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).

> Do you have any recommendations for providers (beyond the list you gave)?

I use TD Direct Investing as my broker for both a non-ISA shares account, and an ISA account which is mostly shares rather than funds. I also use Sippdeal (AJ Bell) for my SIPP which does the same sort of thing (except I happen to be using their pension wrapper rather than an ISA wrapper) with a different fee structure.

If I was starting out today with an ISA I might use Charles Stanley Direct who have a reasonable price for holding a mixture of funds and shares, until you have about £20k, when some other options might be cheaper (their annual fee is a (low) percentage of your total assets but obviously costs more the more you have). Look for percentage fees if you only have (relatively) few assets and fixed fees if you have lots of assets.

If all I was doing was buying shares and not funds, and I only wanted UK shares (like RM etc), the cheapest option in or outside an ISA wrapper is probably x-o.co.uk, an execution-only no frills broker. But as a newbie you should not be buying shares in individual companies that you really know relatively nothing about (see comment below).

There is a decent comparison of costs of different brokers at http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/ ; Monevator is a good site overall and although it caters a bit more to the 'passive' investor rather than someone who trades shares or buys actively managed funds, due to the personal philosophy of those that run the site, the people writing there are pretty smart. Lots to keep you reading.

>I absolutely wouldn't sell then rebuy Royal Mail to move them into an ISA, I agree. Where do you think the Royal Mail stock is going to settle?

Exactly, if you had £1000 cash you would not buy RM shares now they have just spiked up 33+%. This tells you that if you have £1000 of RM shares you should not keep them. Where it settles is not relevant, you have just got gifted a free chunk of cash and that same day-one free gain is no longer available. If you want to gamble on it going up or down from here, you can, but you don't know what the odds are. So it is a game that mathematically you shouldn't bother playing. Sell the shares.

>Going forward I think I'd like to have about a 70/30 split between funds and shares picked myself (to practice investing, or something like that).

>Is this the right approach? I am trying to get into investing, and intend to put more money into it over the next few years. In your opinion, should I be focusing on funds and not holding some individual stocks myself?

Yes to the focusing on funds. A fund is a way of deploying £1000 into 100 companies across multiple geographic markets without getting out of bed and buying £10 worth of each of the 100 companies and paying £10 broker fees to buy each of them and £10 to later sell each of them, requiring each company to triple in value for you to even break even. Why would you want to access multiple companies? Diversification - you don't know which company will perform well or go bust. Why would you want to access multiple markets (USA, UK, Korea, China, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, Brazil)? Diversification, you don't know which country will perfom well or badly compared to your own.

There are different choices in funds with different exposures to different types of companies around the world. There are different strategies - if you buy a UK index fund you effectively put most of your cash in the largest UK companies so that when it says on the news that 'the FTSE 100 went up by 4% last month', your portfolio also went up by 4% because you have 70 quid of your thousand quid in each of HSBC and Royal Dutch Shell oil, and 2 quid in each of William Hill and Tate & Lyle, so your proportions mirror the index and overall your portfolio will move like 'the market'. Whether it is sensible to have over 30x the exposure to oil companies like Shell and BP than you have to sugar and milk companies like Tate or Dairy Crest, is another question entirely. But it is one option. Otherwise you can have an investment trust or a more 'actively managed' fund, where the management fees are higher but someone is making decisions to pursue a particular strategy to try to beat the market.

Reddit loves passive investing using indexes because it is easy and for Americans it can be tax efficient compared to active managers buying and selling underlying companies all the time. On the main /r/PersonalFinance forum they would tell you to just buy Vanguard index funds (extremely low fees, basic index tracking). Vanguard have a product called 'Lifestrategy' funds which you can get in the UK through the brokers I mentioned above. It is one fund which is a mix of different international indexes so you are not just following UK (your local index) or US (the biggest international one, half the investible world). Blackrock do a similar fund family called 'Consensus'.

The best thing you can do starting out with 3k in your ISA and wanting to get into investing, is spend a couple of percent of it on some books. Sure, best way to learn is by mistakes so you could buy some individual stocks. If they go up you will think it is easy and will learn nothing. If they go down it is an expensive lesson. So go with books.

Standard book recommendation for a UK newbie is Tim Hale's Smarter Investing ;new edition out this month, old edition now half price on Kindle.

I have that book, he is a huge fan of index investing / passive investing which as mentioned is only one way of doing it. But it's standard issue for a new investor.

A more balanced approach might be in Andy Bell's new book DIY investor, he owns AJBell which runs Sippdeal, Money AM, Shares mag, and diyinvestor.co.uk. Preview here . I haven't read it but the guy seems smart enough and the preview looks like what you want (i saw a promo link because as mentioned, I use SIPPdeal as one of my brokers/platforms). If you can sell your RM shares at a nice price, you might have enough for a couple of books and £250 free profit.

Hope that helps get you started, enjoy. Just don't count on next £250 being as easy as the last ;-)

[Obligatory "Edit: Thanks for the gold !!!1!!one!!!" ]

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.

Cryptocurrencies are the only monetary technologies that eliminate or work around counter party risk, instead of costly and (necessarily) imperfect mitigation. While it might seem like a small thing, in computer science this is the equivalent of finding the philosophers stone. It will allow such sufficiently advanced technology to emerge it will be indistinguishable from magic to those that don't understand the inner workings.

It's hard to imagine why this is important now, because it's never existed before. Hell it's the biggest reason so many people keep getting their coins ripped off, old habits die hard (almost happened to me but I got luck when my wallet host actually managed to refund me).

You have to try to imagine a world without the need for trust.

How much more could people be capable of if they didn't have to worry about chargebacks, identity theft, (hyper) inflation, banking externalities (bank profits should count against GDP it's pure cost of doing business with no upside once you have cryptocurrencies), etc?

Imagine if banking "just worked", flawlessly all the time. That's possible (implementation is going to take time and a massive investment but that's happening faster than I have ever seen before, complainers need to watch this) with cryptocurrencies, and not possible otherwise due to aforementioned counter party risk (Murphy's Law).

Richard Brown, one of IBM's chief financial architects explains what's possible (if you only click one link click this one) due to the discovery of a solution to the Bysintine Generals Problem, better than I ever could.

Cryptocurrencies aren't just "not stupid" they are actually "smart", as in programmable. On the blockchain nobody knows you are a refrigerator. The blockchain doesn't sit around just waiting for a human to interact with it, it's a complex system with a life of it's own, makes decisions, and adapts based on fitness functions. Users are just nodes in the decisions making tree.

Add all that together and you have an antifragile system, with the potential to become a black swan as we witness the world's first digital hyper-monetization event.

So if you want to get in on this revolution, if you think living in a world that's provably fair is cool and good, if you want to take a chance and be rich, if you value security and freedom, cryptocurrencies like Bitocoin are the only game in town. The good news is due to the adoption cycle, it's still in the very early adopter phase. Freedom really can cost a buck-o-five, then just wait a few years.

Sure it might fail, but really for the cost of a soda you can not only help it succeed but potentially make a shit ton of money doing so, it's the greatest hedge opportunity the world has ever seen.

I hoped that helped. Good question by the way even though you got downvoted, I know what you meant, thank you for giving me the opportunity to share. =)

Qualifications: grew up in a very modest (i.e. lower) part of town, parents worked in blue-collar professions, and started buying a rental property in the 1960's, then dad passed away (with four kids). Now definitely intergenerational wealth, all kids went to college in STEM, parents in their 90's (step-dad helped build up RE holdings to 36 units) with holdings in the 8-figures. No I haven't inherited any of it (yet) but well into middle age myself, make very good money (and will leave it at that), and have a few RE holdings.

> I'll have manager experience. I'm also reading a book called "real estate investing for dummies" and I just finished "rich Dad poor Dad"

Good for you, I didn't start reading books on anything finance related until well into my 20's, and then I read a lot of very good books. I don't think much of Kiyosaki, frankly, but as Brian Tracy said 'to earn more you must learn more'. So don't stop, keep on reading, and especially books over blog posts and short pieces. Why? Books will have more complex ideas and more research to back it up.

Regarding your game plan: you did not indicate what you are interested in doing, and what you do well, and what people will pay you to do, and what the world needs. Take a look at this ikigai graphic. Not sure if you know that welding or sales is this for you, and of course there are other things you may grow into. But hey if you have a good idea that this is the path you want to take, good for you!

I came here to say about sales, few salespeople are on Reddit, they are very busy making lots of money to talk about it. In my own (technical) sales field base runs from $65K up to $120K with another 40% commission, but you need to have the right background (STEM college degree, experience as a customer, and aptitude for outside sales) so barriers to entry are high. So yes, six figures in your late 20's is achievable, and it does take a lot of hard work, no doubt!

Of course owning your own business as a contractor, or becoming a top welder, or tons of other things you could do, I know of plenty of people who do very well.

Regarding the end goal, admirable, and I say your thinking is in the right place. The road to FI is varied - real estate is a very good method (the way my parents went, they bought low and held onto their properties in a HCOL area), investing into index funds another good method (again read books like Boglehead's Guide to Investing, or another favorite of mine on the sidebar called The Richest Man in Babylon) The amount these books can make you over five or ten years is a lot. Over 15 or 25 years is huge.

> Even if I don't get to enjoy it

I see many piling on here saying 'you should enjoy it' but I didn't interpret this comment in that way. You realize it's a road not many take (too many live way beyond their means, and don't have savings / passive income / true wealth to show for it). Yes there's sacrifice, and it takes a long time to build up $1,500 in monthly passive income much less $15,000, but people do this and often you cannot tell. (For example, look up the book The Millionaire Next Door.)

Are you on the right path? Definitely YES. The path to financial independence starts with a mindset, and the fact you are asking the question puts you out in front of all the peers of yours who are thinking about lots of other things, which you know all too well.

Will you make mistakes along the way? Of course, we are all human. The important thing is mindset, and the great thing of being younger is that you have time to make other choices, and learn along the way.

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.

> whether I can trust my money in these institutions

I don't know much about the Netherlands (although I'm here at the moment myself, only for a few weeks), but banks throughout the EU are well regulated.

Cash deposits up to €100,000 are protected and stocks you own will probably be held in trust, safely separate from the bank's own assets.

> Also, if I wanted to invest in stocks and businesses what are the great prospects, I assume it would be water engineering companies seeing as how they are the best in the world, right now, in The Hague I'd be 20 metres below sea if not for them.

Read some books about investing - picking stocks does not work for the vast majority of investors. [1, 2, 3]

Check out the book recommendations at the Bogleheads wiki - particularly Bogle's Little Book of Common Sense Investing or The Bogleheads' Guide To Investing. For newcomers to investing who are British /r/UKPersonalFinance usually recommends Tim Hale's Smarter Investing (which I thoroughly endorse), but I don't really know what to suggest for investors outside the UK and US. Watch Lars Kroijer's series of videos.

Going to the Netherlands and investing in water engineering companies sounds a bit like going to india to invest in curry - don't you think everyone's thought of that?

Let's say Bill Der Dyke opens a water engineering company and, after 20 years or so, has built it up so that it has €10,000,000 of assets and earns €1,500,000 annual profit; it floats on the stockmarket at the same time that Jim Van Meer floats his chain of supermarkets which has a €10,000,000 of assets and earns €1,000,000 annual profit. Do you think the shares of both companies will float for the same price? They each issue 1,000,000 shares - if you buy 10 shares of one company then you will expect to earn €15 per year in profits; if you buy 10 shares of the other company then you will expect to earn €10 per year in profits.

Why would you expect stock in these two companies to trade for the same price? If they floated at the same price then everyone would buy the stocks that earn €1.50 per share, and they would then not sell them as cheaply as the supermarket share - the price of the cheaper stock must rise until your €1 invested earns the same whichever asset it is invested in, except as adjusted for risk.

That final caveat in what I've just written underlies the entirety of what we can describe as investing, an activity which has existed literally since the bronze age or earlier. You cannot separate risk from returns and if you can earn the same returns as others whilst taking less risk then you are truly a superior investor.

Cool, learning is good. I’m a reader, I recommend picking up a book (fairly up to date one, at least one that was written post-internet era and is still generally applicable in the way option orders work, as it’s certainly different than what a book in the 80s would have said, if there was one). Choice is up to you, search the sub for “recommend books” or something similar and you’ll see plenty of suggestions.

IF you’re a reader, I say go for a book, you’ll read when you wouldn’t be looking online. Also, a good book already sold you, you bought it, and so it pushes no agenda, and the authors is incentivized by sales to have the most informative book, especially in the current retail market where people likely put equal or greater trust in strangers’ Amazon reviews than the vestiges of how it used to be pre-amazon and yelp, ie consumer reports, industry/hobbyist magazines, and word of mouth. I don’t know who the go to for book reviews was, I’m guessing NYT always ran a book critic column, and perhaps trading mags would have reviewed some. Big, needless tangent I’m writing here, but what a change. Anyway, point being, an author should generally just be out to be helpful as good reviews will drive sales. Free books (or even worse, this “Apiary fund” which is really a ‘school’ built to sap you money. See below for a note on the subject) are.not to be trusted, the adage there’s no such thing as a free lunch is pretty much always applicable to investing. Nobody is giving away trade secrets for free.

If you are tempted by a class of some sort, ideally look for something in your town or city that does community adult education. Generally it’ll be $10-50 for this sort of thing, depending on the length. The idea being, community centers and non profits are not trying to squeeze your money, so not only is the lesson cheap, it’s centered on teaching, not selling. Many “free” classes advertised (You’ll see RE investing most commonly, though no doubt people do it for options) are really excuses to get you in a room where you feel trapped and give you the hard sell. Usually some variation of, here’s a tiny bit of info, now to get the real secrets just pay $5000 for this week course, or something similar. Avoid these like the plague, they have no wisdom to offer and just want your cash.

Similar to community adult ed, university related classes also have no hidden agenda, so if you find an options course you could audit or mmmmm or something, you could go for it. I didn’t go to business school or major in economics or anything so I don’t know if they have whole classes on options, but perhaps at least one that covers the market along with options, maybe even futures.

But time-wise, you’ll get the info quickest reading online or reading a book, and you’ll learn quickest by doing, no amount of reading will prep you or teach you as trading will. But you want at least a good background.

For books, I can only recommend from what I’ve read. I’ve read I think 4, 2 stood out:

Understanding Options Ed. 2E by Michael Sincere. It’s not a very complicated book, it’s not teaching you ICs and jade lizards, but it gets you all the basics you need to ask smart questions.

The Only Options Book You’ll Ever Need by Russell Stultz, is my favorite. It starts simple, covering everything the simpler book does, and builds on that. It’s nicely out together for progressive learning, and if you read both, the first book you could eat in a day, and by the 4th chapter or so you’ll be ready to start trading. Then keep reading, since if you go too far with zero experience it’ll not actually stick.

Or, use the help bar here and its resources, the CBOE has great online teaching resources, as does Tastytrade, and others.

Hope that helps steer you in the right direction- good luck!

Well, the trick is to do one step at a time. Your goal is a very reasonable one, but you'll want to focus on the foundation first. For a non-programmer, I would recommend starting off with Code Academy or Coursera. The advantage of the second link is that it immediately provides you with a sense of direction while learning a language. Code Academy's Python tutorial is really nice in providing interaction with your code. Regardless, you'll want to first gain a sense of syntax on your language of choice.

After you're familiar with at least one language, the next most important thing is to become familiar with data structures and algorithms. This book on Amazon is amazing for giving beginner advice in the area: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1468108867

The book is not overly complex and mathematical compared to many other books, and it provides a fairly reasonable foundation for any beginner. If you ever want to practice writing basic algorithms out (optional), visit Codility's lessons to try things out. Once you can comfortably complete some of their lessons with a high grade and understand their topics, you should be ready to dive into the math/finance side. I feel that at this point, the Max Dama paper is a great way to get an overview of the basics. Regardless of the financial instruments you're trading (I've mainly worked with equities), you'll need a sense of portfolio management. Here's two books that may be worth running through:

http://www.amazon.com/Quantitative-Equity-Portfolio-Management-Construction/dp/0071459391

http://www.amazon.com/Expected-Returns-Investors-Harvesting-Rewards/dp/1119990726

They're both equities based (and I could be wrong here about FX), but it's probably a good idea to get a sense of how to measure returns. Regardless of the asset class you're planning to trade, all algorithms should be rigorously backtested and simulated (traded with virtual money) prior to being moved into production, and one of the best ways to improve your outcome is to know how to measure the returns and risks associated in your backtesting/simulations.

Hope this isn't too much information at once, but it should be a start. The first two courses throw-it-out mentioned in Coursera is a great start too.

Edit: I'd also take some time to browse some of the links on the sidebar in this subreddit. Some of those links are immensely helpful (especially the Statistical Learning one). Many of the strategy links are fairly easy reads and are recommended as well.

>The good traders GameKyuubi was wrong about only one thing: There aren't any good traders.

If you haven't seen a good trader yet, does that mean they do not exist?

Nobody had ever seen a black swan. For thousands of years, that meant that they didn't exist. Until someone saw one, of course.

