'Etats. Un livre absolument fascinant ce qui lui a valu de remporter le prix Pullitzer, le prix le plus prestigieux du journalisme américain :

https://www.amazon.com/Private-Empire-ExxonMobil-American-Power/dp/0143123548

Tu veux un autre exemple ? Le Royaume du Danemark vient de créer un poste officiel d'ambassadeur au sein de la Silicon Valley pour négocier directement avec les GAFA.

http://www.lemonde.fr/big-browser/article/2017/02/07/le-danemark-va-envoyer-un-ambassadeur-numerique-au-pays-de-google-et-facebook_5076124_4832693.html

C'est fini depuis longtemps l’ère du riche capitaliste qui a une petite usine et qui obéit aux lois de son Etat.

Même un Jacques Attali (Major de l'Ecole Polytechnique, Énarque, Docteur en Economie) affirme que la puissance de l'argent est en train de prendre le pouvoir sur la puissance politique des nations. Ces tribunaux arbitraux ne vont encore que pousser la balance vers le pouvoir privé.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baWfd-vRIqM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYcOImJwGzU

Pour citer David Rothkopf, Professeur de relations internationales à l'Université Columbia :

>The world's largest company, Wal-Mart Stores, has revenues higher than the GDP of all but twenty-five of the world's countries. Its employees outnumber the populations of almost a hundred nations. The world's largest asset manager, a secretive New York company called Black Rock, controls assets greater than the national reserves of any country on the planet. A private philanthropy, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, spends as much worldwide on health care as the World Health Organization. The rise of private power may be the most important and least understood trend of our time.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12160843-power-inc

Not really compsci in the spirit of Turing, Church et al, but I think some of the olden game diaries etc might be inspirational for todays youth. Personally I enjoyed The Making of Karateka quite a bit; I have Masters of Doom on my reading list, having heard positive things about it.

Live radically below your income level no matter what it is and invest as high a percentage as possible.

Change every habit in your life to save and invest, and not spend.

Change every habit in your life to recognize 99% of what you do is based on habit and consumption, that people have existed for 10's of thousands of years and lived on very little. Water, a bit of food and shelter. Reduce your existence to that and invest the rest.

Read "Millionaire Next Door".

Read "Habit"

It will cost you about $20. Follow them like the bible, like your compass. And in 30 days when you haven't done any of this, re-read this answer.

That's all there is to it. Follow that and you will become wealthy. There is nothing more to this, 99.9999% of humans cannot do it. And the wealthy benefit from that every day.

You're welcome.

I would challenge you to read the book one of the founders of starbucks wrote a couple of years back. It really is a fantastic read, and was pretty eye opening. They really believe starbucks is some of the finest coffee, and while I might not agree with that... they are responsible for gourmet coffee's growth in the US.

Found it, it is called pour your heart into it. http://www.amazon.com/Pour-Your-Heart-Into-Starbucks/dp/0786883561/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254694597&sr=8-1

But the price of my milk isn't going to move up and down after I've bought it, how did I pay for the milk? With all of my own money or a loan etc. You can say proportionately they're the same but it doesn't really hold up, wealthy people don't look at a stadium like a bottle of milk, Warren Buffett is a billionaire and he buys his car 'hail-damaged' because it's cheaper than buying it new

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474

^ Really good book on how frugal some mega wealthy people are. Not that Abramovich needs to be but let's be honest, 500m will be a considerable amount in his mind, it's not something he wants to waste or fritter away

Sounds like a good read. Thanks!

EDIT: Another GREAT read on how the CIA really operates as the muscle for the NWO everybody should ready Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins.

https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/0452287081

Tip of the hat to the pioneers... Lawrence Roberts, Vin Cerf, Bob Taylor, Ivan Sutherland, Douglas Engelbart and J.C.R. Licklider, among many others. Well worth studying up on these dudes. Some excellent reads (available at your public library, natch): "Dealers of Lightning" an excellent book about Xerox PARC; "Where Wizards Stay Up Late" fascinating book about MIT and DARPA; J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal a turgid yet compelling book about J.C.R. Licklider and his contemporaries.

My debts are as follows:

• Credit card: $842 (down from ~$12k)
  
• Car loan: $16,488 (down from ~$22k)
  
• Home mortgage: $94,809 (down from ~$99k)
  
  My soon-to-be spouse has misc medical debt of about $3,000 and student loan debt of ~$40,000. We are down to one income right now and are about to get a second income going of an additional $30k+
  
  My credit card had once reached just over $12,000. I was able to knock out $10,000 in six months.
  
  We are using the principals outlined by NY Times best-selling author and national radio talk show host, Dave Ramsey. His book, "The Total Money Makeover" has changed the way we think about debt and money. You can listen to his radio show and podcast online by CLICKING HERE
  
  We are using the 7 baby-steps and if all goes as planned, all the debts we have combined and our home (worth about $120k) will be paid for.
  
  The 7 baby-steps are....
  
  
• Step 1: Save $1,000 in a baby emergency fund.
  
• Step 2: Use the debt snowball to knock out your debts from smallest balance owed to largest
  
• Step 3: Increase emergency fund savings up to 3 to 6 months of living expenses
  
• Step 3b: Save down payment for a home (if this applies to you)
  
• Step 4: Invest 15% of your total income into retirement
  
• Step 5: College funding for children <-- This doesn't apply to me
  
• Step 6: Pay off your home early (unless you're renting)
  
• Step 7: Build wealth and give.
  
