Caution: Wall of text to follow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTIONS

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

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

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

> At what age?

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

> What majors in college should I be looking at?

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

> And at what colleges?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I apologise if I'm going to be direct here, but I think I can see you have the ability to come up with great insights but you're just shy of getting it right.

You establish the call to look for value bets here:

> So generally in the first round the top ranked players would play someone who is unseeded in the tournament. Even in the second round the chances of the top two or three players playing unseeded players is extremely high.

> Of course the betting lines tend to correspond to the mismatch but there are in-play betting lines which have not quite caught up with the trends.

This is good. I like the fact that you've spotted a solid bet but that you recognise that bookmakers often offer poor value on those and you need to look further afield for value. And then…

> For example if the number one seed player is playing against an un-seeded player in the first round, generally their odds will be as low as 1/40 or even 1/100. However, the odds for them to win their own service game will likely be closer to 1/12.

Oh dear. The reason why those odds are 1/12 is because the true odds are more like 1/10, and there might be no value there. You need to show that in fact the true odds are more like 1/15 by grabbing some historical data, and doing some analysis, and showing it if you can.

You then develop a system where you assume that games where the favourite serves to open the set or to win the set they are more likely to lose them, without showing any actual numbers. Why are the odds still 1/12 if the true odds change in these games? This could be a great understanding of value if you had stats to back you up.

Then this sentence:

> If you roll your bet, a $10 bet would see approximately a $30 return. So from an initial 1/40 bet, you have increased your odds to 2/1

No. No, no, no, no, no.

No.

Please, read up on Kelly criterion. If you can identify true odds, and you can identify the odds being given to you, you can identify edge/value and you can therefore identify the optimal staking plan between games that is mathematically proven to increase your bankroll optimally.

It's not a "system". It's not a guess. It is mathematic proof that given true odds and odds being offered it is trivial to work out what percentage of your bankroll you should bet.

Just rolling like this is guaranteed to kill you off almost every time.

This is a great book on the subject if you don't like the idea of reading academic papers: http://www.amazon.com/Fortunes-Formula-Scientific-Betting-Casinos/dp/0809045990

And then this:

> If you are brave enough to follow this system through both rounds letting the bet roll, your $10 initial stake would grow up to as much as $2,500.

No, because you're betting 100% of the bank roll on it - you have a huge odds-on chance of losing your bank roll. This sentence suggests you have paper-traded the system but not actually done it, otherwise you would know this.

And you'd think "well, what if I bet half the bank roll? Or 75%? Or 25%?" and then suddenly you'd plot these things on a graph using historical results, and you'd spot the apex and then you would think - ah, there is a sweet spot here which increases my bank optimally.

From that you can work out through the kelly criterion your edge by rearranging the formula.

Please stop giving anecdotes, use data, show what is going on. If you don't want to give it all away to bookmakers so the edge disappears, either don't write about it, or conceal pieces of data.

My recommendation is that you take the plunge and get your retirement fund invested in super-low-cost ETFs with a discount brokerage like Questrade. Tangerine and eSeries are great for starting out, but you've got a considerable portfolio now and it will really benefit from optimizing costs.

Here's your breakdown with Management Expense Ratios and US Foreign Withholding Tax:

Fund|Assets|MER|US FWT

--|:--|:--|:--
Tangerine Balanced (TFSA)|$30k|1.07%|.04%
Tangerine Equity Growth (RRSP)|$38k|1.07%|.07%
TD e US equities (RRSP)|$55k|0.5%|0.22%
TD e CDN equities (RRSP)|$12K|0.33%|N/A

Weighted average MER + FWT: 0.89%
Amount paid in fees over 25 years of growth: $149,860 (assumes annual contributions of $5K and growth rate of 6%)
Value after 25 years: $698,864
Amount paid in fees over next 25 years of withdrawals: $172,287 (assumes withdrawals of $41.6K and growth rate of 4%)
Retirement income: $41,597

Now, if you were to move all your funds to Questrade and buy ETFs that track the same (or similar) indexes as you currently have:

ETF|Assets|MER|US FWT

--|:--|:--|:--
VAB: Canadian Aggregate Bond (TFSA)|$12k|.13%|N/A
VCN: FTSE Canada All Cap (TFSA)|$30.5k|.06%|N/A
VTI: US Total Stock Market (RRSP)|$73.5k|.05%|Exempt
VEA: FTSE Developed Markets (RRSP)|$18.5K|.09%|Exempt

Weighted average MER (no FWT): 0.065%
Amount paid in MER fees over 25 years: $11,931

Cost to transfer RRSP from Tangerine: $45
Cost to transfer TFSA from Tangerine: $45
Cost to transfer RRSP from TD: $75
Cost of Norbert's gambit on $92K: ~$194
Initial investment after fees: $134,641

Cost of Norbert's gambit on $3400 annually (68% of $5K contributions): ~$17/yr
Annual contribution after fees: $4890
Value after 25 years (after fees): $830,869

Cost of MER fees over next 25 years (assumes withdrawals of $54.1K and growth rate of 4%): $15,303
Cost of commissions to sell holdings in retirement annually: $40/yr
Cost of Norbert's gambit (back to CAD) on $37K (68% of retirement income): ~$84/yr
Retirement Income (drawdown over 25 years) after fees: $53,994/yr

One thing that isn't taken into account is that as you age, you'll want to shift the allocations more into bonds to protect the capital, but it won't make a huge difference to the fees and costs. What will make a difference is changes to the MER costs of each fund, but there's no way to predict that. I'm also assuming that Questrade continues to provide commission-free purchases of ETFs, and that their sell commission remains maxed at $10 (probably will go up, but who knows when or how much).

Basically, for a little extra effort, you can cut your $322K in costs down to about $27K! Let's say it takes you an extra ~5 hours of time spent learning how to use Questrade and learning about Norbert's gambit, and it takes an extra 4 hours per year to do the gambit and execute trades. Then you're spending 205 hours over 50 years to earn $295,000. That's like getting paid $1439/hr! And that's tax-free, because it's paid to you in the form of increased earnings in your TFSA and RRSP. Another way to look at it is in terms of retirement income: $41.6K/yr with your current portfolio vs $54K/yr with ETFs. What would you do with an extra $12,400 per year? A trip to Africa? A month-long Caribbean cruise?

I really don't know how much you're setting aside for retirement, $5K was just a guess. If you instead contributed $10K/year, you'd be looking at retirement income of $55.6K for the current portfolio vs $71.6K using ETFs.

So where do you start? Well, I recommend you read The Value of Simple, which you can get from Chapters, Amazon, or from the author's website. It's a great eBook that will teach you what you need to know, and guide you through the steps of DIY investing using Questrade. If you need further assistance setting up Questrade or anything else, I'd be happy to help. I went through the transition from eSeries to Questrade just a couple years ago, and am on my way to a much richer retirement!