You are running into a fundamental problem of inductive logic, and it's preventing you from seeing trading rationally. If you want to read more on how this matters to traders, I'd suggest The black swan by Nassim Taleb

>There are lots of us who believe we are good traders. But we aren't. Of course, some of the loudest voices on Reddit regularly remind us about how well they time the market. Except when they don't time the market well.

Here is the first misconception about trading. The best traders have never timed the markets. They utilize arbitrage opportunities, which exist in countless forms across every asset class, and rarely have anything to do with market timing.

I highly recommend reading The Quants if you're interested in learning how successful traders operate, as well as their history. It's not only extremely informative, but highly entertaining

>A paper published last October by the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley entitled "Do Day Traders Rationally Learn About Their Ability?" used nearly 15 years of stock market day trading data to conclude that all day traders are irrational, the vast majority of day traders lose money, and even when day traders are successful, they "irrationally attribute success disproportionately to their ability rather than luck."

Now this I agree with. The vast majority of traders are terrible at trading, and when they do win, it's because they are lucky, not because they are smart. One of the fundamental books on Wallstreet for understanding this is What I learned losing a million dollars

The entire story is about an extremely successful trader who lost everything on one bet, mainly because his entire life before that had been a string of extremely lucky coincidences, and he never realized it.

>Of course, their success was due to their unique trading ability and not the fact that the entire market rose like a rocket.

Keep in mind, the best traders are always benchmarked against an asset or index. This is called beta weighing. If you make less money trading then you would have from just holding the bench marked asset, you have effectively lost money from trading.

>Warren Buffett, the most successful investor of modern times, has often said that he only invests in what he knows. His preferred holding period: forever. With that model, his company, Berkshire Hathaway, has averaged a 19 percent annual return since 1965 which means it has risen more than 1 million percent.

There are a lot of reasons for Warren Buffet's success, but it's worth pointing out that it's a lot more complex than just picking a security and holding it forever. If you want to learn about value investing, and the fundemental analysis behind it, check out Security Analysis

It's written by Ben Graham, the guy who taught Warren Buffet everything he knows. Arguably the most important concept in the text is called [investing with a margin of safety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_safety_(financial)

Bitcoin definitely has intrinsic value. The problem is, nobody knows what that intrinsic value is worth. Since there is no currently known method of valuing a decentralized network (although progress is being made) Warren Buffet wouldn't touch bitcoin with a 10 foot pole, and if you want to invest in value, the way he has, you shouldn't either.

>Trading is no solution for intelligent people. What we need are new ways to use cryptocurrency.

Ouch man, that's harsh. I'm interested in why you correlate hodling with intelligence. IMO, there are dumb people hodling, and dumb people trading. Most of the time, it's those who form an opinion based on a single source, or worse yet a single quote, who are dumb. It's those that think in absolutes, and without a healthy degree of skepticism.

According to Ben Graham, it's not the speculators or the investors that are dumb. It's the people that can't tell the difference between the two.

EDIT: Sorry, typed this up real quick at work. Spelling and grammar mistakes everywhere.

Got it.. 1st, find out from your employer if they offer an employer match. Make sure you capitalize on that because that is free money. 2nd, 15% of your income should go into retirement (pref. after tax- better to get taxed on ex. $5,000 now, then to get taxed on $2 million when you retire and withdraw). There are two types of mutual funds, actively managed (have higher expense ratios) and index funds (lower expense ratios). Vanguard has tons of low cost index funds (thats what the author in millionaire teacher advises. He shows data in their also on how index funds have outperformed actively managed throughout history.

Dave recommends the current mix of funds:
Growth and income: These funds create a stable foundation for your portfolio. Brant describes them as big, boring American companies that have been around for a long time and offer goods and services people use regardless of the economy. Look for funds with a history of stable growth that also pay dividends. You might find these listed under the large-cap or large value fund category. They may also be called blue chip, dividend income or equity income funds.

Growth: This category features medium or large U.S. companies that are still experiencing growth. Unlike growth and income funds, these are more likely to ebb and flow with the economy. For instance, you might find the latest it gadget or luxury item in your growth fund mix. Common labels for this category include mid-cap, large-cap, equity or growth funds.

Aggressive growth: Think of this category as the wild child of your portfolio. When these funds are up, they’re up. And when they’re down, they’re down. This volatile growth usually accompanies smaller companies. "So small-cap funds are going to qualify—or even a mid-cap fund that invests in small- to mid-sized companies," Brant says. But size isn’t the only consideration. Geography can also play a role. "Aggressive growth could sometimes mean large companies that are based in emerging markets," he adds.

International: International funds are great because they spread your risk beyond U.S. soil. That way your retirement fund doesn’t totally tank if America goes through an unexpected downturn. It also gives you a chance to invest in big non-U.S. companies you already know and love. You may see these referred to as foreign or overseas funds. Just don’t get them confused with world or global funds, which group U.S. and foreign stocks together.

source: https://www.daveramsey.com/blog/how-to-invest-in-right-mix-mutual-funds

Hope this helps. If you would like more details on how to invest I'd be glad to send you millionaire teacher free (https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Teacher-Wealth-Should-Learned/dp/0470830069). Was actually written by a school teacher lol. I've been in your shoes and have always enjoyed guiding people. Seriously considering turning this into something I do on the side where I can help more people achieve financial freedom.

1. Yes - An ISA allows £20k tax free.
   
   
2. There are a lot out there. What you need to check for is how much does Natwest charge per transaction. i.e. to buy x number of shares how much does it cost. This kind of goes with your point 4. If you have £100 to invest, but it costs you £10 to buy and then £10 to sell you really only have £80 to actually buy the shares. Even if you bought £90 of shares, you would have to make 10% + just to get you back to £100, but then lose £10 when you sell them. So really you would need a 20% + profit just to break even after transactions !! If you manage to pick a share which is 20% + profit while your starting out - your very lucky :)
   
   
   Bottom line to buy shares and make it worthwhile you probably need £400+ - unless your happy to use the £100 just to test the waters and try things out. £400 would still cost £10 to buy and £10 to sell, but you would only need 5% profit to break even rather than 20%
   
   
   
   
3. Instead of buying shares which come with a £10+ transaction fee (buy and then sell) - take a look at funds. Funds are generally long term 10, 15, 20 years - but you pay a small yearly % fee instead of a one off payment like shares.
   
   
   
4. Dont buy a share based on its price - you need to research the company as you can buy partial shares.
   
   
   If your really really interested in shares over funds then read :
   https://www.amazon.co.uk/Naked-Trader-Anyone-Trading-Shares/dp/0857194135/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
   
   
   If you happy to look longer term, then read about funds / passive invetments - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Smarter-Investing-Simpler-Decisions-Financial/dp/0273785370/
   
   
   Both these books are regularly recommended across this sub.
   
   

YNAB flow chart.

First off - either in YNAB, Google Sheets, or with pen & paper - write out EVERYTHING you spend money on. Check your bank statement to help you. This
is what mine looks like.

Now, dig deeper if you haven't already . Don't just estimate how much you will spend on gifts - set a budget for those people you enjoy gifting to. What does that look like - how much are you spending? write it out! Set a budget for anyone you gift to! Here is mine.

Have Credit Card debt? Make sure to stop using those RIGHT NOW! Begin paying those off ASAP.

TIP: not sure how much your bills will cost you? OVER budget! My Electric bill is $22 a month in non summer months. but my bill come summer and the AC is on comes out to be $50-60 per month. So i budget $40 year round. This evens out. Be conservative on all your numbers.

Great! Forgetting anything? Add it when you think of it.

"Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship."

Once you have your expenses laid out - make sure you are spending less than you are making. YNAB won't help you if you don't help your self realize what your financial priority is. Is it makeup and shoes or is it Saving 6 month worth of an emergency fund & eventually a house. Be wise. Only you can help you.

Now that you know how much 1 month of living costs you and your debit is paid down or off - multiple the 1 month by 3months. Say the month costs you 3K x 3 = $9K Emergency Fund. Now you have a financial goal . /r/personalfinance can really help you determine what goal fits you best. This was just an example. I personally am trying to grow a 6 month E-fund.

Determine how quickly you can afford to meet that goal of a 3 month emergency fund. Will it take you 4 months or 12 months? How ambitious are you? Are you willing to not buy clothes for a few months? Again, this is where you have to determine YOUR goals and what track you want to be on. This has nothing to do with YNAB but read Rich Dad Poor Dad. Figure out what you want to do and want in life.

Once you have your expenses broken down into a monthly budget. Input that data into YNAB. Rent, Electric, Internet, - assign a monthly goal - why not? You know how much you need each month so assign the goal.

This is what my YNAB currently looks like. Organize yours how you see fit. I like to organize based on Priority and Due Date. It's just what works for me.

Notice "Gift Giving" This way doesn't work for everyone - some might say it's over kill but it's what works for me! It's what i need to realize my financial priority. I assign every gift a Goal by date - Generally 1 month before i plan to give the gift so i have 1 month to shop. Example i budget xmas for atleast November so i have 1 month to shop for gifts.

TIP: Don't buy anything makeup, shoes, etc impulsively. Add and Itemize everything to a Wish Farm Category . Hands down one of the best things I did. Makes you realize how many things you thought you wanted but for sure can live with out because there is other things you NEED.

If you have any questions let me know. YNAB has changed my life for the better - got me on the right track and I know you are on the right track just because you have posted on this sub but you have to commit to using YNAB DAILY!!!!! Every time you a financial transaction happens - log it! Every time you have inflow of cash (get paid) Assign every dollar to your true essentials not things that don't help you.


Don't neglect the YNAB blog - they have a bountiful amount of information on the proper way YNAB works.

Your rent is really quite high, but it's Vancouver so I get it.

One thing that looks possibly missing is budgeting for longer term or infrequent regular expenses. This might be things like:

1. Saving up to buy gifts for people at Christmas. Or just saving up because you know you will spend more at restaurants around the holidays.
   
   
2. Saving up for yearly vacations.
   
   
3. Any regular bills that are yearly rather than monthly. For me this is my rental insurance, but it sounds like you have this covered. A lot of people have yearly car registration fees as well, but I think you don't own a car? Either way, make sure you budget for any expenses like this so you aren't blindsided in January when you get a large bill that you didn't plan for.
   
   
4. Clothing purchases? Maybe this is falling under "personal enjoyment" for you, but clothes wear out.. You're going to need to replace them.
   
   
5. When you get a new cellphone every 4 years or whatever, do you buy a cheaper one on contract so there is no up front cost? Otherwise, you should budget monthly savings for this. And similar regular long-term purchases (Computer?).
   
   
   Perhaps not high on your list, but if it's your thing, setting some monthly budget for charitable donations is a good idea. Alternatively, just have a budgeted "flex" category that can include this, so that you aren't off-budget for random purchases ( within reason ).
   
   Move-out expenses: I've got about a $1000 bill for IKEA furniture in the 1 bedroom place I live in now. This did not include a bed ( additional ~$800). You can certainly do this cheaper (kijiji etc.), but budgeting $2000 or so would be a comfortable start. It sounds like you have the savings to do so. You'll want a good set of cookware, cutlery, plates, and kitchen knives as well, which could set you back a couple hundred, depending on quality and sales.
   
   Retirement savings: Typical suggestion is 10-20% of your pre-tax income. Since you have a defined benefit pension, you could aim for the low end, if you expect to stay in this position long enough to get full value out of the pension. $600 / month would not be a bad starting point. At 7% yearly growth, starting from zero, this would get you to savings of 1.5 million at age 65. 4% withdrawal rate gives a retirement income of $63,000 a year which inflation adjusts to about $30,000. Disregarding the DB pension, if you include CPP of ~$7000 / year, this would give you enough in retirement to more than cover your current expenses.
   
   For your current savings, you should keep an emergency fund of about 3 - 6 months income in a regular savings account that is easy to access. This is to cover you if something unexpected happens like you lose your job, or have to take extended time off to help a family member, or have some unexpected bills. As somebody who owns neither a car nor a house, your "unexpected bills" are likely to be less frequent and smaller, so you could aim for the lower range of this. I would keep at least $20,000 for an emergency fund though.
   
   For the rest of it, you need to decide what your long term goals are. If you intend to buy a car in near future (5 years), then you should keep an appropriate amount of money in a savings account, or other guaranteed instruments (such as GICs). GICs often (sometimes?) pay more interest than savings accounts, but have specific maturity dates. If you pull the money out before then, you forfeit all / some of the interest (depending on the terms of the particular GIC). If you think you will buy a car in 3 years, don't buy a GIC with a 5 year maturity date. If you intend to buy a house in the future, basically the same story. Keep the appropriate down-payment savings in a savings account or GIC so that there is no chance of losing it before you need it. Stock market investments are great in the long term, but for short term savings there is too much fluctuation, and you could be underwater when you need the money.
   
   If a car, house, or other large purchase (Planned big vacation, wedding, etc?) is not coming in the near future, then you should invest the rest for retirement. I recommend you pick up the book "A random walk down wall street" for more information about how you should be investing for retirement. The short version is to get a low-fee online brokerage account (I use TD direct investing), buy ETF index funds, and just hold them. No day-trading or "I think this will go down tomorrow, I'm going to sell and buy it back then!".
   
   

Growth is good, but you can do better by getting directly into the underlying funds themself. However, if you just choose 'growth' option, you'll be doing a lot better then most people who just ignore super completely and waste away a lot of potential earninigs.

It would be easy for me to say to you "just invest in X Y & Z", but the problem is that it would be much better for you, if you took the time to understand why I would be telling you that in the first place. Learning about investments properly and having a competent understanding will change & improve your life a great deal and will give you a big edge over other people your own age.

I highly recommend that you find & read this book:- https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Teacher-Wealth-Should-Learned/dp/0470830069

I recommend this book specifically because I have found it is very easy to read and not intimidating for anyone from a non-financial background. I used to give this book to staff members who worked for me in a previous job where I had a lot of 18-25 year old staff members reporting to me, and they all said they wish information like this had been taught in high school.

There are other books you could read of course, but I have found this one is the best for people who are "newbies" to dealing with finance, wealth & investments.

Of course, I'm happy to answer any other questions you might have.

Well, you're already many steps ahead of most people twice your age if you can see this already. :)

What I did was the 9 to 5 (...er 6 to 10 sometimes) for ~5 years to see how businesses work and gain skills. Now that I've gained that knowledge, I'm taking what I never could have learned on my own without that experience and starting my own company doing similar work as a consultant but where I can make sure to always hold true to my values, not work 6 to 10, and live more simply. That's my hope anyway, wish me luck! Just wanted to say if you do end up working a 9 to 5, it can be temporary.

The advice other have given for r/financialindependence and r/leanfire subs are great. Also, don't take out loans for more $ than you actually have if possible, and save your money in something like mutual funds so inflation doesn't eat up your savings like it would sitting under your mattress. Lastly, I highly recommend this book, see if your library has it for free.

Best of luck, please know that all of life is a journey. You feel confused now, but don't expect to ever 'have it all figured out'. You'll continue to learn, adjust, and grow through your 30s and, presumably, beyond.

\> This is not a financial problem, this is a trauma problem.

Perfectly said.

OP, in therapy you can talk about your experiences growing up with financial worries. A good therapist can help you explore how those experiences affected you and help you identify the narratives you tell yourself as a result.

It sounds like the financial hyper-awareness has actually served a very useful purpose for you so far. You did well in school and worked your way into a good career. But there's a saying: "What got you here won't get you there." Now your anxiety around finances is holding you back, and you would be better served by spending less energy worrying about finances while still putting a plan in place to responsibly manage your finances.

A therapist can also help you retrain your thinking. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one type of therapy which is aimed at retraining negative automatic thoughts. You identify negative thoughts and write them down, then apply techniques from the CBT toolbox to understand why those thoughts are distorted and replace them with more adaptive thoughts that better reflect reality.

The key point is that your brain won't let you simply choose to stop thinking a negative thought, because there's usually a kernel of truth. You need to replace the negative thought with a new thought that also true but is more adaptive.

So for example, when you think:

\> I'm suddenly gonna lose all my money at the blink of an eye

You can write that thought down, then look at a list of cognitive distortions and identify things like "all or nothing thinking" and "jumping to conclusions". From there you can identify potentially useful CBT techniques. Some techniques work better for certain types of cognitive distortions. So you might try techniques like exploring "What's the worst that would happen? How would I need to react if I actually lost all my money?", or you might try keeping count of unwanted thoughts to make yourself better at noticing them as they appear. There are dozens of techniques.

I'll note that studies have actually shown that CBT from a book can be just as effective as CBT with a therapist. I'd recommend finding a therapist if you're able, because they can help in ways that a book can't. But it's worth mentioning for anyone who isn't able to see a therapist, or isn't sure whether their therapist is any good.

You can just open up the book, start reading, and do the exercises. The key is that you can't just skim the book. You have to actually do the work and write down your answers.