  My goal is to eliminate the need to borrow money and to get my credit score from in the 800's to zero. I plan to pay cash for newer used cars going forward and to never have a car payment again. Here's a great article on how to never have a car payment again.... CLICK HERE For house payments, I will only ever mortgage a home with more a 15-yr fixed rate mortgage where the payment is at or below 25% of my monthly income.
  
  I have put a 20 year term-life policy in place for myself equivalent to 12 times my annual income. This will cover use for 9 years of our debt free journey + 11 more years to grow our wealth. In the event of my death, my spouse will be able to be able to pay off the home and invest the remaining money to generate a replacement income.
  
  We plan to invest money once we are debt free and start buying rental properties with cash.
  
  Books I recommend to people to read include....
  
  
• "The Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey
  
• "Retire Inspired" by Chris Brown
  
• "The Millionaire Next Door" by Jon Acuff

Muhammed: How he can make you extraordinary

The Productive Muslim - Where Faith Meets Productivity

Dua, Weapon of the Believers

Revive Your Heart: Putting Life in Perspective

The Art of War

Khadija: The First Muslim and Wife of the Prophet Muhammed

Muhammed: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources

Dua's for success in this world and the next, over 100 Duas

Fortress of a Muslim

Reclaim your heart

These are some of the books I have at the moment and I highly recommend them after reading them. I am waiting on a few more books but a lot are non Islamic but still really useful [:

Edit: Like this

I LOVE following the history of networking, awesome find!

If you end up wanting more, where wizards stay up late and dealers of lightning are great reads about the people behind the early internet.

Don't try to read any fundamental physics/engineering textbooks, they'll just bore you and you won't learn anything without also doing stuff like you would in a lab or for homework.

Instead read some books that inspire or entertain you. You won't have time or energy to read what you want once school starts. Here's some options:

• Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
  
  
• Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration
  
  
• The Martian

The interesting thing is that Steve Jobs saw such promise at Xerox PARC that he offered to let Xerox buy Apple out before the stock went public, just so that he could have access to the technology and engineers at PARC.

I cannot emphasize enough how good Dealers of Lightning is, but if you're interested in technology, it's a really great read.

I'm not going to get into an argument about the semantics living your own life, but what I will say is that you have the power to choose what you do.

I understand the job market in many sectors is difficult, but no one is forcing you to work in those areas.

Saying "my boss won't let me" isn't productive. What I'm offering is that if one saves up the money for a trip, they won't have to worry about what their boss thinks anymore.

Extend this thought out to its logical end, and you find that if you're not in debt, and have enough cash on hand, no one can tell you what to do anymore.

This is probably too big to discuss in an ongoing Reddit comment thread.

If you're interested in a bit of freedom, financially or otherwise, check out this book. It's not one of those gimmicky "I've got all the monies let me show you how to do it!" books, merely solid financial advice for those who want it.

https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474#top

> how the heck are people affording these beautiful houses with granite counter tops crown molding etc with comparable income to mine?

They aren't. Have you seen the number of foreclosures? Please read The Millionaire Next Door. Also, you might check out Dave Ramsey.

I absolutely promise you in all areas there are a significant number of people living paycheck to paycheck. One way I know this is that I have had the opportunity to buy distressed property in almost all price ranges in my city. The largest (I passed) was 9500 SF on 3 acres in one of the most desirable villages here. 50 cents on the dollar...

I'll also promise you this. If you take the trade off and buy something a little less nice but in your range you will be WAY happier than if you get something a bit nicer but have to stress about money all the time.

You know, a lot of this aid isn't good... much of it goes to buy weapons and power for extremely corrupt governments and helps to establish the power structures that keep people poor. Sure, in cases like Somalia it is only humane to provide food aid, but I think that we have to reassess our aid policies in a lot of these countries, not just in Africa but around the world.

I'm reading Confessions of an Economic Hitman right now and he makes a pretty good case for how a lot of the aid that we give helps to impoverish the people in those countries that we "aid." I recognize that the book talks mainly about loans, not aid, but the points about how aid increases income inequality remain solid.

If you're just looking to learn instead of fulfilling a degree requirement then it is a probably more useful to pickup a book and do it yourself.

Some useful subs:

• /r/personalfinancecanada
  
• /r/personalfinance
  
• /r/investing
  
  Some useful books:
  
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Common-Sense-Mutual-Funds-Anniversary/dp/0470138130
  
• http://www.amazon.com/All-About-Asset-Allocation-Second/dp/0071700781
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-Down-Wall-Street/dp/0393340740
  
• http://www.amazon.com/The-Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising/dp/1589795474
  
  The takeaway is that when it comes to investing there is no secret that will make you rich overnight. Picking random stocks hoping they suddenly shoot up is no different than gambling. Even the most well paid people in finance with all of their years of schooling cannot consistently beat the market.
  
  Investing is a long term commitment.

I think we've reached the point where we've each laid out what we have to say and gotten whatever clarification we can from one another. Thanks for the discussion and maybe we'll talk again.

Probably the one outstanding issue is you asked for a source to explain how the Oil Embargo (that extended to 1974, I just learned) was a major influence on US policy in the Middle East. My belief was formed by two books, Planet of Slums and Confessions of an Economic Hitman.