First off, I recommend you read Medical Student Loans by Ben White, it will answer all your questions. Like a 4-5 hour read I think all 4th year med students should read, along with White Coat Investor as you'll never have as much free time as you do now to lean a little about finances.

The thing to know about your loans in terms of the $0 payment is that your loans have a 6 month grace period after graduation, meaning no payment is due for 6 months. (If you took time off between undergrad and medical school you may have already used this up on your undergrad loans and something you should look into.) Most residents take advantage of this and then enter IDR ~6 months into residency when the grace period ends. This doesn't give you the $0 payment for a full year though, as when you enter IDR, on the form it asks if your income has substantially changed since your most recent tax return. In this case, you are legally supposed to answer yes and submit pay stubs that would then dictate your monthly payment amount. Making $55k/year means about $300/month in payments. Some residents lie and use their 4th year tax returns with $0 income and extend the $0 payment for another year. This is not legal and something I do not recommend.

The legal way to do this is actually to consolidate all your loans the day after graduation, waive the 6 month grace period on the consolidation form, and use your M4 tax return of $0 income on the IDR form before July 1st as that way you're telling the truth. This will start your payments 6 months earlier than your fellow residents, but you'll both be paying $0. Of note, for this to work, you need to file taxes this year and you should also be aware consolidating has two down sides. 1) your new interest rate becomes a weighted average of all your loans and is then rounded up to the nearest 1/8th of a percent. 2) you can not longer attack your loans with the avalanche method as you no longer have several loans with differing interest rates, but one large loan with one interest rate. In your case there would actually be a 3rd down side which is that because you have some subsidized loans where under REPAYE the feds will cover 100% of the unmet interest by the minimum payment for the first 3 years, drops the 50% as the new loan is considered unsubsidized. This strategy is typically recommended for residents pursing PSLF and not necessarily something I would recommend you pursue. I would likely recommend the typical 6-month grace period option because of these downsides and the fact that it doesn't sound like you want to do PSLF.

There are no consequences for switching out of REPAYE in terms of the interest subsidy which I think you are alluding to, but just for completeness sake, should be aware that switching from REPAYE to another IDR plan does capitalize the unpaid interest. This is essentially true when refinancing with a private company too as they are going to pay off the loans in full, including interest, and give you a new loan for that total amount, meaning all that unpaid interest accrued during residency becomes part of the principal for the new loan.

Whether you should ride out REPAYE or refinance as an attending is really going to depend on what rate you can get in 5 years from now, how much your making, and how stable your job is. Something I would revisit then and not worry about too much now.

Hope that was helpful!

tl;dr, my advice would be to take 3 deep breaths and not be in a huge rush. Don't dilly dally for no reason, but take a little while and educate yourself on what options you have. The reading list in the sidebar is a very good start. Stuff like Millionaire Teacher(new version just came out this year) will help you understand what you're investing in, why you would chose one method to invest over others, etc... Spending a few bucks on those books(or better yet, get as many as you can from a local library) will save you a heck of a lot over the course of your life.


You certainly can invest through CIBC. Either through an advisor there, or a self-directed system where you control things more directly.

But just because you have a savings account with CIBC doesn't you don't need to invest with them though! You have a few different options besides them.

An increasingly popular method is to use a roboadvisor like Wealthsimple. They charge a % of the value of your investments as their take, but they also do all the buying and selling and whatnot for you which might help keep you from doing something Silly(a lot of folks do). Silly things might include putting all your money into whatever country/sector/company has been really hot lately under the assumption that it'll keep going up forever(it probably wont!)

Or to save a bit more money you can open an account with TD and invest using their e-series mutual funds. They're quite cheap in terms of fees(for Canadian mutual funds anyway, we're used to paying through the nose for stuff like this).
Once you have that account set up you just pay your TD account number through CIBC's bill payment just like you would a phone bill or whatnot. Then once they money is in your TFSA/RRSP/Taxable account you use them to buy the appropriate funds.

Then if/when you want to really save some cash, and can be online during 'market hours' going to Questrade is a popular choice. That way you can use rock-bottom cost Exchange Traded Funds(think mutual funds, but they trade like individual stocks) and you aren't paying any significant fees to buy those.

But seriously, read a couple of those books(and make one of them Millionaire Teacher). If the how-to of investing with TD or Tangerine or Questrade is confusing to you, or you want more info on that sort of thing, The Value of Simple is a good book to get too. The e-book version gets more updates due to the realities of printing costs, but the author has a bunch of new/edited info on their website.

Finally, as to WHAT to invest in, most folks in here follow something along the lines of a Couch Potato strategy.

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Now, I am not going to give you specific tips on investing in financial markets. It’s like telling a 6-year-old; “I see you learned to ride a bike, let’s go see what you can do in an Apache Helicopter.” It might be fun to watch but it really is not a good plan and anything the kid may learn would be lost on him as it crashes to the ground.

You heard the familiar adage about “Give a man fish, you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish…..yadda yadda” Instead I will list a few resources that will make your journey an educational, well informed and hopefully, very profitable one:

Step 1: (estimated time to master:2-3 days of intense reading)

First get an entry level book… you know the type, it breaks stuff down so simply, it is almost insulting…yea that type! Check your library, as although these books are fantastic for the very low level learning, once you master it, you might not refer back to this one too often,
Something like this (not a shill for any author or publisher):
https://www.amazon.com/Personal-Finance-Dummies-Eric-Tyson/dp/1118117859

Sure, it may be a bit dry and parts will seem numbingly simple but I guarantee you will learn a few new things, enhance your understanding of things you already know and begin building the most solid foundation you can. Like most things in life, the foundation will determine if your future efforts are sound or just primed for unforeseen disaster.

Step 1a: (estimated time to master:1-2 hours to learn, years of pounding it into your head)

Be able to define and clearly understand the concept of “Compound interest/growth.” I cringe at the number of people who fail to fully grasp this concept and the impact it can have your life and on the value of your portfolio. Study this concept like your life depends on it. Embrace it, love it, make it your bitch. This is the one and true monolith that stands taller than all others when it comes to taking a proper long term view of your investments. It is Wonka’s Golden Ticket. Once you think you are a Comp-Int ninja, learn it some more. Never lose sight of the goal and the primary mechanism that is going to get you to the promised land. Oh, and just to make sure you are beating this concept into your head, learn the meaning of “temporal dissonance” and how it relates to so many others failing to properly reach their goals. 30 years from now, you will thank me.