Here's a good book on CBT:

https://www.amazon.com/When-Panic-Attacks-Drug-Free-Anxiety/dp/076792083X

Here is a good blog post on how to find a therapist:

https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2016/04/17/howto-therapy-what-psychotherapy-is-how-to-find-a-therapist-and-when-to-fire-your-therapist/

Finally, one way to feel more in control is to learn more about managing your finances. I'd recommend reading a good book on personal finance, like this one:

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

And then I'd recommend writing out an "investing policy statement". Basically it's a written statement describing your financial goals and long term plan of how to attain them. You're effectively writing instructions for your future self. This can help put worrying to rest. For example, you can consult the statement to remind yourself that you planned to save $___/month toward a house and $___/month toward retirement. If you are meeting your goals, you shouldn't feel guilty about spending money on things you enjoy.

Here's a blog post describing an investing policy statement:

https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/how-to-write-an-investing-personal-statement/

Disclaimer: I'm mid20s guy with less invested in shares than I have in my super. The following is what I did to get started in investing which sounds like you're about where I was a year or two ago.

First of all; depending on your circumstances be aware that ING Direct's or ME Bank's savings accounts are currently giving 3.00% interest which might be better than your term deposit if you don't want to go whole hog into shares right away. (ING Direct also does $50 bonus referral codes so expect a flood of PMs now that I've mentioned this)

-----
As for books:
/r/FI's wiki makes some good recommendations from what I've read of them

>Investing

>* The Bogleheads Guide to Investing

• A Random Walk Down Wallstreet
  
• The Four Pillars of Investing
  
• The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns
  
• Millionaire Teacher: The Nine Rules of Wealth You Should Have Learned in School -- Suggestion - Ignore Rule 9 regarding individual stock picking.
  
• The Intelligent Investor -- Caution - Embark on individual stock ownership at your own risk.
  
  The lowest barrier to entry would be that "acorns" app but I strongly recommend taking the couple days to make a CMC account or some other online brokerage with low fees and buy ETFS through that instead so that you're actually learning how it all works and not just pressing buttons on an app. Link it up with free Sharesight account for pretty graphs and easy tax reporting and that should teach you more about "having a share portfolio" than the majority of the population.
  
  Obviously this subreddit and /r/fiaustralia in the sidebar are worth keeping an eye on for insight from people with more skin in the game than me.
  
  -------------------
  
  Now, the other option is you want to ACTIVELY trade that $1k. If you've read some of Bogle's explanations on why that's a bad idea, realised you'll be competing against people with much bigger budgets and a full time job anaysing these things and understand that even at CMC's low $13 flat fee you're losing 1.3% of your $1k packet with every trade then you'll need advice from someone other than me.
  
  Personally the best investment I think I have made so far was my $1k of "beer money" that I threw into bitcoin. Not because it made a good return, but because after months of careful analysis, frequent trading and keeping an ear to the ground on new alt coins I turned my 3.5 bitcoin into 1.05. I didn't end up losing a cent thanks to other factors but seeing how badly my "high risk, high gain, actively managed portfolio" went I'm ecstatic that I learned my lesson with $1k and not with my self-managed super fund at 57 y/o like several people I know.
  
  TL;DR: Anything by John Bogle

Read. All the famous investors started reading at a young age and read ferociously (ok maybe not all but most).

Go to the library if you can, they generally will have all the quality investing tomes, without some of the "get rich quick manuals" which only benefit the authors.

Here is a few books to start with:

• The Four Pillars of Investing
  
• The Intelligent Investor
  
• The Bogleheads Guide to Investing You could start here. Pretty good introduction.
  
• A Random Walk Down Wall Street
  
• The Richest Man in Babylon (PDF) This is a quick read, and more a story than anything. Still worth it.
  
• [The Little Book of Common Sense Investing] (http://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Common-Sense-Investing/dp/0470102101/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=16QN03Q9GFZ6NG5PPJ6P)
  
  Most of this stuff is investment theory. To be a successful investor as an average American, without a job in the finance industry, you probably don't have to read all of those books. If you really want to get into investing, that's a good place to start.
  
  Also, the Bogleheads book is a great one to start with because you can decide if you really are interested in investing. If not, that book is good personal financial advice regardless who you're getting paid. It will benefit the regular American.
  

>The purpose of this post is help new investors. Often times we may be asked by a friend or family member what they should invest in. They can be easily turned off by throwing multiple FAQs and guides at them. I have found that for a new investor, reading through wikipedia pages on lazy or 3-fund portfolios can be daunting. Reading books on the subject can be over the head of most people as well, if they do not have a finance background. Understanding stocks and bonds as well as the overall market is difficult so don't feel bad about not understanding it. I will try to keep this as short and sweet as possible. Hopefully you can link friends or family who are just starting off with investing to this post to set them on the right path. This information is covered in the FAQ very briefly without much explanation, however. Hopefully others can add insights that could be helpful for readers of this guide or additional questions to add on if they come up.
>
>Disclosure: I am not a financial adviser. I do not work in the financial sector. I do invest in some of the funds that may be listed in this guide. I did not author/publish any recommended books in this guide. I am also not a CPA. This guide is not intended to discuss tax planning.
>
>#Why should I invest?
>
>You should invest in order to help your money grow. Without growth from investing, it would be impossible for most people to retire. 401ks, IRAs, Pensions, and even Social Security all rely on investment returns to meet their obligations.
>
>#Isn't investing risky? How can I be sure I'm not going to lose everything?
>
>Investing doesn't have to be very risky. If you are investing in a single stock and that company goes out of business, then you can lose a lot of money. This is why diversification is important. It like the saying goes, "never put all your eggs in one basket." If they basket breaks then all your eggs break. If you invest in thousands of companies or put your eggs in thousands of baskets then you are much less likely to lose your investment and are quite more likely to gain money. For example, since it was started in 1994 the LifeStrategy growth fund listed below has grown 8% on average per year and invests in thousands of stocks and bonds, international and domestic.
>
>You may think that a 1% high yield savings account is a "safe investment." However, if inflation is over 1% per year, which it often is, it means that you are actually losing purchasing power on that money in the savings account.
>
>Even if you started investing right before a major financial crisis, you would still have more money than a very high yield savings account: Chart
>
>#I Know absolutely nothing about investing, what stocks should I buy?
>
>Target Date Fund or Lifestyle Fund. These are ALL-IN-ONE solutions for investing.
>
>Step 1: Open an account with Vanguard if you don't already have one.
>
>CLICK HERE to determine a good Target date fund for you. How a target date fund works is that it starts off with a higher percentage of stocks to bonds such as 90/10 and then moves toward 50/50 as you near the target date.
>
>For Lifestyle Funds:
>
>the Vanguard LifeStrategy Growth Fund is a solid choice that gives you an 80/20 stock to bond ratio.
>
>the Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth Fund is also a good choice for a 60/40 stock to bond ration.
>
>Vanguard can make a personalized recommendation for you as well if you aren't sure
>
>in general the higher amount of bonds you have, the less risk but lower growth potential your investment will have.
>
>#Shouldn't I listen to a financial adviser instead of some stranger on reddit?
>
>Well That depends on a few things:
>
>How much money is this financial adviser gaining from your business? I am gaining zero, so I have no reason to steer you wrong. Some times a financial adviser is out to make significant commissions by landing business, especially in extremely high fee "investments" such as whole life insurance or similar policies. Even 1% fees to hold and manage your investments can take a huge bite out of your account over time.
>
>Fee based advisers are the kind that you pay for an appointment, much like a doctor visit, and then they give you advice on your investments. Try to make sure however that they do not try to advise you into using investment vehicles that they receive commission from. These can be helpful in certain situations because you aren't throwing away money for years and years just to have an adviser handle your money.
>
>Consumer Reports says this could happen with some financial advisers. Basically they use their positions and your lack of knowledge to get you to invest in things to make them more money, costing you dearly in the long term.
>
>#Why are you suggesting Vanguard? What about other banks / brokerages?
>
>I find Vanguard the easiest to use. They also are structured to keep your investments safe. Once you reach a $50,000 with them, you have access to professional advisers. Unlike other banks/brokerages the advisers at Vanguard DO NOT RECEIVE COMMISSIONS. They are salaried so they have no reason to steer you wrong. Source
>
>Vanguard also has some of (if not the) lowest fees in the industry. This saves you money in the long term vs using other institutions or a financial adviser to manage your money.
>
>#Are there other investments besides these All-in-one funds?
>
>Yes, of course. Here are some more examples of portfolios that you could use as well:
>
> Examples of so called "Lazy Portfolios"
>
> These are some 3 fund portfolios
>
>
>#Are there any good books I could read to understand these investments more?
>
>Book recommendations:
>
> The Bogleheads Guide to Investing
>
> The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need: The Way Smart Money Invests Today
>
> Book List from Bogleheads wiki
>
>

>The purpose of this post is help new investors. Often times we may be asked by a friend or family member what they should invest in. They can be easily turned off by throwing multiple FAQs and guides at them. I have found that for a new investor, reading through wikipedia pages on lazy or 3-fund portfolios can be daunting. Reading books on the subject can be over the head of most people as well, if they do not have a finance background. Understanding stocks and bonds as well as the overall market is difficult so don't feel bad about not understanding it. I will try to keep this as short and sweet as possible. Hopefully you can link friends or family who are just starting off with investing to this post to set them on the right path. This information is covered in the FAQ very briefly without much explanation, however. Hopefully others can add insights that could be helpful for readers of this guide or additional questions to add on if they come up.
>
>Disclosure: I am not a financial adviser. I do not work in the financial sector. I do invest in some of the funds that may be listed in this guide. I did not author/publish any recommended books in this guide. I am also not a CPA. This guide is not intended to discuss tax planning.
>
>#Why should I invest?
>
>You should invest in order to help your money grow. Without growth from investing, it would be impossible for most people to retire. 401ks, IRAs, Pensions, and even Social Security all rely on investment returns to meet their obligations.
>
>#Isn't investing risky? How can I be sure I'm not going to lose everything?
>
>Investing doesn't have to be very risky. If you are investing in a single stock and that company goes out of business, then you can lose a lot of money. This is why diversification is important. It like the saying goes, "never put all your eggs in one basket." If they basket breaks then all your eggs break. If you invest in thousands of companies or put your eggs in thousands of baskets then you are much less likely to lose your investment and are quite more likely to gain money. For example, since it was started in 1994 the LifeStrategy growth fund listed below has grown 8% on average per year and invests in thousands of stocks and bonds, international and domestic.
>
>You may think that a 1% high yield savings account is a "safe investment." However, if inflation is over 1% per year, which it often is, it means that you are actually losing purchasing power on that money in the savings account.
>
>Even if you started investing right before a major financial crisis, you would still have more money than a very high yield savings account: Chart
>
>#I Know absolutely nothing about investing, what stocks should I buy?
>
>Target Date Fund or Lifestyle Fund. These are ALL-IN-ONE solutions for investing.
>
>Step 1: Open an account with Vanguard if you don't already have one.
>
>CLICK HERE to determine a good Target date fund for you. How a target date fund works is that it starts off with a higher percentage of stocks to bonds such as 90/10 and then moves toward 50/50 as you near the target date.
>
>For Lifestyle Funds:
>
>the Vanguard LifeStrategy Growth Fund is a solid choice that gives you an 80/20 stock to bond ratio.
>
>the Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth Fund is also a good choice for a 60/40 stock to bond ration.
>
>Vanguard can make a personalized recommendation for you as well if you aren't sure
>
>in general the higher amount of bonds you have, the less risk but lower growth potential your investment will have.
>
>#Shouldn't I listen to a financial adviser instead of some stranger on reddit?
>
>Well That depends on a few things:
>
>How much money is this financial adviser gaining from your business? I am gaining zero, so I have no reason to steer you wrong. Some times a financial adviser is out to make significant commissions by landing business, especially in extremely high fee "investments" such as whole life insurance or similar policies. Even 1% fees to hold and manage your investments can take a huge bite out of your account over time.
>
>Fee based advisers are the kind that you pay for an appointment, much like a doctor visit, and then they give you advice on your investments. Try to make sure however that they do not try to advise you into using investment vehicles that they receive commission from. These can be helpful in certain situations because you aren't throwing away money for years and years just to have an adviser handle your money.
>
>Consumer Reports says this could happen with some financial advisers. Basically they use their positions and your lack of knowledge to get you to invest in things to make them more money, costing you dearly in the long term.
>
>#Why are you suggesting Vanguard? What about other banks / brokerages?
>
>I find Vanguard the easiest to use. They also are structured to keep your investments safe. Once you reach a $50,000 with them, you have access to professional advisers. Unlike other banks/brokerages the advisers at Vanguard DO NOT RECEIVE COMMISSIONS. They are salaried so they have no reason to steer you wrong. Source
>
>Vanguard also has some of (if not the) lowest fees in the industry. This saves you money in the long term vs using other institutions or a financial adviser to manage your money.
>
>#Are there other investments besides these All-in-one funds?
>
>Yes, of course. Here are some more examples of portfolios that you could use as well:
>
> Examples of so called "Lazy Portfolios"
>
> These are some 3 fund portfolios
>
>
>#Are there any good books I could read to understand these investments more?
>
>Book recommendations:
>
> The Bogleheads Guide to Investing
>
> The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need: The Way Smart Money Invests Today
>
> Book List from Bogleheads wiki
>
>

>The purpose of this post is help new investors. Often times we may be asked by a friend or family member what they should invest in. They can be easily turned off by throwing multiple FAQs and guides at them. I have found that for a new investor, reading through wikipedia pages on lazy or 3-fund portfolios can be daunting. Reading books on the subject can be over the head of most people as well, if they do not have a finance background. Understanding stocks and bonds as well as the overall market is difficult so don't feel bad about not understanding it. I will try to keep this as short and sweet as possible. Hopefully you can link friends or family who are just starting off with investing to this post to set them on the right path. This information is covered in the FAQ very briefly without much explanation, however. Hopefully others can add insights that could be helpful for readers of this guide or additional questions to add on if they come up.
>
>Disclosure: I am not a financial adviser. I do not work in the financial sector. I do invest in some of the funds that may be listed in this guide. I did not author/publish any recommended books in this guide. I am also not a CPA. This guide is not intended to discuss tax planning.
>
>#Why should I invest?
>
>You should invest in order to help your money grow. Without growth from investing, it would be impossible for most people to retire. 401ks, IRAs, Pensions, and even Social Security all rely on investment returns to meet their obligations.
>
>#Isn't investing risky? How can I be sure I'm not going to lose everything?
>
>Investing doesn't have to be very risky. If you are investing in a single stock and that company goes out of business, then you can lose a lot of money. This is why diversification is important. It like the saying goes, "never put all your eggs in one basket." If they basket breaks then all your eggs break. If you invest in thousands of companies or put your eggs in thousands of baskets then you are much less likely to lose your investment and are quite more likely to gain money. For example, since it was started in 1994 the LifeStrategy growth fund listed below has grown 8% on average per year and invests in thousands of stocks and bonds, international and domestic.
>
>You may think that a 1% high yield savings account is a "safe investment." However, if inflation is over 1% per year, which it often is, it means that you are actually losing purchasing power on that money in the savings account.
>
>Even if you started investing right before a major financial crisis, you would still have more money than a very high yield savings account: Chart
>
>#I Know absolutely nothing about investing, what stocks should I buy?
>
>Target Date Fund or Lifestyle Fund. These are ALL-IN-ONE solutions for investing.
>
>Step 1: Open an account with Vanguard if you don't already have one.
>
>CLICK HERE to determine a good Target date fund for you. How a target date fund works is that it starts off with a higher percentage of stocks to bonds such as 90/10 and then moves toward 50/50 as you near the target date.
>
>For Lifestyle Funds:
>
>the Vanguard LifeStrategy Growth Fund is a solid choice that gives you an 80/20 stock to bond ratio.
>
>the Vanguard LifeStrategy Moderate Growth Fund is also a good choice for a 60/40 stock to bond ration.
>
>Vanguard can make a personalized recommendation for you as well if you aren't sure
>
>in general the higher amount of bonds you have, the less risk but lower growth potential your investment will have.
>
>#Shouldn't I listen to a financial adviser instead of some stranger on reddit?
>
>Well That depends on a few things:
>
>How much money is this financial adviser gaining from your business? I am gaining zero, so I have no reason to steer you wrong. Some times a financial adviser is out to make significant commissions by landing business, especially in extremely high fee "investments" such as whole life insurance or similar policies. Even 1% fees to hold and manage your investments can take a huge bite out of your account over time.
>
>Fee based advisers are the kind that you pay for an appointment, much like a doctor visit, and then they give you advice on your investments. Try to make sure however that they do not try to advise you into using investment vehicles that they receive commission from. These can be helpful in certain situations because you aren't throwing away money for years and years just to have an adviser handle your money.
>
>Consumer Reports says this could happen with some financial advisers. Basically they use their positions and your lack of knowledge to get you to invest in things to make them more money, costing you dearly in the long term.
>
>#Why are you suggesting Vanguard? What about other banks / brokerages?
>
>I find Vanguard the easiest to use. They also are structured to keep your investments safe. Once you reach a $50,000 with them, you have access to professional advisers. Unlike other banks/brokerages the advisers at Vanguard DO NOT RECEIVE COMMISSIONS. They are salaried so they have no reason to steer you wrong. Source
>
>Vanguard also has some of (if not the) lowest fees in the industry. This saves you money in the long term vs using other institutions or a financial adviser to manage your money.
>
>#Are there other investments besides these All-in-one funds?
>
>Yes, of course. Here are some more examples of portfolios that you could use as well:
>
> Examples of so called "Lazy Portfolios"
>
> These are some 3 fund portfolios
>
>
>#Are there any good books I could read to understand these investments more?
>
>Book recommendations:
>
> The Bogleheads Guide to Investing
>
> The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need: The Way Smart Money Invests Today
>
> Book List from Bogleheads wiki
>
>

You're still being quite general, but I'll answer the best I can.