They're great books, and I totally recommend them, but they don't make for great proof (if that's what you're asking for) in an internet discussion. Let me know if you read either, because I'd really like to hear what you think!

Thanks again.

En god bog kunne være The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich, hvor bogen omhandler Marc Rich som var kendt for at stifte det største råvarer handlede firma på hans tid, som senere blevet til Glencore(en af de største multinationale firmaer i verden). Bogen omhandler både hans forretning, men også hans personlige historie. Alt i alt en meget god bog

Edit

På et tidspunkt i bogen spørger forfatteren Marc Rich om, han har moralske svært omkring handlede med verdens diktatorer, hvor han svarer "If you are too proud, you don't do business."

Step 0: Live within your means

assuming you would like to be rich one day, have a look at this study of how rich people get rich The Millionaire Next Door

For those of you who haven't read it, I'd recommend this book. A great look inside the philosophy of Google and how they've accomplished what they have. A very unorthodox way of achieving success.

C'est sur ce point qu'on a un désaccord.

Ces 20 dernières années, on a vu émerger des entreprises multinationales qui détiennent un pouvoir considérable et qui vont jusqu’à contester l'autorité et le pouvoir des Etats.

Pour citer le remarquablement brillant David Rothkopf, Directeur Général de Foreign Policy Magazine et Professeur de relations internationales à l'Université Columbia et à l'Université Princeton :

>The world's largest company, Wal-Mart Stores, has revenues higher than the GDP of all but twenty-five of the world's countries. Its employees outnumber the populations of almost a hundred nations. The world's largest asset manager, a secretive New York company called Black Rock, controls assets greater than the national reserves of any country on the planet. A private philanthropy, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, spends as much worldwide on health care as the World Health Organization. The rise of private power may be the most important and least understood trend of our time.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12160843-power-inc

Christophe De Margerie le patron de Total n'a été élu par personne, il ne répond pas devant l'Assemblée Nationale, mais il est négocie directement avec Vladimir Poutin et Omar Bongo. Il est allé jusqu’à exercer des pressions sur le Palais de l'Elysée et sur le Quai D'Orsay pour limiter les sanctions de la France en Ukraine.

Et il y a encore plus gros que Total. Exxon est la deuxième entreprise mondiale par capitalisation boursière, elle emploie plus de 75 000 personnes. Le journaliste américain Steve Coll a mené une enquête pendant plusieurs années sur le pouvoir de Exxon. Il en a fait un livre intitulé Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power.

https://www.amazon.com/Private-Empire-ExxonMobil-American-Power/dp/0143123548

Une enquête absolument fascinante qui révèle que l'entreprise dispose de ses propres services de renseignements et d'une diplomatie parallèle dans plusieurs dizaines de pays du monde. Exxon va jusqu’au menacer des Etats-Nations et influencer la politique étrangère des Etats-Unis. Un livre absolument fascinant ce qui lui a valu de remporter le prix Pullitzer, le prix le plus prestigieux du journalisme américain.

Tu veux un autre exemple ? Le Royaume du Danemark vient de créer un poste officiel d'ambassadeur au sein de la Silicon Valley pour négocier directement avec les GAFA.

http://www.lemonde.fr/big-browser/article/2017/02/07/le-danemark-va-envoyer-un-ambassadeur-numerique-au-pays-de-google-et-facebook_5076124_4832693.html

>Le puissant ici c'est l'état italien, pas la société pétrolière.

C'est désormais les Etats qui sont faibles et les entreprises qui sont puissantes. Le rapport de force qui a pu exister dans le passé s'est totalement inversé. Même un mec libéral comme Jacques Attali (Docteur en Economie + Énarque + Major de Promotion à l'Ecole Polytechnique) affirme dans sa conférence que les entreprises risquent de prendre le pouvoir et de mettre fin à la démocratie dans un monde de plus en plus chaotique et violent. Ces tribunaux arbitraux ne vont encore que pousser la balance vers le pouvoir privé.

Steve Coll, who literally wrote the book on ExxonMobil (Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power) put it best, in his recent New Yorker article:

>The news that President-elect Donald Trump is expected to nominate Rex Tillerson, the chairman and chief executive of ExxonMobil, as his Secretary of State is astonishing on many levels. As an exercise of public diplomacy, it will certainly confirm the assumption of many people around the world that American power is best understood as a raw, neocolonial exercise in securing resources.

Hi I recommend reading "how to fail at everything and still win big"
https://www.amazon.com/How-Fail-Almost-Everything-Still-ebook/dp/B00COOFBA4

You are still young so you have plenty of time to suceed and you will see that what looks like failure can be useful down the road. Practice the law of attraction https://www.reddit.com/r/lawofattraction/wiki/usefulposts
enjoy :)

I enjoyed the article, thanks for the link OP.

A lot of people are misreading into this or blowing it off as luck or circumstance. Even the article itself explains that it is his decisions that have been a major deciding factor in his life. Hard work and education can get results.

It looks like a lot of the article's source material is Ashlee Vance's biography on Elon. Looks like I'll go ahead and pick it up! link

The story of Pinoche and Chile is just one of many very important examples in history where the elites have run this EXACT same operation. Howard Zinn is a great historian at divulging many of these stories. They even made one into a graphic novel.

https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-American-Empire-Adaptation/dp/0805087443

Also excellent first-hand account of this tactic is John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hitman

https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/0452287081

These 2 alone will get you pointed in the right direction for learning the true history of US/western elites/corporatocracy impirialism. You will also see the correlation between these and what they are trying to pull here and now in the US.