Step 2. (estimated time to master:1-2 weeks with additional web research to clarify questions and concepts)

Get another book or ten. One is good to start and should be directed more towards understanding actual beginner investment in stock markets.

https://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Investing-Money-Smart/dp/1477463992/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1477463992&pd_rd_r=M1PDAGCEZ704BBNQ6JDR&pd_rd_w=1YX5U&pd_rd_wg=dLc5n&psc=1&refRID=M1PDAGCEZ704BBNQ6JDR

or

https://www.amazon.com/Investing-Online-Dummies-Matt-Krantz/dp/1119228352/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1484793761&sr=1-3&keywords=online+stock+trading+for+dummies

or

https://www.amazon.com/Stock-Investing-Dummies-Paul-Mladjenovic/dp/1119239281/ref=pd_sim_14_6?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1119239281&pd_rd_r=BZHS9CJZZWBRA86WN3MP&pd_rd_w=WSFFO&pd_rd_wg=rGrkD&psc=1&refRID=BZHS9CJZZWBRA86WN3MP
or find one YOU like…I am not a damn librarian.

When you are finished with this step you should be rather comfortable with most basic stock investing terms. Words like Equity, ETF, Mutual Funds, Preferred stock, Long, short will become part of your conversations at happy hour, chicks will dig you and guys will want to be like you. (I’m sorry, I just assumed your gender and orientation, please reverse that last phrase if it better suits your lifestyle). You will dream of S&P gains and have nightmares about the words: bear, correction and SEC investigation. In other words, you are now shaping up as a solid investor with years of prosperity in front of you. Alas, you are not there yet grasshopper…

(continued)

It's very risky out there right now, and a lot of the pros have significant holdings in cash. Source. Maybe buying a CD or just keeping it in a checking account is the best thing to do.

As for paying for college with your $1000, that's probably unlikely. If you earn 10% a year on your money, which would be extremely good, in 10 years you would have $2,593.74 before taxes. The first rule of investing is to be realistic in your expectations, or else you're going to lose all your money on some very risky ventures.

What you probably want to do is play the market. You'll research companies, but the right stocks, and see them increase rapidly while all the other suckers are left behind. If you really want to try that, read The Intelligent Investor and use EDGAR to do your research. The problem with this is that every time you buy a stock, you have to pay broker's fees, and $1000 will get burned through pretty quickly. Also, no offense, but the odds that you're smarter, or luckier, than every other trader out there and are going to beat the market is pretty slim. Your assembled portfolio before broker fees will probably underperform the general market. After broker fees it will be a rout.

The problem with that style of investing is unsystematic risk. In short, you buy stock in something like Lehman Brothers or GM, you get wiped out. To avoid both broker fees and unsystematic risk, you want want to follow the strategy in A Random Walk Down Wall Street. The idea under that strategy is that you buy a fund that tracks the market. You'll never gain more than the market gains, but you'll also never lose more than the market loses. You have to give up your (unrealistic) dreams of achieving untold riches, but in exchange you get a steady paycheck.

Vanguard is arguably the best company for retail investors. One of these target funds would probably suit your needs best, as they are diversified stock and bond funds designed to track the market, minimize fees, and maximize reward for the amount of risk assumed. (This is known as the Sharpe Ratio as part of the Capital Asset Pricing Model)

If you're just determined to speculate, Vanguard also has some stock mutual funds and some sector specific ETF's, so you can assume systematic risk in the hope that it pays off. You can find the asset funds here and the ETFs here.

TL;DR: If I were you, I would just hold cash, as $1,000 isn't that much. Just use it to pay a laptop for school.

But if you're determined to invest it in the market, read a Random Walk and buy a diversified passively managed fund.

If you're just determined to speculate in unsystematic risk, get a fund through Vanguard. If that isn't enough, read The Intelligent Investor and best of luck to you, because $1,000 is a lot of money to lose for something that can be summarized on a Saturday morning in about ten minutes.

Online courses are really hit or miss. Most college courses on "business" don't really teach how to start or run a small business. They either teach big business... how to work in a large corporation... or how to create a startup. Both of those are markedly different from starting and running a small business (even an online one).

There are some great books about starting and running a small business, though. Here are a few of my favorites:

Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs

This is an excellent book on business finances for the non-accounting types. I took accounting classes in college but never really got what all the financial reports really meant to my business' health. This will teach you what's important in the reports, what you should look out for, and how to read them. This is critically important for a small business owner to understand, even if you plan to hire a bookkeeper and accountant.

The E-myth Revisited by Michael Gerber

Awesome book about building systems in your business to really grow it to the point where it's not just a job for the owner. It's easy to read and probably one of the top 5 business books of all time.

Entreleadership by Dave Ramsey

This is a good book and covers several different aspects of entrepreneurship from hiring and managing employees to marketing, setting the vision, etc. It's hokey at times, but is a good read.

The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen Covey

Not necessarily a "small business" book, but easily my top #1 book recommendation of all time. It's hugely applicable to any professional, or anyone really. I re-read this book every couple of years and still get more out of it after almost 20 years.

Getting Things Done by David Allen

THE productivity book. Even if you only absorb and implement 25% of the strategies in this book it will make a huge difference in your level of productivity. It's really the game-changing productivity system. This is one of the biggest problems with small business owners - too much to do and no organization. Great read.

It's OK to put in 1% as a learning experience.

A professional investor would typically put in a somewhat larger amount if there is a real edge.

One approach is the Kelly criterion, which says that if you want to maximize the growth rate of your portfolio over the long run, the amount to invest is edge/odds. In other words, if you have a big edge you invest more, if the risk/volatility around that edge is high you invest less.

However, even assuming you actually know the edge and odds accurately, the Kelly criterion position size takes a LOT of risk and volatility to maximize your growth rate. In general you would have an x% chance of losing 1-x% of your entire stack at some point in the future, ie a 50% chance of losing 50%, a 10% chance of losing 90%. Nevertheless, if you lived forever, that's the risk you would want to take to maximize your growth rate.

On the one hand, the Kelly Criterion, the long run persistence of an edge in equities in the form of the equity risk premium, and an understanding of human psychology all suggest that people don't really take enough risk.

There are 2 very good and a few not-so-good reasons to take less than the Kelly-optimal risk.

The first is you don't live forever, and it's perfectly rational to give up a big chunk of the growth rate for a MUCH lower risk of blowing up and impacting your lifestyle and opportunities of your loved ones.

The second, which is most important, is that you never really know the edge and the odds, best you have is a guesstimate. And if you take even a little more risk than Kelly-optimal, you will fall prey to the gambler's curse. Consider what happens if I give you a coin-flip where I give you 5x on your money when you win. If you bet all your money on each flip, you are guaranteed to go broke. Bet even a little too much, and you magically turn a huge edge into a guaranteed big money-loser.

But most people never even approach Kelly-optimal betting. They are risk-averse, and extremely loss-averse. Pro money managers could never tolerate the swings involved.

Warren Buffett put something like 40% of his portfolio into American Express in 1963. His view of value investing is to invest as if you have a lifetime 20-hole punch card. Every decade-ish long market cycle, you will have a few really great opportunities. Invest so at the end of your lifetime investing career, you'll have accumulated 20-odd meaningful positions in really great companies.