To be honest, as a trader I mainly traded OTC (Over-The-Counter) interest rate products that are not available to trade for retail investors, so you learn most of it on the job, other than pricing and valuing the products themselves, which appears on textbooks, but nothing that can be of much use for a retail investor.

Each financial product is different, so although there are some "transferable" skills, it truly depends on what you are trading, but again, trading is very short-termist so I wouldn't recommend it to a retail investor in spite of all those guru books that sell you that you can be a successful day trader, you can't: you'll just bleed losses, bid-ask spreads, brokerage fees and short-term taxes, plus again there is no way you'll beat full-time pros.

In terms of learning Economics and Finance, I'm afraid I'm of little help because I learned it all during my degree and masters at a very in-depth, specialised level, purely through textbooks. Also, a lot of it is very theoretical and not sure if of much use for an amateur level, or for real life, for that matter.

I did watch quite recently a video by billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio, which explains quite well and succintly how the economy works. For those readers that don't speak English very well, if you go into Bridgewater's youtube account, you can find the video in different languages.

If what you refer to is equity investing, but not anything related to the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), I quite sympathise with the value investing approach. In that sense, books I'd recommend are:

• The Snowball by Alice Schroder
  
  
• The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
  
  
• Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd
  
  
• The Most Important Thing Illuminated: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor by Howard Marks
  
  Oh, and you'll have to learn public company accounting and valuation inside out, as well as get used to reading annual and quarterly company accounts (amongst other things) on a regular basis.
  
  The info sidebar of /r/SecurityAnalysis is probably a good starting point.
  
  Anyhow, the real and only way to learn about investing is to get down to it and put some money on the line. Books will only get you so far.

> 1. what are your recommendations for budgets for beginners? The ones on the wiki are slightly confusing to me

The main thing is to spend less than you earn. Certain exceptions for mortgages or college can be okay, but understand what you’re getting yourself into. If you feel like a more detailed budget with specific allotments for food/transportation/etc helps you, that’s fine, but spending less than you earn is the important part.

> 2. Any books/videos I should read/watch to get a good idea? I've watched a couple of people like Graham Stephan but that's about it

The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins. He wrote this book for his own daughter when she was starting her adult life. It covers the basics of investing, 401k’s, all that stuff, but also higher level concepts like why you should even care about personal finance at all.

> 3. I'm looking to open up an online bank account, credit card, and ROTH IRA soon and would appreciate which cards/index funds to go for vs which ones to avoid (I will be in the States)

Online bank account - whichever one offers the best combination of a high interest rate and convenience (ATM’s in your area, etc). Just google around.

Credit card - Given that you’re young without a credit history, the best credit card will probably be any card you can get, preferably one without an annual fee. Every credit card has a high interest rate, so be careful with it and pay your balance in full every month. If you pay the full balance then you won’t pay the high interest rate (or any interest). If you mess up and pay late or don’t pay at all you’ll damage your credit score and hurt yourself down the road (mortgages or other loans will be harder to get, and more expensive if you can get them at all).

Roth IRA - You can only contribute to this if you have earned income from a job, and cannot contribute more than you earn in a year. Assuming you have earned income, open a Roth IRA with Vanguard and invest it in VTSAX, which is a mutual fund containing small parts of the top 3000 company stocks in the US. You need at least 1k to start. You can contribute automatically every month or every pay day if you want. And the maximum allowed is 6k/year.

But you're most likely better off with growth stocks than reinvesting dividends. High-dividend stocks, in general, are established companies with steady earnings. Their stock prices don't move all that much, or at least don't match/beat the market. Of course there are exceptions, but for the most part you're choosing between huge growth potential and huge dividends. Imagine if you'd bought Google (no dividend) 5 years ago versus AT&T (huge dividend). You'd be way better off with Google, regardless of reinvesting that almost 6% dividend.

You really, really should look at index funds/ETFs. You'll get a nice mix of high-dividend stocks and stocks with high growth potential.

Think about it this way: You're young and just starting. This is the best time to be making good investment decisions, because right now is when your money has the most time to grow. If you make dumb decisions now then get smart when you're 35, you've lost 10 years of time. So you want to make the best possible decision now. Don't let youthful confidence make you think you know better than the tried-and-true advise. If investing in high-dividend stocks when you were young was the smartest strategy, that would be the tried-and-true advice... but it isn't. A three-fund portfolio of indexes is.

You're clearly doing the right thing starting young and seeking out advice. I'd suggest spending $15 and a day of time reading Bogelhead's Guide to Investing. It covers all the basics about what to look for, and explains why a three-fund portfolio is smart... so you can know for yourself instead of taking random internet advice. Pretty small investment of time/money to set yourself out on the right foot when it matters the most.

Entrepreneur Reading List

1. Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
   
2. The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
   
3. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
   
4. The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
   
5. The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win
   
6. Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers
   
7. Ikigai
   
8. Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition
   
9. Bootstrap: Lessons Learned Building a Successful Company from Scratch
   
10. The Marketing Gurus: Lessons from the Best Marketing Books of All Time
    
11. Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web
    
12. The Web Startup Success Guide
    
13. The Best of Guerrilla Marketing: Guerrilla Marketing Remix
    
14. From Program to Product: Turning Your Code into a Saleable Product
    
15. This Little Program Went to Market: Create, Deploy, Distribute, Market, and Sell Software and More on the Internet at Little or No Cost to You
    
16. The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully
    
17. The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth
    
18. Startups Open Sourced: Stories to Inspire and Educate
    
19. In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters
    
20. Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup
    
21. Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business
    
22. Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed
    
23. Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
    
24. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
    
25. Eric Sink on the Business of Software
    
26. Words that Sell: More than 6000 Entries to Help You Promote Your Products, Services, and Ideas
    
27. Anything You Want
    
28. Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers
    
29. The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business
    
30. Tao Te Ching
    
31. Philip & Alex's Guide to Web Publishing
    
32. The Tao of Programming
    
33. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
    
34. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
    
    

    Computer Science Grad School Reading List
    

    
    

35. All the Mathematics You Missed: But Need to Know for Graduate School
    
36. Introductory Linear Algebra: An Applied First Course
    
37. Introduction to Probability
    
38. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
    
39. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society
    
40. Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery
    
41. What Is This Thing Called Science?
    
42. The Art of Computer Programming
    
43. The Little Schemer
    
44. The Seasoned Schemer
    
45. Data Structures Using C and C++
    
46. Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs
    
47. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
    
48. Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming
    
49. How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computing
    
50. A Science of Operations: Machines, Logic and the Invention of Programming
    
51. Algorithms on Strings, Trees, and Sequences: Computer Science and Computational Biology
    
52. The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation
    
53. The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine
    
54. Computability: An Introduction to Recursive Function Theory
    
55. How To Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method
    
56. Types and Programming Languages
    
57. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Elementary Algorithms
    
58. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Mathematical Methods
    
59. Commonsense Reasoning
    
60. Using Language
    
61. Computer Vision
    
62. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
    
63. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
    
    

    Video Game Development Reading List
    

    
    

64. Game Programming Gems - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
    
65. AI Game Programming Wisdom - 1 2 3 4
    
66. Making Games with Python and Pygame
    
67. Invent Your Own Computer Games With Python
    
68. Bit by Bit

If you don't want to make a career out of trading, a helpful rule of thumb is a 90 / 10 principle popularized by Andrew Hallam in his text Millionaire Teacher: Stick 90% of your capital in tax sheltered, virtually passive forms of investment like index mutual funds or ETFs with an IRA wrapper and stick the other 10% in whatever investment vehicle you want to learn.

For example, I put 90% of my capital in a batch of index funds and ETFs predicated on John Bogle's suggestion of "your age in bonds, the rest in common stock" index funds and ETFs by way of an account with Vanguard for my IRA and my company's 403(b) program. Vanguard makes this really easy through their target retirement funds, which automatically adjust the ratio of stock / bonds over time. I'm really interested in value investing; so, I take long positions in individual stock that meets the criteria Benjamin Graham identified in Security Analysis and The Intelligent Investor with the other 10% of my capital via a brokerage account with TD Ameritrade--this isn't tax sheltered like my retirement accounts but it's basically an ongoing education in investing since TD Ameritrade offers a ton of instructional materials on topics like options, commodities, etc. and I want to see my money grow.

Let's take a look at what this could look like for your situation. Starting with $5k and doing something like what I'm doing, you would:

1. Open an account with Vanguard or whomever else you want to deal with for your IRA and invest $4500 there. If you follow that same rule of thumb I mentioned from Bogle, you could stick 18% of that in a bond ETF like BND, i.e. $810. Of course, you'll have to purchase in units equivalent to the going rate of the ETF shares, which $83.22 at present. So, you'd have to go with 10 shares for a total of $832.20 invested. Then, you could stick the rest in a total stock market ETF like VTI, whose going rate is $103.50 at present. To invest 82% of your available $4500, or $3690, you would need to buy 35 shares for a total of $3685.50 invested. But maybe all this seems way too complex to keep track of year after year; so, you could instead just invest all $4500 in a one-stop-shop composite index fund like Vanguard's Target Retirement 2035, which currently features a ratio pretty close to what you want between bonds and stock and will automatically adjust for you over time.
   
   
2. Open an account with pretty much any other decent brokerage, study up, and invest your remaining cash in whatever you want to learn how to do. $500 is not going to buy you much stock, but you could pull off a few options plays with that amount of cash. The key here is to provide a context where you basically force yourself to learn how to invest by having an actual stake in the game. A lot of people advocate paper trading, i.e. executing trades with fake money but real stock market numbers, as a way to learn how to invest; however, we all behave differently when our actual money is at stake. It's better to learn with actual money, even if it's not much. As I mentioned before, I personally like TD Ameritrade because they provide a lot of instructional content; however, your mileage may vary.
   
   Any follow up questions?

Since you are from the UK I'm going to recommend /r/UKPersonalFinance's bible of Tim Hale's Smarter Investing. That basically explains passive investing, investing aims and timelines, portfolio strategies, etc and also inoculates you against trying to be too clever.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Smarter-Investing-3rd-edn-Decisions/dp/0273785370

You can also read the more general The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham but unless you are going to really dedicate a shed load of time to it Tim Hale's book is precisely what you need. Graham is basically the standard text on the matter but it goes into a lot of detail that isn't really relevant anymore whereas Smarter Investing is primed for modern investing and particularly deals with the UK environment more.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Practical/dp/0060555661

If you are going to invest you absolutely want to use the right platform for it. The UK has a good number of tax efficient platforms for investment. Specifically:

1. Stocks and Shares ISA - Standard tax free investment account. You can put in £20k annually and will never pay capital gains taxes on the earnings. The new tax year starts on the 5th of April so if you have money to invest now you can put money in without using the limit for 2018-2019.
   
   
2. Lifetime ISA - Similar to a S&S ISA except there is a £4k limit (this counts to your £20k limit but you can only put £4k in a LISA). The big win with a LISA is the government puts in 25% of whatever you put in. The downside is you cannot withdraw money penalty free unless buying your first house or when you are 55. Withdrawing otherwise means you pay a 25% penalty on withdrawal (and because -25% is bigger than +25% you actually lose money). Again a LISA opened now can take £4k before the tax year ends on the 5th. Then you could put in another £4k from the 6th. One other detail is you cannot use a LISA towards a house within 12 months of opening it.
   
   
3. SIPP - A tax free investment pension. You never pay CGT like an ISA and you can put in however much you want. The government will give you back your income tax on up to £40k (that is the amount put in + the returned income tax caps at £40k) though you'll have to self assess to reclaim tax on higher rates (basically the government will put up your tax free limit for next year, the bonus is only directly 25%). You cannot withdraw until you are 55, penalties on early withdrawal are absurd (60%+). At 55 you can immediately take out 25% tax free. Any further withdrawals are taxable income.
   
   Basically it boils down to SIPP for retirement, LISA for buying a house (and to diversify against potential changes to the SIPP in law), S&S ISA for everything else. The one upside of an ISA over a SIPP is withdrawals from ISAs are never taxable. So using the £4k LISA limit each year makes sense once you are below the upper bands on income tax. As you'll effectively be able to withdraw from your LISA at will from 55.
   
   //edit - List of platform providers and fees below.
   
   http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/

It seems you're confusing your critique of Marx's theories with the idea that he wasn't the first to articulate those ideas as well as he has. Just so you know, the idea that Marx's theories were just a rearticulation of what a bunch of people had thought through time immemorial is false. In fact, the kind of capital-as-powersource Marx was talking about didn't really come into it's own before that time period. Before that, major power sources were armies or feudal alliances or churches, not the business class.

Regardless of how you feel about what he said, he was one of the first (if not the first) person who can really be shown to have said it.

> Indeed, the early criticism of Marx surrounded his fathomless ignorance of the landowning peasantry, which certainly owns capital, and that he wrote off as the lumpenproletariat.

We often use the word Capital to describe currency or owned object of any kind, but that's not really what Marx means when he says 'Capital'. How can owned land be 'capital' in one case but not in another? Because Capital is meant to refer to something which can be rented, loaned out, or otherwise gain interest or increase in value. The landowner who lives on and, say, subsistence farms a small tract of land is not equivalent to a landowner who owns a larger acreage that he rents out to farmers or factories or whathaveyou. The latter can use his land to function as an asset, while the former is not in a position to property capitalize on what he owns.

A word I like to use instead is asset; which has the explicit meaning of something that will increase in value and is relatively liquid.

> Indeed: there is no such thing as a capitalist class, because everyone who participates in the commerce of society owns capital of a sort.

But, as I hope I've explained, Capital is a matter of scale. Enough money to live on is not capital, as it must be spent and can't be used to invest in assets capable of generating more capital with relative independence. If one can leverage their capital to the degree that they no longer need to sell their labor, makes one a capitalist. The ownership of something that could be capital depending on the circumstances does not.

If you don't like Marx, the best book for pointing this out is actually Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki-
http://www.amazon.com/Rich-Dad-Poor-Teach-Middle/dp/1612680011

His intention, of course, is to explain to everyone why it's good to be and how to be rich; but in doing so, he defines a worldview that is almost pure Marxism.

A lot of this comes down to how actively you want to engage in the process, how much of an "enterprising investor" you want to be as opposed to a defensive investor.

For the more defensive position, a lot of /r/investing appreciates Graham's approach emphasizing value, even if a substantial quantity of capital is devoted to playing the market itself (something Graham called speculating). If that approach is interesting to you--which seems likely given your stated desire for low to medium risk with steady growth--then the main adjustments you'd need to make are as follows:

• Quit sinking the majority of your capital investment into just a couple stocks and stay away from actively managed mutual funds, too. For upwards of 80% to 90% of your capital, go with a balance of indexed stocks and bonds. A common way to do that is to subtract your age from 100 and let the difference be the percentage of stocks; in your case, we're talking 76% of your capital in indexed stocks and 24% in bonds if you did not set aside anything for more speculative forms of investment. If you set aside, say, 10% of your capital for speculation, then we'd be talking about roughly 68% of your total capital in indexed stock and 22% of your total capital in bonds. Periodically buy / sell to maintain this balance; some people who are really disinterested in closely playing the market do this only once or twice per year with long term success. Your goal here is to diversify your capital outlay in one of the most boring yet demonstrably low risk / consistent growth ways out there, and that is a portfolio heavily biased towards indexed stock and bonds. For a text that develops the logic and details of this approach, read The Millionaire Teacher.
  
  
• There are tax advantages to contributing to a 401k; so, a lot of people would council maxing this out. Nevertheless, a 401k is just a type of account; you would still want to follow the principle in the previous point in deciding specifically what sort of investment you want to "point" your 401k towards. (I say this because some people are under the mistaken impression that a 401k is itself a form of investment, e.g. "I have some capital in stocks, some in bonds, and some in a 401k.")
  
  
• With whatever quantity of capital you chose to devote to more speculative activity, say, 10% of your total capital outlay, think of this as your chance to experiment. If you like KO and WEN, great. As frequently as you want to play the markets, whether you want to go long on this stock or short on that, this (and only this) portion of your capital is yours to do with as you please. Have fun, but don't ever allow yourself to pull capital from your more secured forms of investment over to speculative activity if your goal is "low to medium risk with steady growth." Speculation is inherently risky; that's the way it works. And it's not something you can just do every once in a while with consistently solid results; it takes serious devotion.
  
  
• Since you mentioned holiding a normal savings account and/or a CD, I'm going to mention that most folks council retaining upwards of 3 to 6 months worth of expenses in a totally liquid form of savings. This won't make you any money whatsoever (well, unless we wind up with a nice drop in inflation and you can take advantage of some pretty crazy rates select credit unions offer, like Baxter's "Rainy Day Savings" at 3.0% APY). But that's okay; the goal here is to have cash on hand for an emergency. CD rates are pretty terrible across the board right now; so, you're better off going with a high interest online savings account like ING Direct Savings or Discover Online Savings if you don't want to bother with or cannot get credit union membership enabling you to snag those nicer savings account rates.