He even wrote a book about it!! Welcome to history my sloow leftists-

Trump: The Art of the Comeback https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812929640/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_0C30CbQW8NATV

Six years ago real estate developer Trump (Trump: The Art of the Deal, LJ 2/15/88) was several billion dollars in debt, owing in part, he says, to his complacency and the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Now, thanks to some skillful negotiating, hard work, and luck, he says he is back. Trump's goal for this third book is to provide "inspiration" for almost anyone, and some of his top-ten comeback tips are to play golf, stay focused, be paranoid, get even, and always have a prenuptial agreement.

The real question to ask is: Are we as individual investors able to sift through the current accounting tricks that companies use to get an accurate sense of what a company is actually earnings?

I would argue that the answer is no quite often with a lot of public companies. For example, there is a rule that companies don't have to list out any assets that are rated AAA. This rule pretty much created the housing bubble, since Goldman Sachs and other large banks lobbied the credit agencies ruthlessly for the AAA ratings on so many mortgage-backed securities. The tl;dr version is that the financial crisis was created out of a single oversight by the credit agencies.

The sad fact is that the enforcers (SEC) are much less powerful than those being enforced. There was a recent article published about how the CEO of Morgan Stanley was involved with an insider trading case, and when the SEC agent called to question Mack (the CEO), Mack had someone speak to the agent's boss' boss' boss' boss (up 4 tiers). This resulted in the agent being fired. He eventually was awarded wrongful termination, but the fact remains that wall-street is above investigation.

For these reasons, I stick to companies that have a long history of responsible practices. The list of those type of practices is long, but Peter Lynch goes through the best things to look for in One Up On Wall-Street. I would categorize this book as intermediate reading.

Athletes constitute a extreme minority, especially superstars like LeBron. While his example was a little extreme in how lucky the beginnings was, the story is by no means rare. The is a popular book called The Millionaire Next Door which goes to explain how most millionaires in the US got their wealth.

In the vast majority of cases, it's quite straightforward: spend less than you earn, and maximize tax-advantaged investing. Don't waste money on expensive cars or other forms of wasteful spending. Keep doing that for a couple of decades, and you'll be a millionaire.

Of course, the above path does come with assumptions. First is that you need to have an employable degree, and not be crippled by student debt in a way that makes you lose a big chunk of your early earnings. Second is that you need to be not unlucky and e.g. not have an expensive medical emergency. Having a spouse definitely helps (but is not required), and not having kids also helps (but they won't make anything impossible).

Bottom line is that the most millionaires in the US are not sportsmen, nor are they born to immense privilege.

Read and listen to Dave Ramsey if you want to be "good" with personal finance.

If you want to "optimize" finance, then come hang out with us in r/financialindependence

Podcasts: ChooseFI, Afford Anything

Blogs: Mr. Money Mustache

Books: Simple Path to Wealth, Your Money or Your Life, Millionaire Next Door, The Richest Man in Babylon

​

Some pointers:

1. Don't do what most people do. Chances are, they know less about personal finance than you do.
   
2. Spend based on your value (within your means of course), not based on the percentage of income.
   
3. Don't spend money to impress others.
   
4. If you think 20's is time to spend every penny to have "full" experience, look at this chart.
   
   ​

There are similarities between this and countless other international bailout and assistance programs, from the Irish Potato Famine to the Australian treatment of Aboriginal communities from 1994 to 2012. Charles Smith had a good article on it this week.

>Especially fascinating to learn that the English Government provided ‘relief’ loans to Ireland at market interest with a condition that they could not be used to do anything productive. Basically they set up a scheme to pay a small proportion of each community to build roads, but not a cent could be spent on developing alternate Irish-owned industries or businesses for fear it would upset the rich English industrialists.

>The English imported cheap American corn meal which everyone was forced to buy with the English Gov. financed wages (closing the loop of giving with one hand, taking with the other and adding in a profit to boot) after the Irish had to export all their own grain and livestock to England to pay the land rents.

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjan15/debt-serfdom1-15.html

Similar tactics are documented extensively in Confessions of an Economic Hitman. For example, instead of financing a war they might finance "infrastructure improvements." The IMF gives several billion to a dictator, the dictator steals a large portion, and the rest is (over)spent on Western equipment (turbines, cranes, wire, etc). The country remains on the hook, left with an asset worth a fraction of debt's value.

After the new regime took power, they squandered (some legitimate spending, the rest stolen or wasted) their foreign currency and gold reserves. Now, they are being financed by European and American banks with the "condition" that that money gets spent on weapons from these same European and American countries, "closing the loop of giving with one hand, taking with the other and adding in a profit to boot." It's a tried and true tactic. The end result is an impoverished vassal state, borrowing to survive.

My first read into investing was One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch. He did brilliantly with Fidelity's Magellan Fund and managed 29% annual return when he was the manager so I figured it'd be a good read. It's not too out there with technicalities and such so I think it's a great place to start.

Though this should be followed by another comment: one of thanks for this community.