It's worth pointing out that EVERY time Buffett has underperformed, there has been a litany of articles about how he has lost his touch. Partly it's because it makes interesting copy, and people love to build heroes up and tear them down. But partly it's because the game involves taking risk and sometimes pain in the short run. And non-investors don't get that. You're an idiot if you underperform in the short run. Value investing works in the long run because it's hard and inflicts pain in the short run.

For the apprentice investor, it's even harder. So it's important to keep bets no larger than your personality can comfortably withstand. If 1% is it, that's what it is. Don't look for approval from anywhere else. It's good that you are erring on the low side...a lot of people get overconfident and then blow up, or blow out a good position because they can't stand the pain when they are down.

Over time, you want to get more comfortable trading closer to a Kelly-optimal size, without going over the edge of your personal pain threshold. As a small investor, you have some disadvantages in information flow, resources to apply to investing, but you have a big edge: the only person you need to please is yourself. You don't need to do a goddamn thing if you don't want to, you can be opportunistic and you can take as much or as little risk as you like. Personally, playing poker helped me a lot ... you get an intuitive feel for how often you're going to lose when you have the edge, and get comfortable betting big when you have that edge, because you know in the long run it's going to work out.

Also recommend William Poundstone's Fortune's Formula, which is an awesome read on Bell Labs' Kelly and Shannon, who invented information theory, and applied it to investing along with MIT colleague Ed Thorp, who invented blackjack card-counting and started one of the first, most successful hedge funds, and the occasional mafioso and degenerate gambler.

And you won't go wrong reading all of Buffett's essays and letters.

http://www.amazon.com/Fortunes-Formula-Scientific-Betting-Casinos/dp/0809045990/

http://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/rtfiles/cbs/hermes/Buffett1984.pdf

http://www.amazon.com/The-Essays-Warren-Buffett-Corporate/dp/0966446119

[TL; DR] Bet small while you're learning. Get comfortable with taking risk when you really know what you're doing and have an edge. Learn the Kelly Criterion. Read Warren Buffett. Play some poker.

I dont know why nobody has mentioned this but you can hire a property manager for about 10% of the monthly rent. This could relieve you of a lot of the headaches while simultaneously providing that income boost you're looking for.

Honestly this is a massive undertaking no matter which way you go so I'd like to suggest you to read a book I really enjoyed on rental property investing. I would also encourage you to seek out other books on topics like dividend investing and such so you can make an informed choice.

Anyways, this is the book I recommend- The Book on Rental Property Investing: How to Create Wealth and Passive Income Through Intelligent Buy & Hold Real Estate Investing! https://www.amazon.com/dp/099071179X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_B4v4DbXTMKKGA

In it you will find tips on properties worth investing in, calculations on profitability, tax strategies, property management questions, etc etc. It is a very informative book

You need to know some programming to develop a model, if you learn web scraping that will be enough to gather data for a model. You should be able to learn how to do this online.

For books, I'd highly recommend reading these:

Fortune's Forumula - A great book about the Kelly Criterion but touches on a whole range of subjects, a fantastic read.

The Signal and the Noise - Very famous book about prediction in general.

Conquering Risk - Very good book about sports betting (relatively unknown)

Calculated Bets - About creating a model and automated betting system for a relatively unknown sport.

Who's #1? - A book about rankings systems, aimed at ranking sports teams but the authors previously wrote a book on ranking websites (like google search algorithm type stuff). The basis for my dota model came from this book.


I'd recommend everyone to read Fortune's Formula and The Signal and the Noise, even people not interested in modelling. They're both awesome reads.

Calculated bets is a pretty cool read if you're interested in modelling, the author has a really quirky writing style that's entertaining.

Conquering risk is basically about exploiting bookmakers, picking off mistakes. Not really about modelling but still pretty cool.

Who's #1 is a really good intro to making a model for predicting sports imo, there's some very simple ones that will get you started.

You really need to read the personal finance wiki.

First, get some tax advantaged savings going. You have a lot of options, but picking any option is better than picking no options. While you are educating yourself, here are some alright choices you can make for this year:

Open a ROTH IRA

1. Go to Vanguard.com and follow the instructions to open an individual ROTH IRA
   
2. Contribute you max for the year (probably $5500 for you)
   
3. Vanguard will ask you to put that money into an account of some kind. That account will hold your money's worth of stocks or bonds. I would get VFINX with is an S&P500 fund. This is a single fund that disperses your risk over the top 500 funds as measured by Standard and Poors. It is a very safe investment with a yield of around %5-%7 over long time horizons.
   
4. Forget about that money until you retire.
   
   Does your company have a 401K? You need to get money into it.
   
   
5. Talk to your employer about increasing your contribution to whatever it will take to reach $18500 by the end of the year
   
6. Make a plan to live on the $24.5K you have remaining in your bank account after the above ROTH IRA contribution
   
   At the end of the year, you will have reduced your pre-tax income by $18500 and you will have $5500 in an account you can withdraw from tax free after you turn 59.5 years old. The ROTH IRA will grow tax free from now until when you retire.
   
   NEXT STEP: GET EDUCATED
   
   
7. Read the entire personal finance wiki. Its pretty good and gets to the point.
   
8. Read Get a financial life. The book is cheap and a nice intro for young people doing personal finance. It isn't comprehensive, and its not the last book you'll read. This book will tell you how to handle debt, save for retirement, buy a car, and it will help you save to buy a house. Once you have read it and have a solid understanding, you should keep seeking out personal finance knowledge.
   
9. If you plan on buying a home, go to a home-buying class. Your city will probably put some on in the local library.
   
10. Keep finding and reading books about personal finance.

I can tell from your perspective that your work experience is limited in the corporate world to one or few companies. I'm 40 and worked in tech startups most of my career before starting a business. When you work in tech startups, the average time you're at a company is a year or two, so I've worked at a lot of places. I also consulted for a couple of years and bounced from company to company. I've worked at plenty of places where the executives all have corporate credit cards and charge meals regularly. I've charged meals at companies I've worked for thousands of times. At several dotcoms I've worked at it was customary to have breakfast provided daily and lunches catered on a regular basis. When my company had offices we provided breakfast each Monday, and did a bbq every Friday, and it's all deducted as business expenses on taxes. None of that appears on anyone's pay stub. Your company may have a policy of billing execs for your corporate cafeteria, but that's not how the rest of the business world works.

I've also worked for companies that have kept permanent corporate apartments. They were regularly used by software engineers that we would fly in from other states or Russia where we had an office. Some were in these apartments for over a year and none were billed for rent. They kept their primary residence and some were flown back regularly. One guy from AZ was going back every weekend.

My mother owned a real estate business. She wrote off part of the house where her office was, and wrote off her car as a business expense. I once worked at a software company where someone in the accounting department sent an email to all asking who had a particular cell number because it was being billed to the company and wasn't on the internal phone list. The phone was being used by the CEO's 75 year old father who didn't work for the company or know how to turn on a computer. Companies can write off plenty of things which benefit executives.