Nassim Taleb wrote a book called Antifragile that gives one possible perspective on your question.

By putting yourself in a "safe" place (not 100% dependent on a job to pay bills, spending all your income, etc) you're making a small contribution to the health of the whole.

A small thought experiment: If everyone in America started saving 40% of their income tomorrow, what would happen?

Plenty of jobs would disappear, but there would be more than enough reserved to fund those who lost their jobs until something else became available.

Right now I'm planning on making significant contributions for my in-laws when they can no longer work. I'm 26, and am positive that I'll be providing a lot of care for them in less than ten years. That means that the more I can save now, the more I can care for them later, and keep them healthy and happy, while preventing them from being a drain on "the system".

Last thought - there's not a fixed dollar cost per child's life saved. If it was that simple, some huge foundation (Gates, Zuckerburg) would kick all the money needed to eliminate all malaria-related deaths ever. They could afford it. The challenges are so much more nuanced than that. So you couldn't save 30 lives a year with your $100k, even if you tried.

Great question, though. I love thinking through all of these kinds of things.

PS have you read Your Money or Your Life? I think it might help answer some of these questions.

edit: spelling

1. The first half that you talk about is well known now, but that's because of Ben Graham. Don't forget, the original edition of the intelligent investor was published in 1949 nearly 70 years ago. Those ideas were revolutionary at the time. For someone who hasn't been reading about investing or done a lot of research those are also invaluable lessons to learn which is why the book is recommended so often.
   
2. If you're looking for some more detailed security analysis I think Graham's other book security analysis will cover what you're looking for. I haven't read it personally so I don't know for sure, but from what I've heard secondhand I think it covers it.
   
3. My own personal thought on the Intelligent Investor is that it's a good general book about the market and can teach you a lot. However, Graham is not the most engaging writer and reading through his book is a slog to say the least. I think there are other more recent books that teach the basics without being difficult to read. A Random Walk Down Wallstreet is one I've personally read that's good. I'm currently skimming through Heads I win, Tails I win and so far it covers the psychology of investing pretty well while also quoting from The Intelligent Investor directly. I've heard that The little book that (still) beats the markets is also good but I haven't read it personally.
   
4. One final thought is that some of the ideas presented in the first half aren't necessarily so obvious to most people. If they were, you would never get valuations into the triple digit (or infinite!) P/E ratios like AMZN, NFLX, TSLA, etc.
   
   Edit corrected the years to nearly 70 from nearly 60. Did anyone else know it's 2016 and not 2006?

If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly

Author: Bill Bernstein

> Hi All:

>I’ve come out with a starter retirement finance booklet for millennials that lays out what I think is the fundamental problem with an effective three-fund portfolio which, as we all know, is simple, but not easy.

>It’s not easy, again, as we all know, because people’s plans get hijacked by, among other things, panic during market declines, the temporary success of their neighbors during a tech or real estate bubble, and the Wall Street noise machine. (Or, as that great investment observer Mike Tyson put it, Everyone's got a plan til they get punched in the face.)

>This booklet, If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly, lays out the knowledge base that the young person needs to fortify themselves with to successfully execute a simple portfolio plan. It’s not the complete “course work,” just a road map, and prominently features Boglehead favorites. (Believing it tacky to plug my own overpriced books, I’ve intentionally left them out.)

>It’s available for download in acrobat format at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/290 ... ou_Can.pdf

>Most folks, though, would rather read it on their Kindle or mobile devices. I’d like to simply give it away, but Amazon only lets me do that 5 days per 90 day period; otherwise it’ll cost the Amazon mandated minimum Kindle price of $0.99. Here's its tentative Amazon page:

>http://www.amazon.com/If-You-Can-Millennials-Slowly-ebook/dp/B00JCC5JKI/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1396270561&sr=1-1&keywords=if+you+can+william+j+bernstein

>That first free period should start tomorrow or the day after. I’ll leave the free pdf up, and will announce the “promotional” windows for the free Kindle download periodically on the board (assuming I actually understand Amazon’s policy properly).

>PM me, please, if you find any typos.

>Best,

>Bill

Here is a random article I found about stock simulators.

How do you like to learn things? There are tons of books, podcasts and blogs about investing. Here are some popular ones or ones that I have read and used

• Books
  
  • The intelligent Investor
    
  • A Random Walk Down Wall Street
    
  • Your Money Your Life
    
  • The Richest Man in Babylon
    
  • I Will Teach You to be Rich
    
    
• Blogs
  
  • Stock Series
    
  • Mr Money Mustache
    
  • Mad FIentist
    
  • dozens of others, Google is your friend
    
    
• Podcasts
  
  • Money Tree Podcast -- pretty poor production quality but good general stuff.
    
  • There are tons of others, Google it.
    
    Warren Buffett famously/supposedly read every book in the financial section at the library by age 12--I think the important thing to take from that is you are still young and have tons of free time and aside from starting to invest as soon as you can (you can usually start as soon as you have earned income) you should be investing in yourself...getting good grades, figuring out what you want to do after high school, trying out businesses, learning marketable skills (e.g., coding, good writing skills, good interpersonal skills, good organizational skills, etc).
    
    Good Luck!

It really depends what you want to save for. Are you planning to buy a new car soon or go on a nice vacation? Saving up for a downpayment on a house? Saving for retirement? Some combination of these?

For any portion that is shorter term (car, vacation, house) you're probably good with just keeping it in savings accounts, though you might want to check out some high-interest TFSA accounts that probably pay a much better rate than what you're currently earning.

For retirement savings, you should invest in stock markets and bonds, though not directly. Mutual funds or exchange-traded funds are your best bet, ideally sticking with low-cost "index funds". There's a lot to be learned before you begin this journey, and so I suggest you start out by reading these great personal finance books:

• The Wealthy Barber Returns, by David Chilton. You can still get a free copy here even though it says the free eBook offer expired Dec 31.
  
• Millionaire Teacher: The Nine Rules of Wealth You Should Have Learned in School, by Andrew Hallam. Check your local library, or buy it on Amazon in paperback or Kindle.
  
  Both of these provide solid coverage of all the basics of personal finance, and a good intro into investing. They are somewhat lacking in the actual implementation of the investment strategies they discuss, so for that I recommend an eBook called The Value of Simple, which you can get from Chapters, Amazon, or from the author's website.

I would agree with the other posters that for an 18 year+ timescale, you should be looking at an equity based investment rather than cash. You should concentrate on minimising the fees involved in whatever product you choose - so some kind of passive index tracker is ideal.

My personal recommendation would be the Vanguard LifeStrategy funds :

http://monevator.com/using-vanguard-lifestrategy-funds-life/

You next need to decide what wrapper/platform you're going to use to invest in the fund. You could do this with a junior ISA in your childs name, but I believe this means that it will be under their control from the moment they turn 18. What I've chosen to do for my kids is invest the money I'm saving for them in my own ISA so that I can have some control over when and for what purpose the money is used for (I seem to recall I wasn't at my decision making best at 18....)

Since you say you don't have much experience with investing generally, can I recommend picking up the following book which I think gives a really good overview of how to invest cheaply and effectively :

Smarter Investing by Tim Hale
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Smarter-Investing-Simpler-Decisions-Financial/dp/0273785370?ie=UTF8&qid=1469529696&ref_=la_B001HCV9SM_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1

(surprised by how expensive it seems to be actually - maybe try shopping around? Really worthwhile book though I promise..) There's also a lot of good information on the web - I'd recommend the monevator blog i linked to above as a good starting point.

I have no connection to either the monevator blog or Tim Hale - but I've found them both very useful personally.

Keep liquid how much ever you feel comfortable having at your bank based on your particular lifestyle, needs, and reasonable risk assessment. You know your life situation better than anyone, but people here are happy to help.

As far as investing, once you feel you're ready to start putting extra money towards retirement (beyond, for example, 401(k) paycheck contributions), there are several good places to put investment money, Vanguard is just one (but a very good one that I happen to use). Schwab and Fidelity are other good ones that typically come highly recommended. When do you start to invest, this sub's FAQ has good info and I'd also highly recommend the Bogleheads' wiki and the book The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing.

EDIT: Better book link.

Yeah completely understandable, it's not too complicated, but from an outsiders perspective can look daunting. I can't really recommend any specific financial advisors, but if you have the time to do some reading I can recommend a few things that will help you out. A Random Walk down Wall Street and The Intelligent Investor are great, easy to read introductions to value investing, while this post on /r/AusFinance gives some pretty straightforward and practical advice.

While its not the advice you're looking for right now, do consider it as it may help save you thousands of dollars in the long run.

You still have 6 trading days left before it worthless but do yourself a favor and just buy a book here's a good one
Understanding Options 2E https://www.amazon.com/dp/0071817840?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf


It's definitely worth the 17$ most people will meme on calls that will never work

And options are really profitable
https://i.imgur.com/j1miflX.jpg

This book is okay it's nice to review them and look here you can get some really good spreads and how to set them up The Options Playbook, Expanded 2nd... https://www.amazon.com/dp/0615308147?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf

Like I have 5000$ worth of Tesla debit spread that if Tesla is below 290$ on next Friday it'll make me 15,000$

Right now I can close it for around 1k profit

> Do you reckon in my case, I should continue to maximise the H2B then transfer at year end to my LISA, or open a S&S ISA now, and open a LISA next tax year?

If you haven't already, I'd strongly recommend reading the MSE guide for LISA and H2B ISA's; MSE Lifetime ISA Guide

Short Answer; Keep contributing to your H2B ISA, then transfer it across to a S/S LISA if you're comfortable with that before April 2018 to maximise your allowance and bonus you'll get.

Long Answer; speaking from my own experience and plans with my H2B and LISA, I currently have been contributing to a H2B since they were originally offered. I will continue to contribute to my H2B till early 2018 (around Feb) then I will transfer it to the S/S LISA I opened with Hargreaves for £100 back in June - The reason for opening it with just £100 is that your LISA must be open for 12 months before you can withdraw from it to buy a house. While we aren't actively looking right now for a house (and if seems like you aren't looking right now either) anything could happen.

The reason I've kept my money with the H2B and not moved it all over to the LISA already is that (and ignore that it's a S/S LISA) the interest I'm getting in the H2B is too good to miss up right now.

After my January 2018 payment into my H2B I'll have contributed £2,000 into it for this tax year. I'll transfer it to my LISA, which I have already started with £100 this tax year, allowing me to contribute the final amount of £1,900 as a lump sum. That means by April 2018 I'll have maximised my LISA allowance of £4,000. I'll also have transferred across my previous H2B contributions of around £4,200.

The 25% bonus is then paid on the whole lot after the end of the 17/18 Tax year, whereas had the cash been left in the H2B I would have to wait till I exchange on the house to see any of that bonus.

It's important to note that anything transferred from H2B to LISA after the end of this tax year will not benefit from the immediate bonus.

Your other points about moving from the Premium Bonds to a S/S ISA. I feel you'd be best served by spending some time reading up on funds available to you and what your goals are. Tim Hale's Smarting Investing is probably the best £15 you'll spend to give you an insight to the world of Stocks and Shares and should be your first port of call. Time Hale - Smarter Investing

Hello! Also from Ontario Canada! The best advice I can give you is.... Spend less than you make (create a budget and stick to it), pay off all your credit cards in full every month, try to keep the life style creep to a minimum, and live in a low cost of living (LCOL) area (if you can).

In terms of buying vs renting there are calculators for that and it's personal choice, but try not to buy more house than you can handle (we live in the GTA so house prices are crazy right now...) If you can live with your parents for a while, you can save a lot of money that way too (just contribute to the household!! If not in cash, at least do the dishes and laundry or something...!).

If you want to buy and do nice things, budget and save for them! Striving towards FI doesn't mean you have to live like a pauper... But be reasonable and have your ultimate goal in mind.

Some nice books to read (that are Canadian!) Would be Millionaire Teacher by Andrew Hallam and The Wealthy Barber/The Wealthy Barber Returns by David Chilton (you can just borrow from the library as an e-book or actual book!).

Since you are unionized and have a pension, I would say max out your TFSA first (check out the index fund model portfolios from Canadian Couch Potato and then your RRSP (whatever room you have left after your pension adjustment) and once you still have money left over open a marginal account (if you you are married by then,max out both those accounts for your spouse before you open any marginal accounts).

Also, read the side bar and the stickied posts. Enjoy your journey to FI. It's important to plan for the future, but you shouldn't forget to enjoy the present as well!

Have you bought and read Tim Hale's Smarter Investing first? If not, go and buy it! It's only £20 but it'll net you thousands of pounds in the long run. It's targeted at UK readers and outlines the steps needed to start investing in index funds. More than anything, it will empower you to make your own financial decisions instead of letting other people guide you what to do with your money.

One key point that I'll outline now is that your desire to have your investments be relatively liquid is not really compatible with investing in stocks. The reason for that is stocks are volatile and it's possible you could lose half of your investment overnight in a market crash. The probability of that gets smaller as you leave your money invested for longer, which is why people usually recommend a minimum of 5 years to invest your money, although 10+ years is ideal. Anything less than 5 years and your best bet is keeping your money as cash and spreading it around high-interest accounts (see https://www.bankaccountsavings.co.uk/ for the best accounts).

Once you've read Smarter Investing, you may be interested in investing in a global equity tracker. There are various effort-free options where you fund and forget, such as Vanguard's Lifestrategy series or the FTSE Global All Cap Index Fund.

Alternatively if you're feeling braver, you could check out my guide on constructing your own global equity tracker here.

But above all, read Smarter Investing!

Repeating /u/jrharte:
>Read this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Smarter-Investing-Simpler-Decisions-Financial/dp/0273785370/

>Follow this: https://i.imgur.com/ezGWhE3.png

One of the lessons in the book is that the aim of the game in investing is not to gain the most tokens but to ensure you loose the fewest. This means minimising your costs, especially when you're at the beginning of your investing journey. The miracle of compound interest means that every £1 you save now will be worth many more £ in 10-20 years.

Another element to consider is how good are you at picking winners? Do you think you can pick shares which will consistently beat the market? How about funds? Can you pick the best fund manager who puts together a market beating basket of investments year after year after year?

I'd wager that you'd be honest with yourself and say probably not. So what are the chances of you picking a market beating financial advisor?

>Do you have any recommendation as to where I can start (e.g. reading, websites to compare, etc.)?

the usual suspects:

• Bogleheads wiki - An invaluable free resource. I think it is easier to come here when you have specific topics you have questions about
  
• Bogleheads Guide to Investing - is a good book on general personal finance topics and gives a general overview of investing topics
  
• The Little Book of Common Sense Investing - will show you why low cost index funds are a good idea.
  
• If you can - is a quick free PDF you can read quickly and get the core gist of what passive investing is about. Bernstein is a great writer, he has really good books to in case you are interested.
  
  justETF is a good resource to find ETFs. morningstar is also good.
  
  
  
  >Is there also some more "direct" ways of investing into stocks without picking them yourself?
  
  Easiest when living in Germany would be to get a depot account in a cheap broker. justETF has a comparison of some.
  
  You may also consider DeGiro or InteractiveBrokers.

I really like this idea, and it's pretty much what I'm doing. Last year I posted something about this here on r/financialindependence and I've also exposed my lifestyle here.

Since my teenage years, my goal has been to live free. I stumbled upon FI books early on ("Boglehead's guide to investing" anyone!?) and figured hitting FI early on was possible and desirable. I majored to be an Actuary and while studying, I started creating websites and doing other freelance work on the side. These projects took off very slowly, but were enough to pay for random college expenses.

When I graduated, I took a gap year and my freelance work was enough to sustain while traveling through Southeast Asia. At that point, I was netting ~500 to 1000$ a month from 20 hours of work (per month). I loved the lifestyle of working an hour or two every other day. It just became something I did once in a while on the computer instead of (or actually, while) browsing Reddit or FB.

I realized that if I roughly doubled this income, I might be able to sustain this lifestyle permanently. Coming back home (to Canada), I invested a lot of energy expanding several streams of income (mostly freelance work) and eventually it paid off. I even had the luxury of turning down 9-to-5 high-paying actuarial jobs.

Remote work now takes roughly 5 hours of my time each week (and 95% of that can be done whenever I feel like), and it allows me to live in a very low COL area, which ironically might help me reach FI sooner than if I worked in a HCOL city as an Actuary. Although I wouldn't mind living like this for a long time, I'm on track to become financially independent at around 30 y/o (in ~5 years).

While I understand that for many, working part time is not an option, trying a lifestyle that resembles "FIRE" (lots of free time, low stress, no financial worries) can really be beneficial. I feel like many blindly aim for FIRE because they dislike work, or like the idea of not having to work, and while I can fully understand why, living for the future is a dangerous gamble. Not because "you might die before" as stereotypical consumers might claim, but because of the terrible mental habits you risk developing. I believe that people overestimate the reliability of postponing happiness for extended periods of time. While the grass is quite green without work, in itself it doesn't do much, it only makes you more of what you already are.