I remember coming here a month ago and buying a handful of stocks because I liked the company's products. The first time someone asked me about a P/E ratio, I did a 'what-sit-whosit'?

Then I started reading. I read William O'Neil in a week:
http://www.amazon.com/Money-Stocks-Complete-Investing-System/dp/0071752110/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335244563&sr=1-2

Then I read Peter Lynch:
http://www.amazon.com/One-Up-On-Wall-Street/dp/0743200403/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335244585&sr=1-1

Now I am reading a phenomenal book, Spent:
http://www.amazon.com/Spent-Sex-Evolution-Consumer-Behavior/dp/B002ZNJWHW/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335244608&sr=1-3

(I almost don't want to recommend this book, because it's a nuclear weapon in investing; we are all essentially at war, after all)

I have also subscribed to Businessweek, Investor's Business Daily, subscribed to the MarketSmith service, and subscribed to TC2000.

With some of my profits from my latest trades, I am buying myself a subscription to the Wall Street Journal, and will be joining a few other groups around the internet.

If anyone has any suggestions for other tools or services I should use, please share.

A lot of members on this board contributed to my education, and have been essential in second-guessing some of my positions with factual evidence. To those members, I am deeply indebted. Thank you.

What is less helpful, and useless, is the blanket downvoting I receive, and the snarky comments that I seem to generate.

Aren't we here to make money together?

I am still new, but I am learning at an astronomical pace. Thanks for everyone's continuing advice and support.

I've read a number of books about the subject so I'm summing up what I've read; but I'd recommend in particular the books Dealers Of Lightning, Fumbling The Future and Apple Confidential if you're interested to read more. Here's also an interesting article from the New Yorker about it.

Elon mentioned before that they were doing some sorts of uphill climbs with a semi prototype. I think it was sometime in the Spring of this year.

You mentioned earlier that he is a salesman, and while he is the CEO of huge companies, you have to remember this guy has University degrees in physics and engineering. He got his hands dirty while working at Tesla and SpaceX when both companies were still young.

Judging from your comments you're more of a Tesla fan than a Musk fan, but I highly recommend reading his book. There are tons of things to learn about him and how he conducts business for the good and bad parts. I got it last year for Black Friday at a discount and since that is coming up, it might be a good option for some Christmas reading if you like that.

There's a good book I like called The Millionaire Next Door.

It details the types of lives most millionaires have. And how so many fly under the radar. You might be surprised who you know who's secretly quite well off. :)

Even tho they drive a 10 year old car and live in a moderate home.

Hi,

One thing I'm curious about is if you're really just looking to make 6 figures or if you're looking to be come a millionaire. Interestingly, those are different things. It gets into the Millionaire-next-door paradox. The majority of millionaires in the US aren't like pro basketball players or lawyers, but people like small business owners that own 3-4 dry cleaners.

Start with http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417741382&sr=1-1&keywords=the+millionaire+next+door

Because it has a lot of important lessons. For example, most millionaires don't just make money (play offense) they save a lot (play defense). The book goes through cases with folks with millions in the bank that still clip coupons.

Sounds like the "Millionaire Next Door" effect: https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474

People who got rich from their own efforts tend to be very sensitive to value and ways of saving money. They have the experience of going through tough times while they were growing their business. So they do things like buy used cars because a new car loses a big chunk of value the day you drive it off the lot. The sales guy in the fancy suit driving the new BMW is likely deeply in debt trying to impress other people.

>really all you want is to be able to do what you want with no consequences. a childish worldview.



I never said or implied that. However I do ascribe to the idea of personal responsibility rather than a group of elected officials telling someone they need to pay more despite already paying more than everyone else. Yes people should pay taxes, but they should not pay more taxes because they can afford it.



>also you are gonna need a source for people with millions of dollars in assets mostly earning their own money. because i'd bet it's at least half of them that got started through parents money or connections. WOuldnt be shocked by 90%. Self made people are not the norm for the wealthy.



http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0810/7-millionaire-myths.aspx


https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474


http://time.com/money/3925308/rich-families-lose-wealth/


https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/real-1-percent



Happy Reading

Banks and advisers from organizations like WFG are essentially just sales people for products. They aren't going to help you manage your money. Luckily, there's a wealth of information out there to help you do this, mostly for free. You will be surprised to learn that managing your money really comes down to very basic principles that can be hard to stay committed to.


Try checking out some of these great subs:
r/ynab
r/personalfinance
r/startups
r/entrepreneur


Also, you can check out these books. They sound gimmicky but they really do have good information about managing your money:
Rich Dad, Poor Dad
The Millionaire Next Door


If you're looking to hire someone, as others have pointed out look for a Certified Financial Planner, not an adviser.

great book to read if you want to know about how great exxon has been for green energy and the environment

https://www.amazon.com/Private-Empire-ExxonMobil-American-Power/dp/0143123548

The Millionaire Next Door is outdated when it comes to specifics, but conceptually is an excellent road map for getting and maintaining wealth.

The gist is exactly what you describe: Live below your means.

This book talks about it pretty extensively, absolutely incredible read, really helped me increase my respect for Musk tremendously:

https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/0062301233

Of course, much of that could have changed since then. It looks like the glass door rating for SpaceX has climbed a point or so since I looked at it about a year ago, so maybe there's been some change. One of my favorite Musk passages from the book has Musk talking about how he was disappointed that barely anybody was coming into work on the weekends any longer.