Companies that are pre-IPO can offer shares at much lower rates than what they know it will IPO for in a year or two. There's a flaw in your assumption that a particular executive has a hand in the success of the company when stock prices go up and they profit from ISOs. Sometimes a certain sector becomes the hot stocks and the price goes up. Other times executives offshore jobs, sell off assets and divisions of the company to artificially boost profits and the stocks go up temporarily, but it hurts the company in the long run. Sometimes companies acquire other companies and the stock goes up temporarily, but it hurts the company in the long run. I worked at a company where we begged the CEO not to do an acquisition. The stock went up, he made millions. Six months later, when the competitor was able to sell their stock, they dumped it on the market, and drove the stock into a downward spiral that the company never recovered from. There are thousands of dotcom millionaires that worked at companies which never made a penny in profit and went out of business.

If I want, I can setup a company that is seeking commercial real estate opportunities. Then, I can expense trips to Hawaii, Europe, or anywhere I want to go. The company can operate at a loss for a couple of years, and all of my trips can be deducted as a business expense even if I don't buy any real estate. Then, I can fold up that company, and open one that looks for timeshare opportunities.

The top 1% is not paying 35% federal, 8% state and 3.876% city. They are using these loopholes to pay far less. A lot of stars don't get paid directly from studios, they incorporate themselves so they get to write off everything they can, and pay taxes only on what's left over at the end of the year.

There's a book you should really read called, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money--That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!" by Robert T. Kiyosaki. It's only about 200 pages and it's a quick read, not very academic, but full of good business information and a nice story. Here's the amazon link, but it's probably at any bookstore you pass by. http://www.amazon.com/Rich-Dad-Poor-Money-That-Middle/dp/0446677450

> (though you probably have fancy investor resources already telling you more than I could)

Haha very doubtful but I will definitely take you up on that.

This one below is the best for long distance RE investing. I am half way through it and from experience he's spot on. Rich Dad/Poor Dad is good if you want to learn more on why RE is a great investment in general. Real Estate Riches is good too.
https://www.amazon.com/Long-Distance-Real-Estate-Investing-State/dp/0997584750

https://www.amazon.com/Rich-Dad-Poor-Teach-Middle-ebook/dp/B0175P82RA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1520516088&sr=1-1&keywords=rich+dad+poor+dad

https://www.amazon.com/Real-Estate-Riches-Bankers-Advisors/dp/0446678643/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1520516104&sr=1-3&keywords=real+estate+riches&dpID=51FsqaAKejL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

Not bad for a first try.
There are a number of simple casting material pewter can go into but one of the cheapest is plaster. A well made plaster mold will survive several dozen pewter casting if treated properly.

You can buy a 15 or 25 lb bag at the local big box hardware store for under $20, or smaller amounts from an art supply store, though it will cost more per lb.

PLASTER MOLD NEED TO BE BONE DRY BEFORE YOU POUR HOT METAL INTO THEM THEY CAN EXPLODE OTHERWISE. Please wear the proper safety equipment, the bare minimum of a face shield and leather gloves,ideally with an leather apron and leather boots. How long it takes to dry depends upon the size and thickness of the mold and the humidity level . A 3"x 5" x 5" mold will be dry in about 5-7 days if it is not too humid. A way to speed it up is to put your oven on its lowest setting and leave them in there for 8-10 hours. They will be significantly lighter when dry, and will have feel a bit like fired clay.

You might consider making 2 part molds there are a great deal of references out there for that info, here is a video that covers the basics. (this video for clay reproductions but the basics still apply. You would additionally need to also carve or cast in a pouring cup and channel called a gate or sprue into the plaster to allow you to pour in the pewter.)

There is scattered info on mold making on the web, but plenty of solid books on the topics. I would recommend The Prop Builder's Molding & Casting Handbook
It doest talk too much about metal casting, but it covers a lot of the info for general mold making, and is a great resource. You might also look into Practical Casting: A Studio Reference by Tim McCreight is deals with metal casting on smaller jewelry scale and covers other simple molding materials.


I have also heard MDF molds work pretty well for a few trys, though I never have done it personally. Good luck!

I have etrade. If they were added by the company then there shouldn't be transaction fees. A brokerage account at etrade charges 7.95 per trade. If you do more than 30 trades a quarter then they'll drop that to 4.95. With that little in the account right now, 7.95 is a lot and will eat away at your money quick if you get into trading too much.
Someone else mentioned taxes, which will also erode your money if you sell before a year and a day. Long term capital gains mean you pay less in taxes on the money you make.
Now to the important part - this is your first stock experience, and you can get AAPL regularly at a 15% discount at a time when it's trading at a discount -- Do nothing, seriously. Lose your password and keep contributing to that purchase program. When you get about 5-10k in there, sure, diversify by adding a few good stocks or maybe an index fund.
You've got a great company at a great price; all you should be thinking about is buying more. Apple stock rewards the patient. Look back in a year or two and you'd kick yourself for selling in the 160s.
I've owned shares since about mid 2017. My first purchase of 30 shares was not even at as good a price as you got, i was in the 150's. Then it ran up to 225 or so last year, I sold half my position and took some profits up about 45%. It dropped in q4, so I stocked back up to just over 50 shares, again in the 150's. This is a stock that will come in and out of favor. But low, wait a year or two, sell high, repeat.
Finally here's a great entry level book on investing. Its short, cheap and has solid advice. https://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Investing-Money-Smart/dp/1477463992/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1549074984&sr=1-6&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=investing+for+beginners&dpPl=1&dpID=513T3piRHAL&ref=plSrch
sorry for such a long post, but you've got a good opportunity here and it sounds like you just need a little knowledge & patience. Good luck!

I'm gonna echo what u/StrukkStar said. If you think through your assertion carefully the logic doesn't hold up.

I currently have a similar amount of savings as yourself, but by the logic of your post I should take it all out now, right? The fees to sell with my broker are minimal so there's really nothing holding me back. Literally there is no difference between our situations except inertia. So don't I?

Because the market on average is going up, and I can't predict how it will behave. If teams of quants and high paid executives and high performance machine-learning algorithms looking through reams of data can only get it right 50.001% of the time, then my thinking I can speculate better is pure hubris.

So what do you do? Reduce risk with dollar cost averaging? That is invest a portion of it every month to reduce your timing risk? There's three situations that can happen then:

• 1. The market goes goes down, well you shouldn't have invested then. And so what if you did, you're saving for retirement, in a year or two it will have averaged out.
     
• 2. The market stays the same. Then it makes no difference whether you lump-sum it in or drip-feed it.
     
• 3. The market goes up... well... you missed out on those gains man... and the future gains those gains could have earned you, and the future gains the gains of those gains would have earned you, and so on.
     
     And since the market, on average, always goes up, it's just a bad bet to not be investing your cash.
     