Happiness is largely determined by mental habits. If you are not developing great mental habits RIGHT NOW, they won't magically appear the day you retire. All around me, I see people waiting for retirement to finally travel/invest time in passions/develop skills/etc. I'm skeptical of how well this works in practice. I have the feeling that people would benefit from treating their mental habits with the same care that they show towards their bank account. Surely you don't want this path to mentally cripple you and end up like this.

Like others mention, I wouldn't really call myself "half-retired" though. It's really nothing more than a cooler lifestyle. (subjective, of course).

A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. FIRE here - congratulations on your new job. I am retired early and happy (just about to hit Breckenridge for a season of skiing). I got into commission based sales and worked my tail off to retire early. My advice is -EDUCATE YOURSELF about money. Thats what I did. My efforts in sales were rewarded, but good investment and minimising tax made it happen. I'm going to recommend a book which started me off its called 'the only investment guide you'll ever need' by andrew tobias http://www.amazon.com/Only-Investment-Guide-Youll-Ever/dp/0547447256. This is the easy to read book full of solid advice that got me started seriously on saving and investing. I went on to read many more, but I feel that if you only read one book and followed its advice, this should be it. It was so influential for me that I wrote and thanked the author the day I retired. Read the reviews for other opinion.

On your chosen career - Theres a lot to learn about sales, so keep your ears open and talk to seniors in the field. I remember one day I asked a senior sales guy 'How come we can't get good sales guys' and he said 'Cos good sales guys are selling ferraris where they make tons more commissions'. I followed that path and found the field where I could make maximum commissions for my effort. Many people look down on sales, but I was managing a large business and noted that the good sales guys were making more than me consistently, so I got wise and moved into sales. I couldn't find any other field where your reward was equal to your effort.

I'm finishing up school as well, and have recently gotten into personal finance. I read blogs like The Simple Dollar and Get Rich Slowly on a daily basis. They have large, search-able archives and are full of free information and tools that relate to personal finance. Wonderful resources.

If you're looking for good books to read I'd like to recommend The Millionaire Next Door. By far my favorite, this book completely changed my thinking about personal finance.

Some others:

The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need

The Boglehead's Guide to Investing

The Automatic Millionaire

See if your library has any! Oh, and here's a longer list from GRS:
Building a Personal Finance Library: 25 of the Best Books About Money

The top 1% pays 47% of all taxes, here are some sources TaxFoundation, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and finally The IRS.

Now I want the bottom half who [pay 2% of all taxes] to pay their fair share.

Now the question becomes what is someone's fair share? Is it proportional to the amount of wealth someone has, The top 1% have 34.6% of the wealth but as I pointed out earlier they pay 47% of all taxes.

My solution is to take away voting rights for people who are net negatives when it comes to taxes; that is, you should not be able to vote to take more of someone's money because you feel you deserve it.

____

Millionaire flights are already happening in The US, France, and in the UK (three sources there) to the tune of billions in lost tax revenue.

____

Read this book called Millionaire Teacher It’s true that many millionaires have earned their money by starting (or selling) their own businesses or finding high-paying positions within organizations. But this certainly isn’t the only way to amass $1 million. In his book “Millionaire Teacher,” Andrew Hallam explains how he saved over $1 million as a teacher well before retirement age, outlining how he used low-cost index funds and a disciplined approach to saving, investing and living on a budget to build a nest egg most of his fellow teachers would envy.

In addition to investing in the stock market, like Hallam, other millionaires boost their bottom lines by adding second jobs or passive streams of income. For instance, investing in real estate can allow a middle-income wage-earner to develop rental income as a second, reliable income stream. Artists who pay the bills and invest with the income earned through a day job might sell paintings for hundreds or thousands of dollars on the side and bank the extra income. Those who don’t earn million-dollar paychecks can still reach the $1 million mark; it just requires discipline, creativity and focus on the goal.

The largest group of millionaires from 2014 actually came from media – Graphic chart

____


Our problem with economic growth is that the government pushed everyone to get a college degree so hard that now even the most menial jobs are asking for a degree and years of experience, either internship or volunteer/hobby, or a masters degree for relatively basic work. The government created an education bubble and when our manufacturing jobs went overseas, which was always going to happen due to our short term WWII based monopoly on manufacturing (We bombed nearly all of Europe's manufacturing and China was still agrarian), creating a bubble and popping. So now we have a bunch of college educated kids fighting for minimum wage jobs for two main reasons:

1. Education inflation
   
   
2. Housing bubble bursting, again the result of government encouraging banks to give out NINJA or No Income No Job Approved loans. Which tanked the market leading people to lose life saving both in the stock market and in home values prolonging, sometimes indefinately, retirement for some workers; for some of our younger workers that means no higher paying jobs because there are no openings and a glut of labor driving wages down.
   
   The following is from a HUD memo quoted here
   
   >For many potential homebuyers, the lack of cash available to accumulate the required downpayment and closing costs is the major impediment to purchasing a home. Other households do not have sufficient available income to to make the monthly payments on mortgages financed at market interest rates for standard loan terms. Financing strategies, fueled by the creativity and resources of the private and public sectors, should address both of these financial barriers to homeownership.
   
   ____
   
   
   Cool, so the housing crisis was largely a problem of government telling people to go out and buy houses, in some cases four or five, that they could not afford and the banks that we instructed by HUD to lend them the money anyway. Next, you have the college bubble, both the education bubble and the accompanying debt bubble, which are due to pop within the next three to five years at most, again due to government overregulating and pushing an equality of outcome secnario.
   
   
   Now if you want to increase my taxes, which we have already established I pay a disproportionate amount of (47% on total percentage, 34.6% on wealth – which isnt even taxed) to fund what? Another government intervention in social welfare, or even worse social justice, that will cause a new created asset bubble and tank the economy in 20 years for my children?
   
   No thanks.
   
   
   

It's card game that is collectible, but doesn't have the reserve list like MTG, nor is large like MTG. Overall, if you want to invest in something, get Bogleheads Guide to Investing: The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118921283/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_B3V1wbEYNFAWE

P.S. I am a former broker and can assure you, collectible card games are too risky to be considered investments. What you are doing is speculating on a commodity that is based upon artificial scarcity. An investment is something that has value and means of production or growth in terms of value added.

Think about this way. Force of Will has no true model to create real scarcity. They could reprint expensive staples and cause the market to collapse. Magic the Gathering is similar; however, the reserve list (an artificial scarcity) causes prices of old cards to continue to rise on the condition that they would never be reprinted. The risk in MTG, however, is that WoTC could choose to get rid of the reserve list - though not very likely - and cause the secondary market to collapse.

Buying ETFs, stocks, bonds, and mutual funds are actual investments into organizations that have a means of production and/or actual income. Buying a card that produces no income, adds no value, has no means of production, and only relies on growth due to artificial scarcity is a bad idea.

Either way, it's your money and I am one of few brokers who will tell you this secret, and that is only you have your best financial interests at heart. I can only provide some advice to guide you, but you will have to make the final choice. Good luck my friend :-)

>i am ready to open a Roth IRA and Brokerage, so i did with Fidelity.

>...

>i feel like just dumping all my money into Vanguard Target Retirement 2060 isn't the best idea

It's perfectly OK to have your investments in a target date fund while you learn more. Given your Roth IRA & brokerage are with Fidelity, the Freedom Index target date funds will be just fine (the Freedom funds without "Index" in the name are more expensive).

>i do want to actually learn a little more than "just dump your money in this target date fund"

The Bogleheads Wiki is a great place to start. There are links to a high-level page on lazy portfolios and specific pages for the Three-fund Portfolio, etc. The page on tax-efficient fund placement will likely be useful as your brokerage account increases.

Personally, I recognized there is value in simplicity. To that end, I work toward a version of a Three-fund portfolio myself. While I do not tilt toward small caps or specific sectors (like REIT), I do have a portion of my bond holdings in an intermediate tax-exempt fund.

Take your time. Consider developing an Investment Policy Statement. Read a book or two. Of course, posting here and/or the Bogleheads forum are great for providing context & examples or clarifying concepts along the way. Let some of the concepts sink in and ruminate before actually changing your portfolio.

Congrats on cleaning out that debt! I know the great feeling I had when we finished off my wife's student loans, you really can't beat it.

Just putting in my two cents here. The book "The Millionaire Teacher" has a great section on things to watch out for in Financial Advisers (link). They also list typical things Financial Advisers will say and how to respond to them. Great ammo for any meeting with one.

That being said, if you are confident in your principles of investing (indexing, expense ratios, stocks/bonds mix) AND you understand HOW the Edward Jones guy is being compensated, then you may consider the meeting.

Even with all that, I wouldn't allocate any significant portion of my stash with anybody from Edward Jones.

Personally I like to meet with people like this. I like to bust their balls and see how well they know investments, early retirement, tax law, picking stocks, what their personal investments look like, insurance (for early retirees), education level, trading experience, net worth, etc. It's like being a black belt in personal finance and checking out a rival school to see what they have to offer (or not offer).

by far
https://smile.amazon.com/Only-Investment-Guide-Youll-Ever/dp/0547447256?sa-no-redirect=1
Everything you need to know could fit on an index card, but this book really breaks everything down. You'll be amazed at how simple it is once you understand.

As an example of debt being good, I bought an apartment in a building which was so distressed (and helped turn it around since) that banks wouldn't give a loan. I had to raid my retirement & buy in cash.

So instead of paying 50k upfront & a 100k loan at 2%, I paid 150k upfront.

Had I taken a mortgage I would have paid $2,000 for the privilege of borrowing 100k, but I would have also been able to leave the 100k invested and made $6,000, for a net profit of $4,000.

Debt is a tool, it lets you take opportunities you wouldn't be able to otherwise. If you wait until you can afford something you lose out on it's benefit the whole time you are saving, and if it means you have to instead rent in the meantime you not only lose the benefit, but pay a premium for the privilege.

Inflation reduces the value of a dollar by 2% every year. So 100$ worth of stuff today will cost you 102$ next year. If you are saving you are also chasing a moving target.

Having debt (and paying it off) also proves that you are trustworthy & banks can give you a good rate at 3% instead of 9% when they worry you won't pay it back.

Debt is a tool, and if you use it to buy things which make you money it's a good bet. If you use it to buy things which cost you money/lose value it's a bad bet.

Since I own my apartment now I could take a loan against it (and probably should set it all up now). If I can get a loan at 3.5% I could then invest that money & get 7%, net 3.5%. Of course there is risk involved in this, but over a long enough period you might as well bet on the economy since if it crashes & never comes back you have bigger problems anyway.


If you live in NYC I can lend you my copy of the book. I've bought it for a half dozen young people I care about as it was really illuminating for me & answered soooooo many questions I didn't understand well enough to ask. Everyone I know has a lot of anxiety around their finances, but this will show you how to think about money & what is worth the effort/what isn't worth worrying about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost

First off, investing in individual stocks in the stock market is essentially gambling and I don't recommend it. The stock market isn't a way to get rich quick and the vast majority of people who trade individual stocks will do much much worse than someone who just purchases shares in a diverse passive index fund. However, if you want to try your hand at gambling in the stock market, it's not difficult to actually do it...

1. Open a brokerage account at a discount broker like Fidelity
   
2. Deposit some money into said account
   
3. Purchase shares of stocks with said money
   
   Be aware that there is a fee every time you purchase or sell a "lot" (one or more shares) of the same stock. This fee eats into your profit so it's not normally a good idea to purchase small amounts of shares at a time.
   
   Also be aware that buying and selling stock creates a taxable event. So filing taxes in the following year WILL be more complicated (and expensive) if you pay someone to do them for you or if you purchase software to do them yourself. No more 1040EZ forms.
   
   You should get a few "investing in stocks for dummies" type books and gain a basic understanding of things like market/limit/stop orders, cost basis, long/short term capital gains, capital losses, qualified/non-qualified dividends, splits, reverse-splits, and the wash sale rule.
   
   You should also learn what "penny stocks" are and why you should avoid them as well as what a Master Limited Partnership (MLP) stock is and why it can be a tax nightmare.
   
   As a final bit of advice, I highly recommend picking up a copy of A Random Walk down Wall Street: The Time-tested Strategy for Successful Investing and reading it cover to cover.
   
   Good luck.

You mentioned a deadline. How much time do you have to absorb this and do some more thinking?

>All that matters is getting concrete reasons for why people think RE will not appreciate in the future.

Here's a couple:

1. Interest rates. They're currently at record lows. If the economy recovers and the central bank raises interest rates to prevent inflation, mortgage payments will go up, and real estate prices will go down. I'd suggest checking what your mortgage payments would be at 5% and 7%. (My first mortgage was at 11.75%.)
   
   
2. For this condo in particular, cash flow is negative, In other words, the rent isn't high enough to cover the mortgage and other expenses, even with interest rates at record lows and a 20% down payment. Even with stable interest rates, it won't be an attractive investment for other buyers unless the price was considerably lower. I'd suggest calculating how much lower the price would need to be to reach a cash flow of zero.
   
   So there's pretty sizable risks here.
   
   Plus there's a risk-magnification factor: When you invest in real estate, you're highly leveraged (because you're borrowing 80% of the money from the bank), It's great when prices go up, but leverage cuts both ways. If the price drops by 10%, you've lost 50% of the $60,000. If the price drops by 20%, you've lost all of it.
   
   Honestly, this thread is educational for me, in the sense that I can see what people are thinking when they buy new condos at inflated prices. (Prices have been going up, so it's natural to think that they'll keep going up.)
   
   If you don't want to tackle the risks of investing in equities (and I understand that), my suggestion would be to save your money in GICs instead. Low return, but also much lower risk of losing your money. "Live in a hovel for 10 years, then buy for cash." You're paying rent, but then you don't need to pay interest (which on a 25-year mortgage is huge).
   
   If at some point in the distant future you change your mind and decide you'd like to learn about equities, Andrew Tobias has an excellent explanation in The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need:
   
   >What a stock is worth depends at any given time on the alternative investments that are then available. It is a question of relative value. Think of investments as wallets. A 5% savings account, if you can find one, is a wallet that you can buy for $20 that miraculously fills up with $1 (5%) by the end of every year. It is safe and convenient - you can "sell" it whenever you want and be sure of getting back your full $20 if, when savings accounts are paying 5%, you can buy other "wallets" that fill up with $1 just as fast, not for $20 but a mere $15. For example, high-grade corporate bonds that pay 6.7% interest.
   
   Similarly, when you buy a share in a company, you're buying a share of its earnings, and you can tell if it's cheap or expensive by comparing its earnings per share to current interest rates. When interest rates are at 5%, the price/earnings ratio on the savings-account "wallet" is 20, so a stock with a price/earnings ratio of 20 would be very expensive. (You want it to be considerably less than that, to compensate you for the risk that the company's earnings might drop, or that it might lose money.)
   
   You can also evaluate real estate this way: after expenses, what's your return on your investment, and how does this compare to current interest rates? In this case, your return is negative, which is why everyone's telling you it's too expensive.

If I were you, I would put as much money towards college as you can. The less debt that you have the better in the long run. I'd also open an IRA. If you were to put in $10/month now, it would drastically compound later. Here is a [link] (https://research.scottrade.com/KnowledgeCenter/Public/Calculators/RothVsTraditionalIRA) to visually show you compounding.

I'd also suggest [this] (
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0547447256?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage) book. It's $10 and is well worth the money.

It's great to save for retirement and not have debt but no one has mentioned budgeting. Learning to budget is really important.

I'm 25 and started saving a few years ago. I get to go out for coffee and drink with friends when I want, but I still save 1/3 of pay checks for retirement/ savings.

Instead of buying lunch 5 days a week at work, I bring my own lunch 3 days a week. Let's say a meal is $7.

$7X5 days=$40/ week. $40x52 weeks= $2,080/ year.

$7x2 days=$14/ week. $14x52 weeks= $728/ year.

That saves me an extra $1352 to go out, to travel with, to pay off debt or to retire. Buying coffee at Starbucks daily is great but adds up.

You can work smart now and enjoy retiring at 50 or travel the world simply by being smart about your finances.

Sure, I can try to help you out. I wouldn't call myself an expert, but I've studied them and spent time at an options market-making firm on Wall Street. My education in derivatives started at university, where I took an options and derivatives class. We used John C Hull's book, Options, Futures and Other Derivaties (link is to latest, 9th edition; you can use previous editions). Incidentally, Hull is a professor at Universary of Toronto.

While employed, we used Sheldon Natenberg's Option Volatility & Pricing: Advanced Trading Strategies and Techniques. The text is on the dry-academic side but is definitely an excellent resource.

You (and others) can also check out Khan Academy's excellent introductory videos here.

I'm not sure how I'll be able to mentor you, but I'm happy to give it shot. Let me know what I can do to help you out!

• Hull's Derivatives is the bible
  
• Stigum's Money Market is a legitimately enjoyable read and taught me SO MUCH
  
• Fabozzi's Fixed Income Handbook is a good general overview of the FI market. (More widely known than, but not as good as Stigum's.)
  
• I don't know where your programming skills are, but try to model out anything that you find interesting in the books above using Jupyter. This will help a great deal with internalizing what's happening mechanically underneath the concepts you're learning.
  