Actually we probably agree on most things (except the rioting, my heroes have always been pacifists Frederick Douglas, Susan Anthony, Thoreau, Gandhi and King). I have ordered the Marjorie Kelly book you recommended. You might be interested in this podcast or this book. I was suggesting we write to our representatives as a small step but most people I know are too lazy or brainwashed to even attempt any action. Good luck with the unionizing - here's some inspiration

> No I totally understand, and I agree that will bring some jobs (although I'm not sure I agree it's good foreign policy).

Oh, I agree 100%. I think it's a terrible, terrible plan. Which overall will cost us in more ways than just money.

> All I'm saying is that the majority of the benefit will not go to the workers, but rather to the owners, so the return for the blue collar workers we're talking about would be lower than you may think.

Again, I agree. However, that doesn't change that the complaint is minimum wage jobs. So this arrangement could easily bring $15-$20/hour blue collar work while the owner still makes most of the money with a lower tax bracket than their employees.

As a policy, I think it's garbage. But this plan does meet the proposed criteria of creating new & "good" jobs. The fact that the owner profits the most by a large margin or that the middle class still disappears or that international relationships everywhere would crumble is all true, but that's not what OP is discussing.

BTW, I'm not forecasting so much as I am remembering history. For a clearer picture of this type of manipulation under Reagan, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a very good read.

The Millionaire Next Door is good reading for anyone serious about upwards mobility. It quashes a lot of the ideas the poor/middle class have about the rich.

You gotta stop looking at someone with a 60k car and saying "Wow! They have a 60k car!". Instead think "Wow! They spent 60k on a car."

If you dont have patience for a book. This is one of the best things I have ever read about money and I try to revisit it every few months:

https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/the-psychology-of-money/

You speak about this like its some blockbuster revelation, you do understand he wrote a book about this, no?

​

https://www.amazon.com/Trump-Art-Comeback-Donald-J/dp/0812929640

​

Trump's story begins when many real estate moguls went belly-up in what he calls the Great Depression of 1990.  Trump reveals how he renegotiated millions of dollars in bank loans and survived the recession, paving the way for a resurgence, during which he built the most successful casino operation in Atlantic City, broke ground on one of the biggest and most lucrative development projects ever undertaken in New York City, and outsmarted one of South America's richest men for rights to the Miss Universe pageant.

Hood rich is buying stuff you can't afford but you can make payments. Another name is the 30K millionaire. They make 30K a year, but you would think they look like a millionaire via a new Lexus, nice ass house, designer sunglasses, etc. So Joe Blow makes 3K a month, but his house payment is $1800, his car is $600, insurance is $200, and credit card minimum payments is $400 He can't afford lunch, but he looks cool.

You should read this : http://www.amazon.com/The-Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising/dp/1589795474

You might be interested in reading his biography :)

It's extremely well written, I highly recommend it

http://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/0062301233

Yeah, this is very true. We've been blackmailing foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and giving contracts to American business for over a half-century. A really good read on how this topic: Confessions of an Economic Hitman - John Perkins.

If you just want a good read, I recommend Dealers of Lightning. It does a great job covering Xerox PARC's influence on computing through its history.

Good book on the wealthy: Richistan. Some people get wealthy with their professions and buy saving money. Plumbers, doctors, dentists, electricians, engineers. It can be done through steady investing and saving.

Some people have heard of this book: The Millionaire Next Door. People with family businesses who make good money and still live simple and drive older cars and don't flash their cash.

https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474

Didn't we already know this from the interviews with Trump and Ivanka as well as the book that he wrote about the recession?

Ivanka being interviewed about Trump in debt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCer9g-fh8o

Book: https://www.amazon.com/Trump-Art-Comeback-Donald-J/dp/0812929640

>Six years ago real estate developer Trump (Trump: The Art of the Deal, LJ 2/15/88) was several billion dollars in debt, owing in part, he says, to his complacency and the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Now, thanks to some skillful negotiating, hard work, and luck, he says he is back. Trump's goal for this third book is to provide "inspiration" for almost anyone, and some of his top-ten comeback tips are to play golf, stay focused, be paranoid, get even, and always have a prenuptial agreement. He even includes investment and marital advice he has offered to friends and acquaintances, e.g., "If he doesn't lose the ballbreaker, his career will go nowhere." Trump comes across as smug, crude, and self-impressed, but one remains fascinated with his business acumen. He dislikes shaking hands because it spreads germs and even informs readers to "simply bow" if they ever meet him. Recommended for curiosity seekers.?Bellinda Wise, Nassau Community Coll. Lib., Garden City, N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This isn't news.

Not exactly what you're looking for, but I'd like to recommend Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

Here is a short (2 min) cartoon video that covers the main theme of the book: The Economic Hitmen

I'd also recommend The Forever War.

Lumpy, you are spot on once again...The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealth...most rich folks spend less than they earn and live simple lives...the banks want the pretenders who think being rich is driving expensive cars and living in expensive homes decked out with expensive stuff...

General Greeting: I'm 34m, engaged, no kids in our plans. Have lived in Orlando for 16 years since college, and have been making websites and working in software engineering since high school. I absolutely love teaching people how to code and lucked into joining Code School (as you would easily discover looking at my post history).