     If I was in your situation, I would confidently put it all immediately into exactly the portfolio I have now, because otherwise I should sell the portfolio I have now. If you want to really lower your risk against say a deflationary economy, then you can throw a portion ~10% in bonds. It won't do much harm.
     
     But honestly, for someone in their 30s in the wealth accumulation phase of their life, you have the luxury to wait out any potential recession. The maths says throw it all into a low-cost well-spread full world stock-market ETF, and hold fast, it will be a bit of a wild ride at times but just don't panic, don't do anything rash, and it will be worth it.
     
     As you get older and closer to retirement (wealth maintenance period) then 30% bonds is a good number. But I'd start with 90%-100% in stocks and hold fast. Do your research if you need to be convinced on the numbers for this. Or read The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins (I thought the audiobook was great).
     
     
     Also can I ask you a question: what do you do and what region of the world do you live in? Sounds like the dream.
     
     

Wealthy parents teach their kids to work not to survive or have a comfortable retirement, but rather, to produce or acquire income-producing assets. The income produced by assets -- such as real estate or businesses -- are how the wealthy get wealthier. Eventually you don't have to work at all and you get richer while you sleep because the assets are doing all the "work." In theory, anybody with just a small amount of regular discretionary income could do this, but most people aren't taught to. Instead, they're taught to sink all of their money into a home and retirement savings. Inter-generational transfer of wealth (e.g., inheritance, "trust fund kids," down payment on home as a wedding gift, etc) gets all the attention and criticism as "unfair," -- but really it's the transfer of the knowledge about HOW to create wealth that is the real treasure handed down from one generation to the next, and the real reason for the perpetuation and resilience of the class system.

Edit: For more, read Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not by Robert Kiyosaki.

Tim Hale's Smarter Investing to start with, if you haven't already.

Then Rick Ferri's All About Asset Allocation looks ideal - I haven't read it myself, but it's in the top recommendations on the Bogleheads wiki and from the description there it's perfect for you. But read Smarter Investing first.

You've made a number of active investment decisions. Your portfolio is a bet that returns from technology companies (Framlington Global Tech, whose 3 largest holdings are Apple, Google and Facebook) will beat the market average, as will anything picked by Neil Woodford.

The US has about 7 times the market capitalisation of the UK, but you've bought equal amounts of the FTSE 100 and S&P 500 funds. Why did you make that decision? However most of what you have held by Farmington will probably be in the S&P 500, too (the top 3 companies are, for a start - 30%), so you have overlap there - do you know how much?

You've probably got a global spread in the Legal & General fund, but I've already said how you've favoured the US & the UK, and you've also chosen to bet on Japan over Europe. You have about £65 in AEON Fantasy Co., Ltd, and not a penny of Halfords or Debenhams stock.

The majority of professionals don't beat the market average. [1, 2, 3] Your selection is fine if you've chosen it on the principle you, and hence it, can but if you just chose it at random then you should at least ditch the funds with the highest costs (i.e. Woodford).

Your portfolio should have a purpose, and it should be constructed to meet that purpose. If your purpose is as simple as "I want to invest in stocks" then you can do that by buying a single fund (or just two of those listed above, about 93% of it in the LEGAL & GENERAL UT INTL INDEX TRUST I ACC and 7% of it in the DB X-TRACKERS FTSE 100 UCITS ETF).

The reason why the Fama-French 3 factor and Carhart 4 factor are so prevalent is because people generally agree on these factors. Without going into history too much, the number of factors have grown over time from CAPM (1 factor) to Fama French (3 factor), to Carhart (4 factor). There are even more, but at some point, it starts looking like a "factor zoo".

After the success of Fama-French, and quantitative investment firms that use the approach like DFA and AQR, almost every finance program teaches this type of approach. This has influenced a lot of finance students, who themselves started to look for new factors. Some of the new studies try to find further nuances in existing factors, while others go off all new tangents, a fun one that comes to mind is a paper that tries to create a factor out of moon cycles.

We have so many factors now that academics are writing meta-papers describing the problem of there being too many factors to choose from.

If you want a nice summary of some pretty widely accepted factors, I would recommend a very accessible book called Your Complete Guide to Factor-Based Investing

I agree with everyone who said partnerships are tricky. You really have to make sure you are aligned on purpose and and time frame. Assuming you are the structure of the partnership is also key.

For example, if you are "debt partners" then you could keep things simple by you retaining 100% ownership of the property while he gives you X amount of the upfront costs for purchase and renovation. You could then pay him interest on the loan + a % of the proceeds if you chose to sell before the loan is paid in full. This way you both make a return and don't risk fighting over ownership.


Now if you are both "equity partners" co-sign on the mortgage and and or own the property jointly its more complicated. If as owners you both have for example 50% ownership and are splitting the rental income 50/50 what happens when your partner wants to sell to go travel the world or pay for a wedding or emergency when you don't. What happens if you or s/he wants to get a HELOC or cashout REFI when the other person is not onboard...this kind of situation has soured many partnerships and friendships between family, friends and co workers.


My other bit of advice would be to read up on long distance real estate investing. If you are investing for cashflow it often makes sense to "live where you live and invest wear it makes the most financial sense". A lot of investors who are looking for cashflow may in fact stay away from condos which can be tricky because of condo boards, HOAs etc and instead invest in multifamily properties (duplex quadplex sixplex etc) in LCOL areas in the US (Usually mideastern and southern states like OH,IN,KY,GA,FL). This may seem daunting but isn't impossible if you take team to read up on approaches and assemble a good team of realtors, contractors and property managers. Also there are many tools for things like online rent collection etc that make virtual management much easier than 20 years ago. I'd recommend this book on long distance real estate investing to start. I'm also reminded of a few podcasts I heard lately with some canadian real estate investors who mentioned that the real estate market was so hot in some parts of Canada it was hard to buy properties that cashflowed after servcing the mortgage. I cant find the exact episode but this one from a Canadian Real Estate Investor might be some good background as I am less familiar with the Canadian Market.


Good Luck out there!

Edit: Link to book

No problem at all. Honestly the best thing I have ever read that has given me the most beneficial mind set towards money is the book Rich Dad Poor Dad. Its my financial principle bible. Ive read it at least 4 times thought high school and up to now. Listen to me when I say this and Just Read It. As far as stock specific goes, I used a site called wall street survivor Stock Simulation Game
It follows the stock market exactly and teaches you the basics starting out with a mock up 100K. I played it all through highschool and it has taught me SO much and saved me SO much. There are several other sites like this one but its just the one I've found to like the most. To give relation I'm in the same boat as you. In college and have a few thousand in the bank that I'm trying to make something with. When I say make something I mean I'm aiming for a 10% return on my portfolio after tax and commissions. Lastly and most important are my own personal rules, DONT touch your real cash until you have spent at least 6-8 consecutive months playing the security and keeping track of it in relation to it's industry. And when you do don't put more than 10% in any one security. Also Dont invest in anything you don't understand. And finally, the ultimate goal is to have all your money working for you creating a steady cash flow of passive income. <-- This is something I have still yet to accomplish but am hoping to in the next few years.