• How I Became A Quant for easy train/bed reading.
  
• Mandlebrot for a dose of realism. Models are always wrong.
  
• The Medium of Contingency for a glimpse into the mind of a practitioner. It's... weird.
  
• Cliff's blog because he's humble (and also my idol). His chapter in How I Became A Quant is the best, imo.
  
  disclaimer: Not a quant, never went to school for it nor worked in finance. I just like reading. This list is more than enough for the summer, but let me know if you want material focused on anything in particular. (Structured products, history, etc.)

Have a look at the flowchart.

As said by /u/GordonCopestake, your goals should not be a reaction to the money. If you don't have any concrete goals yet, now is a good time to think about them. However, do so pretending you don't have that £20k.

A couple of options to think about:

1. Put the money away as savings in some current account(s) until you have decided what your goals are. It's probably a good thing to start with regardless, as it makes managing the money easier. Look at this website to see how to best manage the £20k. If you want to keep things simple: open a Santander 123 and put it all in there.
   
   
2. If you're looking at property soon, a LISA might be good for you. You should first complete option 1, and then work out how much you want to move to your LISA every year afterwards.
   
   
3. Don't have any plans for the next 5 years (at least)? Maybe investing is an option then. This book is frequently recommended to read up on investing and what to look out for.
   
   Whatever route you take, I believe option 1 is usually a relevant starting point, so I would advise you look into that first. It keeps your newfound savings split from your checking account, and helps you keep a good overview of your money.
   
   Good luck.

For a very beginner book on how to start thinking about money I would start here:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Total-Money-Makeover-Financial/dp/159555078X
Dave Ramsey is totally against debt. If he could have it his way, nobody would even take out a loan for a house. You can make your own choice on how you feel about that, but in general the book gets you thinking about the power of freeing in your income to become financially independent.
After that, u/hayekspolsives pointed out a good resource, I would also recommend Rich Dad/Poor Dad:
http://www.amazon.com/Rich-Dad-Poor-Teach-Middle/dp/1612680011/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408981397&sr=1-1&keywords=rich+dad+poor+dad
This book is also another book that will try to get you thinking differently. The truth is, there are many ways to invest. This is why there is so much info out there. The best way is the way that interests you.

Have you opened accounts like a Roth IRA or 401k (through work) or similar? Because you can invest within those accounts in whatever you wish, and you'll get great tax benefits.

For example, any money you put into a Roth IRA you can take out at any time for any reason. And you can invest that money into stocks, and the growth is tax-free and dividends are tax-free. (The government makes all that tax free to try and encourage you to save it in there as long as possible for use when you are old and retired.)

As for what to invest in: read about diverse, passive index funds. If you've never heard of those, there's a good book you can check out from your local library, Bogleheads' Guide to Investing.

• 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

You have a few things going for you:

1. you acknowledge you made a mistake
   
   
2. you asked for help
   
   
3. your ready willing and able to learn.
   
   Give some poor advice (like buying whole life insurance :p ) and you will see just how unpolite this sub can be!
   
   It isnt just about finding a low cost option but a fundamentally different investment approach called indexed investing. The average canadian who pays 2.5% MER is invested in an actively managed approach (they try and beat the market average, but after fees a vast majority are unable to). The indexed approach can range in cost from 1.07%mer to as low as 0.15% mer depending on how hands on you want to get (and there is nothing wrong with paying a slightly higher mer to keep things simple). The indexed approach: own every stock in the market and guarantee the average return of the stock market. No expensive research into which stock will outperform = low fees. After fees, over a 10 year period, indexed investing consistantly beat 85% of investors. So for 1/7 people, paying the high fee pays off. Obviously there is no way of picking the fund that will do this in advance, otherwise everyone would.
   
   I recommend you start reading the wealthy barber returns. Tangerine bank was giving it away for free until december 31st 2016 but it looks like it isnstill free on their website. It is a book more on basics of personal finance.
   
   https://www.tangerine.ca/en/landing-page/wealthybarberreturns/index.html
   
   
   The canadian couch potato blog is like the bible of this subreddit.
   
   http://canadiancouchpotato.com/
   
   If your looking for another more advanced book (more on the investing side), try the millionaire teacher
   
   https://www.amazon.ca/Millionaire-Teacher-Wealth-Should-Learned/dp/0470830069
   
   
   Highly recommended books.

I would start with this article by Mark Joshi. It's a little old (2008) but serves well as an introduction.

Now a quick disclaimer, I'm still quite junior and my work falls somewhere between the Desk/Dev roles. Based on your description you'd fall into more into the Model/Research roles. Also these are my opinions ymmv.

W.r.t general finance/economics, I dislike most finance/economics books. I would treat it more like learning a language listen to podcasts, read (good) blogs, non-academic books etc.

• Chat with traders
  
• PythonQuants
  
• Quantopian
  
• https://www.quantstart.com/articles
  
  Here are some technical books I think are worth reading:
  
  I like Joshi's books The Concepts and Practice of Mathematical Finance, C++ Design Patterns and Derivatives Pricing it assumes basic finace and c++.
  
  Successful Algorithmic Trading. It's an introduction, focuses on methodology andcovers pretty much everything involved with actually designing, testing and implementing a strategy. As you don't know much finace jargon google will be your friend.
  
  Options, Futures and Other Derivatives (Hull), or 'The bible book'. It's included in pretty much every quant finance book list, so I'll include it. My Derivatives elective (via the business school) used this. It's a solid intro, will get you conversational on the topics, and is aimed at MBAs. Read this if you have the time (~900 pages) and finished the two above books.
  

I really like Investopedia University. It's free and very informative and they will have pages with short videos/articles explaining terms and concepts as well. A good start would be their Financial Concepts and Index Investing entries. Also wanted to add their Retirement Plans page. You'll mostly want to read about Traditional and Roth IRAs, and Qualified Plans.

The biggest tip I could give is to just keep reading, I found I was actually interested in this stuff so it was easy to read all about it. If you don't understand something make the effort to learn and then continue. It doesn't have to be complicated, index investing is a great way to build wealth over the long term.

I never really read any actual books, because honestly the best advice for 90% of people would be to just invest in index funds, and there's plenty of free information online, but you can read The Boglehead's Guide to Investing.

Bill Ackerman has a good video that does a good job of breaking it down.

I'd start by looking at this webpage:
https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics
This breaks down the steps of that flow chart for you. The simple flowchart is amazing for beginners.

I would then look into this blog. it has many useful topics but this post in general is a simple intro to see if you are interested in it:
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-zero-to-hero-in-one-blog-post/

If these topics interest you I recommend this book.
https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Path-Wealth-financial-independence/dp/1533667926

Best of Luck.

For my S&S ISA I put everything into this, you could save a bit of money and get HSBC FTSE All-World Index Fund C as it's essentially the same but with slightly less on-going charges.

I'd say I was on the upper end of risk tolerance though especially for medium term savings.

As for books I think this is the most recommended book on this subreddit for a very good reason.

It should be enough to teach you the power and benefit of investing in passive trackers vs trying to play the market via expensive active fund managers.

Plus there's a few other nuggets of valuable information tucked away in there!

After reading the Intelligent Investor the below books are pretty good for a read as well.

You Can be a Stock Market Genius (Stupid title but great book) by Joel Greenblatt

Dhandho Investing Mohnish Pabrai

Rule #1 investing this is a good podcast for beginners they have a book as well

One up on Wall Street Peter Lynch

common stocks and uncommon profits by fisher

Berkshire Hathaway letters to shareholders

Security analysis by Graham and Dodd. This was written before The Intelligent Investor by Graham as well and covers how to value companies. It's a very dry read and originally written in 1934 but there's a gold mine in there.

Having two fathers and two mothers competing over your love can be the best thing ever. One teaches you the shrewdness and cut-throat world of winning deathmatches and earning respect through force, the other teaches you the socially optimal solution, how to be poor and find pleasure and joy with a mat and a guitar.

Story reminds me of the writer from Rich dad poor dad: https://www.amazon.com/Rich-Dad-Poor-Teach-Middle/dp/1612680011

I felt the same way as you last year. I am now 25 and feeling competent with my financials by reading this book https://www.amazon.com/If-You-Can-Millennials-Slowly-ebook/dp/B00JCC5JKI and all the books it recommends.

I highly encourage you to get to a point where you feel comfortable with what all the terms are and what you can best do for yourself. It takes time to understand it all but your livelihood is worth it!

If you look up "if you can how to get rich slowly" into google, the top link will be free 16 page pdf laying out what you want to read up on and investing strategies.

Agreed, rich dad blows. It's a complete joke along with most of the parents' book recs.

Edit: OP, in the spirit of being constructive I'm going to link you to one of my favorite investing books. It's written by one of the best contemporary value investors, Seth Klarman. Klarman, through his investment organization--The Baupost Group, has returned upwards of 20% annually for years. His 1991 book, "Margin of Safety", sells on Amazon and the like for $1500+.

Link to the Margin of Safety PDF

For a book about mutual funds you can do no better than "The Bogleheads Guide to Investing"

I am going to apologise in advance if this sounds unclear but this is me trying to articulate a world view I have developed over years of contemplating the existence of mankind and reading volumes of what others have concluded (this, this and this among others)

Before societies and civilisations were formed, groups existed by meeting the challenges of basic survival:

• If we do not collect enough food, we will die of hunger
  
• If we do not remain vigilant in our defences, we will eventually die from predators and attackers picking us off
  
• If we do not construct means of conflict resolution and resource distribution, we will die from killing each other
  
  Each of the above led to an exponential growth in all the areas of human development:
  
  
• hunting to secure more sources of food, cooking and curing to extend the life span of edible food.
  
  
• tools to augment the physical capabilities of humans (hunt and attack from a distance, or make clothing and housing),
  
  
• skills and arts to improve on the methods of the above
  
  
• oral written recording, social structures to better manage groups and train future generations in the collective knowledge
  
  Groups therefore developed systems and tools to more efficiently meet these challenges.
  
  The more these groups grew into societies and civilisations, the more efficient their methods of survival, the larger the distance between the group and these dangers.
  
  Societies reach a fork in the road where they have two choices:
  
  

1. Remain on the path of continuously improving their methods of survival. Improve their technology, defences, distribution mechanisms.
   
2. Settle into an equilibrium with their environment and focus inward on goals they previously could not entertain. This could include wealth, pleasure. It can also include spirituality, cultural or individual identity
   
   I have concluded from my years contemplating this cosmic riddle, that taking the second path which leads to an equilibrium generally leads to the society leaving it's survival capabilities to stagnate and atrophy. This might sound like I am saying the society is decaying but it's actually the opposite, they have reached such a status in terms of organisation and command of their environment that they can exist and thrive in a stable state almost indefinitely.
   
   That is, until they come into contact with a civilisation that remained on the hard road of honing the mechanisms of survival. Building on the fundamentals of survival (by that I mean tool building to production, skills to science, tribal councils to political machinery) do not lead to equilibrium, they lead to conflict yes but ultimately growth and strength.
   
   To sort of clarify:
   
   the native americans and their culture had a full command of their environment, they no longer feared nature and their fellow man posing an existential threat to them. As a result they diverted their attentions inwards, towards the meaning of nature, spirituality and identity. That was great when they were the only ones roaming the lands in full command of it. Unfortunately, having not built on their already solid base from 20,000 years of survival skills/mechanisms in the americas, they left themselves defenceless in the face of a civilisation that was forged in the fires of centuries of chaos, war, conquest and disease. Technology, politics and the art of war are not these monoliths that are thrust upon humanity. They are incremental advances over centuries by hard work, risk taking and sacrifice from millions of society's best and brightest. The fatal flaw that the native americans committed was that their best and brightest gradually turned away from working on the basics of survival and instead chose to focus on the metaphysical. The rich and beautiful culture they accumulated was useless as tools in the face of gunpowder, iron and germ warfare.
   
   ---
   
   How does this relate to the trends in western countries in relation to restructuring the systems of gender identity? I believe that it is a small thread in a grand tapestry of ideologies meant to create an artificial form of equilibrium, drawing the energies of its citizenry down a path diverting them from building on those tools/mechanisms based on the basics of survival and into the metaphysical/spiritual. The general consensus being that society has reached a peak that leaves them unchallenged by outsiders: the advances of previous generations in science, technology and military prowess have been perfected, are no longer a pressing matter for society at large.
   
   There is nothing inherently wrong with seeking an equilibrium or focusing on the metaphysical, it is the vector that society is set to follow, the vector veering away from the basics of survival, which is the danger.
   
   Hope that clarifies my initial reply.

Those are definitely competitive rates. He's probably hiding some additional fees though, like the expense ratios of the funds themselves, and any load fees.


However, the best thing to do is absolutely to continue to manage things yourselves. There is very little value that a CFP can add over just doing some research, after all, who cares most about your financial future, you or some guy who is just after $0.7% of it?

The wiki of this sub has a lot of great information, you may also want to check out some books like The Bogglehead's Guide to Investing. I can guarantee you that the $14 you spend on that book will give you a better return on your money than the 0.7% you pay an advisor....

Start With Why [Simon Sinek]

48 Laws of Power [Robert Greene] (33 Strategies of War, Art of Seduction)

The 50th Law [Curtis James Jackson]

Tipping Point:How Little Things Can Make a Difference and Outliers: The story of Succes [Malcolm Gladwell]

The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy [Ryan Holiday] (stoicism)

[Tim Ferris] (actually haven't read any of his books, but seems to know a way to use social media, podcast, youtube)

Get an understanding to finance, economics, marketing, investing [Graham, Buffet], philosophy [Jordan Peterson]

I like to think us/you/business is about personal development, consciousness, observing recognizable patterns in human behavior and historical significance. It's an understanding of vast areas of subjects that connect and intertwine then returns back to the first book you’ve read (Start with Why) and learn what you've read past to present. Business is spectacular, so is golf.



To Add:

Irrationally Predictable:The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions - [Dan Ariely] (marketing)

The Hard Things About Hard Things - [Ben Horowitz] (business management)

Black Privilege: Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It - [Charlamagne Tha God] (motivation)

The Lean Startup: Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses - [Eric Ries]

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, How to Build the Future - [Peter Theil]

I wouldn't bother contributing until you've paid off the debt. It's not going to take you very long and those few months of contributions aren't going to make much difference forty years from now.

Once the debt is paid off, build up about 3 months of living expenses as an emergency fund. Then, contribute at least as much that your employer will match.

Within the 401k, you're going to be somewhat limited to the number of funds to choose from. Of those made available, go with the ones with a long track record of good returns.

To help you to better understand investments in general, I recommend picking up The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing. It's a great book and it sounds like you're in the perfect mindset to take advantage of everything it offers.

Best of luck!

The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing by Taylor Larimore is a great introduction to investing. It might look silly, but it's not a silly book.

It's intended for "normal people" with no background in economics. It explains the basics of the stock market, funds, ETFs, bonds, etc., as well as the basics of investment — risk management, compound returns, value investing/fundamental analysis, etc. — in simple, understandable terms.

"Boglehead" is a humorous term for people who espouse the investing philosophy of John C. Bogle, founder of Vanguard — the largest and most consumer-friendly provider of mutual funds in the U.S. — and creator of the first commercially available index fund. Bogleheads usually recommend a simple "three-fund portfolio" as a diversification strategy, based on the idea that index funds by design will, over time, give non-professionals the best returns, as opposed to individual stock picking.

Bogle himself wrote a bunch of books. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing is supposed to be great.

> Got any investing advice for a college student with no real living expenses working part time?

Start here.

Since you're starting out, accumulating an emergency fund first in a savings account is likely your primary goal. Once you get down to step 4, then I would set up automatic investments into an IRA at Vanguard, with 100% of contributions into Vanguard Target Retirement 2060.

>I only ask since it's something I've wanted to learn more about for a while

If you want to learn more about WHY this is a good idea, I highly recommend reading through the Stock Series by JLCollins. He presents it in an enjoyable and not overly technical way to keep it interesting. If you prefer books, then the Bogleheads Guide to Investing is a great resource. Borrow it from the library to save some money!

My best advice as a student is to take full advantage of the career center at your college: resume review, internship opportunities, interview practice, etc. Attaining an internship in your field will give you a huge leg up on everyone else graduating with you.

TL;DR

Steve Blank's Four Steps to the Epiphany and Guy Kawasaki's Art of the Start are both pretty good books on the subject.

The Mixergy podcasts are helpful as well, they're interviews with entrepreneurs in all sorts of different businesses. They usually have pretty good information on their whole business process from start to finish.

Other than that, depending on the business you're starting check out blogs of companies/people in similar areas of business. Startup Digest curates news from various startup blogs every week and sometimes they have pretty good information.

Wow. Ok, two things:

1. The article you are referencing is from 1996. This amazing review of exchange rate predictability by the leading scholar on the subject was published in 2013; and one of its key findings is that the success of different predictors in the FX markets changes over time, without any ability to forecast which one will be most (or at all) successful at any time. FX is literally the hardest thing in economics to forecast.
   
   
2. You clear haven’t read or have willfully forgotten A Random Walk Down Wall Street, which does a beautiful deep dive into the meaninglessness of “technical analysis”.