What brought you to /r/fi: After my mom passed away ~11 years ago, I started reading everything I could to understand what to do with the modest inheritance. This led to reading things like The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing, The Millionaire Next Door and eventually MMM which helped refine and shape my view of investing, consumerism and the role of money in my life.

Other hobbies/interests:: I listen to a lot of audiobooks, and challenge myself to read/listen more. Recently started a site (minafi.com) to write about topics different from my day to day -- minimalism, financial independence and mindfulness. It's been fun having another avenue to write about things that are at the top of my mind, and explore something different from programming. Bunch of other common hobbies - CrossFit, board games, cocktails, eating anything and traveling anywhere.


Picture of yourself if you want: Somehow even though I'm crazy open with personal facts, sharing a photo seems quite intimate. I don't think I've done that before on Reddit, but here goes!.

Along with The Intelligent Investor I would like to recommend One Up On Wall Street as another one I would recommend.

How to Fail at Everything and still Win Big

Love this book. Really helped me gain some perspective and approach challenges in a different way.

Nice!

For Musk fans I highly recommend Ashley Vance's bio of Musk: Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. I did a review of Vance's book.

This is awesome.

I love Doom and still remember the first time I played it. It totally changed gaming for me but then it totally changed gaming - period. Fans of Doom, the time period, and gaming in general would do well to pick up Masters of Doom - excellent book!

A lot of people would kill to be in the position you are in. You have an opportunity to model a business by simply copying one of the most successful businesses in history. Starbucks. Which was started basically by one guy and now is worth more than most small countries. If you can replicate even 80% of what they do you have a very high chance of success.

> step back, bring on a co-founder who is willing to be the operating owner who can run the day-to-day

pipe dream

Instead, implement systems and hire managers.

recommended resources

https://www.restaurantowner.com/

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Audiobook/B002V1LGZE

https://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591845572

http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Critical-Business-Skills-for-Success-Audiobook/B00UY842O8

https://www.amazon.com/Pour-Your-Heart-Into-Starbucks/dp/0786883561/

So stop being a pussy and get back to work.

> ...the VERY rich drive old cars, because they don't see any need to get a new one as long as the old one runs fine. They wear scruffy, well-loved clothes. They live in old houses and don't worry about maintenance...

That entire theme is the subject of the book The Millionaire Next Door. The researchers found that is how most of the 'liquid' wealthy live. Never buy a brand new car. Living in a sensible 30 year old single-family home, etc.

wow.....good find.

that's going into my clippings. We should do a piece.

A white super hero wouldn't make sense seeing as they do not care about human rights http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-C-I-Interventions-II--Updated/dp/1567512526/ they hate freedom http://www.amazon.com/Overthrow-Americas-Century-Regime-Change/dp/0805082409/ and they despise justice Confessions of an Economic Hit Man | http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/0452287081/

What is it you want to study at university? I did bio, chem, physics and math and I hated every single subject. They ultimately didn't matter when I went to study law. However, I'm pretty sure I would have hated literature, history and geography too.

My point is, it's two years. If you haven't already decided what you want your career to be, I'd say suck it up and go with the subjects (which are simply a glorified way of filtering academically inclined students) which give you the most options later. Your parents are right in that A level humanities aren't as useful as sciences in terms of options, but it doesn't matter if you already want to do law and are 100% sure you won't change your mind, for example.

That said, I had no idea wtf I wanted to do at that age, so I kept my options open. It's a systems building outlook for success - you make sure you are able to exploit opportunities that come along by acquiring as many skills/options as possible. Scott Adams has written quite a good book about it.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Fail-Almost-Everything-Still-ebook/dp/B00COOFBA4

That's great! What were your main points or most fascinating things about him that came up in your research? I've just finished the Ashlee Vance biography on Musk and it was a very intriguing read.

Besides case books, I'm currently reading Trading Bases. I just started it, but it's pretty good so far.

Thanks! I'll definitely check it out. For financial purposes my friend told me to read The Millionaire Next Door. http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474

Read the book The Millionaire Next Door

Second: teach yourself to save a PERCENTAGE of your income. Don't care about the amount, care more about the percentage. If you teach yourself to save 10% (for example) and increase it with time, that will be great. We all ignore this because at the very beginning of work life the 10% is in pennies, but if you committed to it, you will keep doing it when your salary is twice as much.

Here are some books to read...
I Will Teach You to Be Rich - Ramit Sethi

or...The Millionaire Next Door

I recommend an online savings account and throw away the ATM card for it. This makes it easy to add money to. Also, if you ever think about taking money out, it will take you 48 hours to get the cash so it will really make you think about doing it.

Your quote and mindset resonate with The Millionaire Next Door.

When assessing a purchase that I feel I shouldn't make so easily, I sometimes compare want to need. I really want to buy that iPad Pro because it has a larger screen with the stylus, but I already have an iPad Air 2 and even then I don't use it that much, therefore it doesn't look like I really need the iPad Pro. Everyone's posting cool videos of drones, I want to buy a $500 drone, but I don't really need it. It's helpful when I see all these "deals" online that I feel I should take advantage of.

Actually, a good portion of the extremely wealthy act in frugal ways. This is what helped lead to their wealth. It was explored in the book The Millionaire Next Door.

> Both of Sam's fundamental moral values and his criticism of Trump.

Sams Morals are freely chosen and arbitrary utilitarian constructs. You can not derive an Ought from an Is.