You're doing great you now have a very good emergency fund but you need to change where you are putting the money you save moving forward. Change your 401k contributions to 22%, this is about 18k/year (the yearly max contribution). Then open a ROTH IRA and contribute 5.5k annually. These are tax advantaged accounts, make the most of them. For both of these investments and your age you want about a 80:20 stocks:bonds ratio, you can use a target retirement date fund to get this ratio but make sure the fees are low (<0.2%). You mentioned you wanted something more liquid than a ROTH IRA elsewhere but the ROTH is the most liquid tax advantaged account available (You can withdraw your contributions tax and penalty free at any time. Your earnings need to meet certain criteria to not be penalized when withdrawn). Any remaining savings should go into a money market account where it can mildly/safely grow and become a downpayment on a house. If after all this you find you still have extra savings start a taxable investment account that is well diversified. Individual stocks are little more than gambling, sure you might hit it big but you may also lose it all. You're young, play the long game to get rich and you'll maximize your chances to do so.

Also read this book sometime before you are 30, https://www.amazon.com/Allocation-Second-Professional-Finance-Investment/dp/0071700781

Cool, well your learning attitude will serve you well!

As a bit more of an overview, the VT ETF contains 8,116 stocks. That means when you buy that, essentially every working stiff on the face of the planet from the janitors to the CEOs is working to make you rich. You collect value in terms of profits coming back to you in dividends as well as gain in value of the stocks.

You feel passionately about weed stocks, but what if oil has an amazing next five years. What about health care? What about autonomous driving cars? What about energy? What about technology? With VT you own all of it, including the up and coming ones you didn't even know about or predict.

And don't trade or try to time the market. Just buy and hold. Take a look at this portfolio growth calculator. VT will grow about 10%/year over time. Your gains can be massive if you can sock away a little more every month.

And read this book. It's $3 on kindle, $7 on paperback, 100 pages and it will make you a millionaire.

You should check out A Random Walk Down Wallstreet

As I said in my other reply, if it were a profitable strategy, then there would be actively managed funds that took advantage of it and consistently beat the market. The transaction costs should be small for a mutual fund manager compared to the average investor. Even if it was a small profit, the fund would trade in large volumes such that a very small percentage becomes a large and worthwhile profit. Just look at high-frequency trading to see systems that exploit very small arbitrage opportunities to turn a profit.

There's lots of strategies that you could back-test against historical market data that look like winners. But just because you found a seemingly profitable pattern in the past (i.e. 5 down/up days in a row) doesn't mean that it will be true for future markets.

If you plan on not dying young, you will need to start saving for retirement, the sooner the better. This in turn requires not only saving, but investing to make sure that your savings at the very least, keep pace with inflation (and hopefully do better).

There are a thousand books on investing, and I can't say I've read even a fraction, but one of the better "level headed, time tested" books out there is "A random walk down Wallstreet"

http://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-Down-Wall-Street/dp/0393081435/

Markets will fluctuate wildly and beyond your ability to predict. The good news is that you have time on your side, and historically, the markets have had an upward trend.

Granted, this is all predicated on the idea that the country is not on fire in 10-20 years (best to stay out of /r/politics if you want to stay optimistic), but your best bet is to ride the trend of the general market over a long period of time.

Still, there really are no guarantee. Best to leave guarantees for death and taxes.

When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi

Being Mortal - Atul Gawande

Better - Atul Gawande

Honestly anything by Atul Gawande

Start With Why- Simon Sinek (Just finished this one today. Phenomenal read. Not medicine related, but a great perspective on what leadership means and how you can inspire those around you)

The White Coat Investor - James Dahle (Financial literacy is always a good thing)

​

I have quite a bit more book suggestions if you're ever curious, but those should keep you busy for a while. Feel free to DM me if you want more!

I can think of two that I've read that are good stories in addition to being informative.

Fortune's Formula by William Poundstone

This is a good book that talks about a system (a money-management method called the Kelly Criterion) that has roots in information theory and applications to stock market investing as well.

Here's a snippet of a review:
"Fortune's Formula is a fascinating study of the connections between such seemingly unrelated topics as gambling, information theory, stock investing, and applied mathematics. The story involves the stunning brainpower of men such as MIT professor Claude Shannon, who single-handedly invented information theory, the science behind the Internet and all digital media; Ed Thorpe; and John Kelly of Bell Laboratories, who developed the "Kelly criterion," a now-legendary investment strategy for maximizing growth while controlling risk. Initially, Shannon and Thorpe took Kelly's theory to Las Vegas and applied it to roulette and blackjack. Later, they took it to Wall Street and cleaned up--Shannon made a personal fortune while Thorpe created the highly successful hedge firm Princeton-Newport Partners. They both discovered that Kelly's system was particularly effective when applied to arbitrage (minute price differences that result from market inefficiencies). As Poundstone ably demonstrates, the merits of Kelly's criterion are still hotly debated today."

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fortunes-Formula-Scientific-Betting-Casinos/dp/0809045990/

I also second the recommendation of /u/AndrewRichmo of "21" (originally published under the title "Bringing Down the House")

Hope this helps.

Is it worth the effort to invest in factors? The answer is "probaby yes" if your end goal is to increase your average returns over a 20-30 year time period and are willing to introduce a small amount of additional complexity. I highly recommend Berkin & Swedroe's "Your Complete Guide to Factor Investing" if you want to evaluate the evidence for a factor-based approach.

Based on your question, Ben Felix's paper "Factor Investing With ETFs" is where I would start if you haven't checked it out already. It provides a good, quick summary of the benefits of factor investing and a Couch Potato-style model portfolio with couple of added factor ETFs. The downside is that these funds are US-based, which means you have to convert to US dollars through your brokerage (they usually charge a 2% fee) or do a fancier maneuver called "Norbert's Gambit". I personally found it worthwhile to learn how to do Norbert's Gambit because once you do it once, you can do it as often as you'd like in the future.... and you'll save yourself lots in fees, too!


If you don't want to convert currencies, then Vanguard's Canadian-listed factor funds like VMO or VVL might work for you. Blackrock also has multifactor ETFs like XFC, XFS, and XFI that may work. Personally, I prefer US-listed ETFs like the ones listed in Ben's paper because they have a longer history and are cheaper to hold.

Rich Dad Poor Dad

This book is a really easy read, but has a lot of great information in it. I read this right after graduating, and it really helped put life, work, money in perspective. After finishing it, I immediately got myself out of debt.

Not sure how this book will help you, but it would definitely be a good start.

Good luck and remember that you are not the only person who has felt like a underachieving 20-something. We all do (or have in my case).