I am currently a resident in my research years and finally started taking an interest in my finances. I would argue that you do not necessarily need an adviser yet. You should do some reading first. Here are some websites White Coat Investor (WCI) and Bogleheads, which has a great forum and wiki. You should definitely read these 2 books:

• The White Coat Investor. It is a little to basic for me and I pretty much had zero knowledge about finances but its a quick easy read.
  
  
• The Boglehead's Guide to Investing. I personally think this is the gold standard for personal finance/retirement investing. (Read it even though it says not to if you have large loans). It is also a quick easy read but explains things considerable better than WCI book. It also discusses adviser and types of different advisers. Going forward you should make it a habit to read at least one finance book a year (treat it like CME).
  
  I too plan on PSLF (my residency + fellowship will be 9 years so pretty easy decision). My personal opinion is to live like a resident for 2-3 more years (no lifestyle inflation) and accumulate as much money as possible. That means renting for the same amount (if possible) wherever you move for you job. No new cars and the like... After just 2-3 years of this, you will have a decent chunk of money for whatever.

Yes, management consultants will happily take your money to do this. If there is a WeWork in your city they may congregate there.

There are also a large number of business guys looking for people like you to start companies with. Try hanging out at startup happy hour events.

These are not high-probability paths to success, though. You would be better off studying business strategy and trying to figure it out yourself.

Consider Guy Kawasaki's "The Art of the Start" which is a good introduction.

I honestly don't know much about insurance in the US, but term life insurance is almost always the way to go. I'd recommend searching /r/PersonalFinance for the name of the company to see if anything pops up.

As for the last part... that's why I recommend reading a simple book on investing. I'm assuming a modest cash buffer of about 6x your monthly expenses and then investing the rest.

Most people here will recommend investing in cheap, broad index funds, usually by instances like Vanguard. Popular funds as far as I know are VTSAX for stocks and BND for bonds.

Just to reiterate: Just pick up The Bogleheads Guide to Investing. Your future self will thank you.

I would like to recommend as fitting nicely with the 1 doge = 1 doge philosophy of "enthusiastic indifference" the following two references for those interested in economics and currency markets:

Evidence for the fact that the stock market is efficient so to try to beat or time the market is basically impossible:
A Random Walk Down Wall Street

Very helpful community for beginning investors:
Bogleheads Guide for Beginner Investors

Cheers!

Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People contains a bunch of principles that I really internalized and still rely on, almost a decade after reading it.

Nassim Nicholas Talib's Antifragile changed my outlook on life and got me thinking about viable long-term strategies.

John Medina's Brain Rules is especially useful if you're in school, studying, or in some line of creative or intellectual work. I've applied its principles to my presentations, teaching, and personal studies, and I'm really happy with the results.

Happy reading!

1/2 in Vanguard S&P 500 and the rest in an equivalent fund focused on international companies. Diversity among the largest companies around the world. Vanguard funds have very lost fees so more of your money keeps working for you.

I have been reading this book. I think you would identify with it and like it. I don't necessarily follow all his advice, but a good principle.

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

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1533667926/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

> How easy/difficult is it to get a hold of stocks like Apple, Amazon and Walmart?

Very easy, perhaps too easy. You can start with Robinhood, but it's not an app for serious investors IMHO (E-Trade is, however).

What I've done so far is reading "The Simple Path to Wealth" by J.L. Collins. The book basically details how low-cost broad-based Index Funds (VTSAX in particular) are a safe bet and how they can help you get moderately wealthy over the course of several years. It's not exciting or "sexy" but the thing is, just like most things in life worth doing, there are no shortcuts.

$600 for food for two people? You guys must enjoy some serious eats :)

Never having touched the IRA is great news. VTIVX is a great fund, with low expenses and index allocation that is rebalanced for you as time goes on, with the investments becoming less risky as you get closer to retirement. For folks like you who don't have the time and/or interest in learning about investing this is about as good as it gets. You don't have to do anything except keep investing as much as you can. You'll be able to retire early if you wish just by contributing ~25% of your income to the fund and letting it grow.

Keeping the 12k in cash is okay. That's enough to cover emergencies or give you an opportunity to take advantage of potential opportunities you might miss if you've got all your money stashed in illiquid investments.

I'd probably put your monthly excess cash into savings, then when your income goes up and your debt is paid off you can increase your monthly contribution to the IRA. When you're ready you can look into buying a home instead of renting if it makes financial sense to do so. If it were me I'd cut the food/transportation/rent budget a bit and work to get rid of the debt immediately, but I'm a nitpicker.

As long as you don't let your lifestyle and consumption habits inflate when your income increases you should be well on your way to financial independence, and if you choose, early retirement.

If you want to get a basic idea of the principles of investing you should buy William Bernstein's If you can. At 27 pages in length it's a quick and easy read.

first: Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefevre

Next:
Whichever version of http://www.amazon.ca/Security-Analysis-Foreword-Warren-Buffett/dp/0071592539/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374797721&sr=8-1&keywords=security+analysis

Liar's poker is interesting. Skip wealth of nations in my opinion. I like it, but there are more pressing things to read.

Next, I'd say read this "Options, Futures and Other Derivatives by John C. Hull'


Read Brett Steenbarger's books on managing yourself (enhancing trader performance, and other)

Check out Jeff Augen books on options trading.

next: Trading in the Zone : Maximizing Performance with Focus and Discipline by Ari Kiev


>>>Most importantly, read on different topics.<<<

Read anything by Fabozzi fixed income, mortgages

I had a few in mind, but this was a great help to me: GS summer reading list has great titles: https://www.quantnet.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Goldman-Sachs-Suggested-Reading-List.pdf

Graham, Bill Gross, John Train, Peter Lynch

I really liked The Predators’ Ball and Den of Thieves


Also, consider spending some money and getting one of these courses: http://www.wallstreetprep.com/programs/ (I'm not affiliated with them, but when they were starting out, I got one of the programs on discount, didn't fully persue it, but I found presentations to be very helpful on valuations and LBO introduction.. I imagine they got even better overtime)

Do a tonne of reading. A lot of things are US based but the principles apply to Canada too. Read the investing for beginners info at about.com to get a grasp. Joshua Kennon is a pretty smart guy when it comes to investing and business but he really just follows the principles of Benjamin Graham (Warren Buffet's mentor). Security Anaylsis is very good as well as The Intelligent Investor.

Jim Collins just published a book called The Simple Path to Wealth, based on his excellent series of blog posts. It's an easy read and I highly recommend that you check it out.

But until you have a good understanding of how investing works, don't worry too much about it. Put your savings in an online savings account like Ally so you can at least earn some interest. Keep saving, do some reading about investing, and you'll eventually know what to do with your money. You're already ahead of the game just by virtue of thinking about this stuff.

The best thing you can do is read and then read some more! Find those articles about investing and start learning the language. You can probably find what you need from a couple of books at the library or you can find them on Amazon but if you need help understanding it, then get help. You can call an investment broker in your area and schedule a meeting. They will usually spend some time with you for free in hopes that you will invest with them in the future.


[Mandatory link to Bogle type book] (https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/1118921283/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1526318235&sr=8-3&keywords=jack+bogle)

• 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

Brissie Ozzie here. Sounds like you've learnt a good lesson about property investing. It's all part of the process.

My strongest recommendation is to read If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly. It's probably the best US$0.99 investment you'll ever make. Also read his other books, the Bogleheads forums and the other books recommended there.
All of those sources are aimed at US investors but you can apply most of the principles here.

I've got pretty extensive local and international experience in investing and am happy to answer questions you might have, but I'm not a financial advisor so you should not take anything I say here as financial advice.

Posting for postings sake really.

Early 20's small timer dipping my feet into the world of investing. My only experience is the 4 unit finance class I took in College last year and whatever snippets I've read from /r/PF (mostly ppl recommending you have an emergency fund setup, debts taken care of and vanguard retirement plan). I have A random Walk arriving this weekend but decided to get into it a tad earlier just to feel it out.

I purchased $100 of AMD stock over the last couple of months starting in Oct. through RH. Since my initial investment, I've gotten a return of 12% which I think is pretty good taking it for what it is. I see the stock doing much better in 1 years time and will hold out until then regardless of performance while continuing to dump my pre-budgeted spending money into it (usually $100/month).

Again, I know it's virtually nothing at the moment but I want to further chase these feel goods with initial investments into some other companies. SHOR, BBRY, TMUS, and FEYE are on my watch list and I plan on reading up on Utilities, Healthcare and Energy but one step at a time.

TLDR: Hi guys, Where do you recommend I look to learn about energy, health/pharm/utilities.

EDIT: what do any of you think about CPRX?

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.

Welcome to the states! It sounds like you and your husband are doing quite well for yourselves. Saving for the future and being financially independent is a great goal to strive for. Maxing out your IRA and 401K is a great idea as it'll save money on taxes. Beyond that, I recommend low-cost mutual funds for nonpre-tax savings - a good book to read that's great for beginners would be The Boglehead's Guide to Investing. I also recommend checking out /r/personalfinance

As to worrying about lifestyle creep, there are a few tricks I like to do to keep me from spending needlessly. The first is to envision how long it would require me to work to be able to afford something. For example, you make $55k/yr or about $27.50 pretax, so if you see a new pair of shoes that are $125, you'd need to work for a little more than 5 hours to be able to afford them. Are they still worth it to you?

Another trick is to wait several weeks from buying large, expensive items. I like to set a price point for myself and if it's over that ($250) I need to wait several weeks to buy it. If I forget about it or find 2 weeks later I don't need it than I just saved myself money - it's saved me from buying a lot of needless electronics. This takes some will power, but I believe that you can do it.

I would just sell it and take the ~25% loss. You could do a lot worse. If you want a sound investment strategy, read the Bogleheads investment philosophy. They recommend dollar-cost-averaging your way into a diversified portfolio of low-cost, no-load index funds. You might also check out The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing. It is a great introduction to proper investing (not speculating, which is what crypto "investors" are actually engaged in). Your local public library probably has a copy. Even at $11/hr you can save for a comfortable retirement. If you can manage to save up $1000 in your savings account, you can buy an all-in one fund and simply put a fraction of your paycheck into it every month. It's hard to get rich quick, but easy to get rich slowly.

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.

> virtually know nothing

Ok, sorry I thought you were further along than you first appeared.

Start with Tim Hale's Smarter Investing. Give it a couple of reads, ignore the stuff about Bonds if it flies over your head.

Heed Lars Krojer, at least for now.

Pop what you can in high interest current accounts while you can. Also go through Monevator and Pensioncraft as they're both good.

That sounds like a lot to wade through, but you don't need to do this all at once. If you only do one thing, Smarter Investing's it.

You mentioned not liking the LISA because of locking up your funds. Have a think about what you want in terms of accessible long term investments, and how much that should be 5 and 10 years from now. Look to build to that amount.

You can have both an S&S LISA and S&S ISA and contribute to both at the same time, so you can get the 25% and lock away some of the investment, but also keep an amount accessible based on your needs.

If you're going the Vanguard route, take a look at Pensioncraft's vids on two fund and single fund portfolios, in particular the difference between Target Retirement (which is best suited to a LISA) and the Lifestrategy and Global funds. Once you understand the funds and the differences, you'll be better placed to pick them. Feel free to come back here when you're ready to make the choice.

Just remember, if you're getting 3-5% in a bank account while you learn all this, you're not really losing any pounds. There's no harm waiting a little, or keeping it simple for now and switching say, 5 years later.

No kids, mortgage, etc? If so then in order or priority:

• Contribute to the work-based plan (401(k), 403b,) enough to get the full employer match (the match is like free money, your best possible investment),
  
• Pay off high interest debt (a guaranteed high return, the next best thing to free money),
  
• Contribute to a Health Savings Account (HSA) if available (unlike many other tax deductions, there are no income restrictions to contribute to an HSA)
  
• Contribute the maximum to an IRA, traditional or Roth, depending on income eligibility
  
• Contribute the remainder of the maximum employee contribution to the work-based plan
  
  At this stage saving money (accumulation) is way more important than asset allocation (stocks, bonds, CDs, etc.)
  
  Buy this book and read it

>I’m 20 right now with 1.5M in savings.

You have a great head start compared to most people! Don't squander the money. You'll realize 1.5M isn't that big soon enough, if you haven't already.

>While I really do appreciate the groundbreaking and insightful concepts that he introduces in his books, I feel like it doesn’t specifically teach you how to invest especially if you are an absolute beginner

Yes, I noticed this too but there was one crucial lesson he taught in the book that people miss - cashflow management. What did you learn about cashflow management?

Don't underestimate that lesson. It's literally the key to becoming and staying wealthy. It's probably more important than learning how to analyze a company's financial statement, forecast price movement, etc.

Once you feel like you're ready, go and study the different methods for analyzing a company. I would suggest reading this book: Security Analysis and this. Those two books will teach you exactly what you're trying to figure out now in terms of "learning to invest".

Keep learning, don't stop growing.

I'm just a junior designer, but oftentimes in academics I was the group leader. So take this with a grain of salt that I may have no idea what I'm talking about but being a leader I always made sure there was clear public directions conveyed in two forms. Often an email before a meeting and then a verbal check in. I found people will often say they didn't get the email or try to wiggle out of commitments so you have to be the driver of change. I found that if I gave clear directions to everyone, and was available and approachable things ran smoothly.

As for reading I would recommend art of the start by Guy Kawasaki. Lots of great chapters about assembling teams and other aspects.

Just to help you with your research as your actual question has been answered, what you're describing is called "Financial Independence", often combined with "Early Retirement" if your income grows significantly.

The relevant subs are /r/financialindependence/ (US and high-earners heavy) and /r/FIREUK/ (which has links to UK-based blogs like monevator.com). If you haven't already, you'll be recommended to read this from our wiki:

> 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.

I've read about half of these. Pretty dry reading. I would recommend the following:

The Wealthy Barber

I Will Teach You to be Rich

Bogleheads' Guide to Investing

All About Asset Allocation

The basic point of all of the books above and in the article is that you aren't going to beat the pros in investing, in fact the pros can't even keep up the same record from year to year. Index funds are the way to go. Other books above go over what the asset allocation looks like and also goes over insurance and other things to make your finances sound.


As an aside, I never could stick with a budget until using the software YNAB and now that I'm doing a monthly budget I am seeing massive benefits.

Why shouldn’t they get rich? They’re providing an excellent service.

> Analysis paralysis is a thing

> No it’s not

> Proceeds to provide a book the majority of people will not understand, leaving them utterly confused

I’m sure the book is actually excellent. I’m also sure I won’t understand it.

In any case, I’ll leave you to your blogs, books, models, predictions, etc.

I’m going to listen to Warren Buffet.


Smarter Investing: Simpler Decisions for Better Results (Financial Times Series) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0273785370/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_IyeWDbS7N2SD7

A book for those who actually want to move forward.

Oh hells yeah I do! I give this book to everybody because it's shockingly simple, easy to understand, makes no assumptions about pre-existing subject knowledge, is written clearly and consicely, and its format follows a logical progression that makes it accessible and the best recommendation for a high schooler or a school superintendent with a Harvard PhD, two people I've gifted this book and who both loved it and changed the way they handled their finances.

It's called The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing

I provided an Amazon link, where you can get it for around $15. I can't speak highly enough about this book. If most of your financial knowledge comes from what you've been reading that stock blog you mentioned, this book will change your life. Without any hyperbole, it most definitely changed mine.

Currency trading is a really elegant area of finance that, if you're talented, can lead to great rewards. Part of the reason for this is that currency markets trade 24/7, have almost unlimited liquidity (daily trading volume of over 4 trillion USD), and if you're in the right place, you can get access to very large leverage.

The mathematics of simple currency trading is also not all that complex. Don't get bogged down trying to learn the most complicated math! You are doing exactly the right thing by getting your hands dirty and actually trying to build strategies. If there were precise mathematics that governed how to predict the direction of an arbitrary pair wouldn't everyone do that? Think about the implications of this in terms of arbitrage (and why arbitrage makes any model that precisely predicts the future value of a currency pair impossible).

The best source for getting your feet wet in how currency trading is done, and what sorts of strategies work (i.e. carry strategies) is to read Anti Ilmanen's book. See chapter 13.

I would read If you can, how Millenials Can Get Rich Slowly. Its short (like twenty pages) and gives you the basics of investing, and has a reading list of other books. The electronic version is free, so don't pay for it.

The market as a whole tends to go up because people keep getting better at doing things (productivity increasing), although it is definitely not monotonically increasing. And since corporate profits will inflate right along with currency, they tend to keep their value in the face of inflation.

The other thing to realize is, what else are you going to put your money into? In a savings account, inflation will slowly evaporate it. Real estate prices also fluctuate.

I'd read A Random Walk Down Wall Street first. Then Intelligent Investor before Security Analysis.

The first book I read when I was a n00b was The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing. It's pretty simple and basic and made for total beginner's.

Also, you may want to read Reminiscences of a Stock Operator at some point.

Also, check out Robert Shiller's Financial Markets course.

Stock Charts is a good online introduction to technical and fundamental analysis.

Have fun!!

Edit: correction