> Sam believes that Trump was never as successful as he pretended. This is a pretty big deal, since that was one of the major selling points of Trump.

That is demonstrably false.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/mar/22/donald-trump/trump-says-illegal-immigration-down-61-percent-ele/

Some estimates are up to 90%. Thus, without placing a brick or spending a single dollar, through sheer persuasion, he has decreased illegal immigration by a massive margin. If I remember correctly, Sam ignored this when this was pointed out on the podcast.

The topic of failure is interesting for a persuader, and there is a deeper conversation to have here. Remember, Scott's big book is literally,

> "How to fail at everything, and still win big".

https://www.amazon.ca/How-Fail-Almost-Everything-Still-ebook/dp/B00COOFBA4

He even jokes in the video here, that he will call his religion, "Failology". Basically the two summarized points are,

• Trump sets up his failures to benefit him, or at worst, not hurt him.
  
• Trump engages in a lot of A B testing, which by design will lead to many failures before reaching a success.
  
  > In the podcast there were some more examples brought up, but now maybe you will have a chance to teach me something, because I don't remember Scott asking Sam about why it's bad to lie or why Trump's lies are bad, and I definitely don't remember him refusing to answer. Could you point me to that part?
  
  I will consider it, as that will require me to listen to the podcast again, and mark the timestamps. Definitely a fair request. I will save the thread and get back to you if I do. Feel free to hang your hat up until then.

Non-technical:
Masters of Doom and Dungeons and Dreamers are both great for connecting the dots - seeing how "two guys in a garage" becomes a real game company.

Postmortems from Game Developer: Insights from the Developers of Unreal Tournament, Black and White, Age of Empires, and Other Top-Selling Games is a master class in how not to do project management - and very entertaining.

this is a pretty good book about a guy who started out average in pretty much every way and made it great: https://www.amazon.com/How-Fail-Almost-Everything-Still-ebook/dp/B00COOFBA4

the basic idea is you can never stop grinding, fail fast, fail forward, and eventually something will stick

Can we trust Eric Holder? Why did Obama appoint this guy as Attorney General?

“Most notorious was his role defending the food giant Chiquita Brands International, Inc., whose multimillionaire executives were facing potential charges of aiding terrorism because of their financing and arming of right-wing death squads in Colombia. Using his Justice Department connections—and taking advantage of the Bush administration's sympathy for the Colombian fascists

—Holder managed to get Chiquita off the hook with a small fine, despite overwhelming evidence that it had hired gunmen to kidnap, torture and murder Colombian workers, peasants and union officials.”

http://www.inteldaily.com/news/172/ARTICLE/9333/2009-01-20.html

According to John Perkins “Economic Hit Man” the Bush family owns a stake in Chiquita http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/0452287081/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216085881&sr=1-1

This company used to be United Fruit who was responsible for the 1954 coup in Guatemala. The coup over threw Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. Arbenz nationalized the land in the country taking it away from United Fruit to giving it back to the poor.
http://mrxfromplanetx.com/secret-government (1987 Bill Moyers PBS Documentary)

Jesse Ventura: “Politics is like pro wrestling.” On the camera they pretend to hate each other, but when they're off the camera they're all best friends and go out to dinner together http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7bCkfXlXcM

Here's a short list of what I would consider the cream of the crop as far as fundamental analysis books for a beginner:

Beating the Street

One Up on Wall Street

F Wall Street

Financial Times Guide to Value Investing


Getting Started in Value Investing

And of course

The Intelligent Investor

I suggest you take a couple days to read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising/dp/1589795474

It's quite telling and it debunks the idea that the majority of the wealthy are what is depicted in those pictures.

Also a great book: Lights in the tunnel; : http://www.amazon.com/Lights-Tunnel-Automation-Accelerating-Technology/dp/1448659817

This one focuses specifically on how to approach post scarcity without collapsing the economy. I'm not sure that it's the approach I 100% agree with, but we have to start the conversation somewhere. I'm hoping someone picks this one up to make a documentary out of it.

I've always wanted to read Masters of Doom. I don't have a credit card so I can't order it, and I haven't been able to find a torrent or anything of it. I would be pretty grateful if you could find it for me :)

Sorry, you don't understand how all those are connected together? Ok, I will be more than glad to inform you.

First, imperialism and its relationship to our recent foreign policy disasters:

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/18sirg/hubris_new_documentary_reexamines_the_iraq_war/c8hpd0t?context=3

Imperialism and its relation to Islamic terrorism:

http://www.independent.org/guncontrol/?s=twb

The economics of imperialism. What drives it, and its relation to neoliberalism:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0452287081

Please feel free to ask if you have any questions.

And I hope you don't go all like "WAAAaaah! Book learnin'? I don't need no stinkin' book learnin' Rachel MadCow and MSNBC tell me everything I need to know! WaaaaAAAh!" like so many of the BlackBushsheep are wont to do.

Read One Up On Wall Street You'll see how these companies are pretty much the last thing you want to invest in if you want to make real money. Huge companies have slow growth and therefore little payoff.

The one by Ashley Vance is great. I read it for a business entrepreneurship class.

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062301233/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_1t0TCbX2J50HJ

One of my favorite books makes great arguments for a lot of your points. He loves the idea of systems (over goals) but also dabbles in a lot of different things. I highly recommend reading it.