I'll give you some books to use as a starting point. You want to start out as generally as possible and then follow what interests you. Someone can give you a list of top books, but if they don't fascinate you enough to really dig in deep and reflect on them to sate your own curiosity, you'll just be scratching the surface. I don't care what it is, you can make money anywhere in the markets. So starting generally will help you find out what direction to go.

So, that said, these are the ones I'd recommend starting out with
https://www.amazon.com/Market-Wizards-Updated-Interviews-Traders/dp/1118273052
https://www.amazon.com/Reminiscences-Stock-Operator-Edwin-Lef%C3%A8vre/dp/0471770884
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400063515/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684840073/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0809045990/

Some less conventional ones I really liked
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1578645018/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1422121038/

Chaos theory describes some properties that pop up again and again in markets. I really liked this one.
https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Simplicity-Bringing-Order-Complexity/dp/140006256X

I also highly recommend finding a few good books on behavioral investing, just to get acquainted with the common mistakes investors make (how you can avoid them, and how you can exploit them). I don't have a lot here because the books I read are outdated and you can find better. So one example:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470067373/

But in general reading about psychology will help you understand the world better, and that's always a good thing.
https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-Classics/dp/0061339202

There's 3 kinds of incomes: A, B, and C income:

C - A job, the worst way to make a living. Working for another man trading dollars for hours. Slogan: "I'll learn to love (tolerate) what I do and live with what it gives me, at least until I save up enough money to strike out on my own."

B - Contracting work, a business you work. Trading dollars for hours still, but you work for yourself and set your own price. Example, creating and selling products or providing a service. Slogan: "I get paid what I'm worth because I work hard, make my own hours and prices"

A - Passive income streams, AKA residual income, a business that runs itself. Acquire a system of assets. Assets vary greatly and are generally built over time. Examples: Owning a rental unit, owning rental boats, owning a storage facility, really anything you can rent out is an asset, owning an online business that generates enough money for you to pay a manager to run it for you, investments in an institution that pays off high-yields, a copyright that leads to royalty payments, Or setting something up so others can make money, and take a small percentage (Facebook & twitter). Slogan: "Key word: Ownership. I've worked hard, sacrificed for the future, and made tough decisions most people don't. So now I don't have to work for money anymore... my money works for me now!"

Some books on how to get to Level A: 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad', 'The Richest Man in Babylon' Good luck out there :)

Interesting, I don't think I will ever be financially independent, but I have those habits and yes, they do provide some breathing room.

/u/herecomesthethunder

You might want to read these two books:


Get A Financial Life. It is written for people your age and people who do not like reading persoanl finance books. It will teach you the basics of the things people mentioned here, and how to manage your money so have some breathing room when adversity happens.

Your Money Or Your Life. The authors of this book were high powered financial professionals in New York who realized they didn't like their careers so much anymore. Being smart and experts with money they discovered that their high powered jobs came with an obligation of a more expensive lifestyle: living near an expensive city, suits, dry cleaning bills, transportation, etc. They figured out if they learned to live frugally they could be financially independent without being wealthy, choosing instead to spend their best waking hours pursuing other interests. The book is the original testament of the voluntary simplicity movement. That isn't for me, but I always valued this book as a "philosophy of money". It gets you to question and think about the place of money in your life. In your case, you want the freedom to not be afraid of losing your job.

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.

Read this First - This is an infograph that summarizes every financial blog/book I've looked at.

Books I've read that have been very helpful

1. I will teach you to be rich - I've reread this multiple times. Covers almost all things finance that you'll need to know in your 20's + 30's. Totally worth the money!
   
   
2. Beginners Guide To Investing - Breaks down investing in a very straightforward way
   
3. Rich Dad Poor Dad - Very Cheesy, but hits some great thoughts on how rich ppl perceive money, are willing to talk about it, and how they grow money faster than the poor and middle class
   
4. Your Money or Your Life - Haven't finished (feels a little dated, but hits some really good points on how to think of money and why you should change your habits)
   
   Books I haven't read but ppl reference:
   
   
5. A random walk down wall street - Why investing in single stocks is foolish
   
6. Possum Living - How to live cheaply
   
7. Dave Ramsey or Suze Orman - Both have very popular philosophies and spending strategies that are referenced all the time.
   
   Sites to Reference:
   
   
8. Mr. Money Mustache - All Financial Independence websites reference this site.
   
9. Money Under 30 - All things Personal Finance for our age group
   
10. Investopedia - Helps with the basics
    
    Reddit: (Search Top Posts All Time)
    
    /r/financialindependence
    
    /r/Personalfinance
    
    /r/FinancialPlanning

Learn some basic accounting. Learn to balance cash flow. Use Quickbooks/Quicken and bill pay.

Try to not buy things that cost money. Try to buy things that will make you money.

Separate your career from your business.

Best book I ever read was Rich Dad Poor Dad ( http://www.amazon.com/Rich-Dad-Poor-Money-That-Middle/dp/0446677450/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_a ) buy it used for a couple dollars. This book, through a 3rd grade reading level, will teach the basics of getting ahead...and most importantly, get you excited about it.

(Free video: http://www.betterdaystv.net/play.php?vid=190). Stay away from the courses and stuff...they're really expen$ive and I'm not convinced they're all that useful. ...and read other authors who's view points are different to round yourself out.

And so you know, I am closing on my 13th profitable real estate investment thanks to the teachings of this book. It's a great start.

Hi,
I love books and here are some:
1- A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing
2- The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns
3- MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom


Good luck

I agree you should diversify into foreign ETFs. I think you should also consider other asset classes (commodities and real estate). I wouldn't worry about dividend yield either with your timetable, you want price appreciation more than dividends (plus dividend stocks are overvalued now since people have been piling into those in lieu of bonds). I'd keep VTI or SPY for your US holdings.

Some ETFs for other asset classes (not necessarily these in particular, may be substitutes with better fees, etc.):

GCC for commodity exposure

VEU for broad global equity exposure

RWO - broad diversified global real estate (both US and international)

I wouldn't touch bonds now for anything (way overpriced), but on your 15 yr+ timetable you probably wouldn't want to weight them too heavily anyway.

For your extra ETF I'd vote for ARGT (Argentina) - they're just starting a new bull market.

This is a good read for building a relatively low-maintenance portfolio: http://www.amazon.com/The-Ivy-Portfolio-Endowments-Markets/dp/1118008855

Do your own due diligence of course too. I'm just some guy on reddit. Good luck!

There are a few schools of thought. On one side is the BRRRR method, where you leverage your properties to build your portfolio. Its riskier, but allows you to build quickly.

Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat: The BRRRR Rental Property Investment Strategy Made Simple https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947200089/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_JQSHDbXM4BE7R

The other end of the spectrum is Dave Ramsey's method, of paying cash in full for all your properties. It ties up your cash, but, if the market takes a down turn, you can afford to rent it out for the then market rates. Its far less risky, and slow to start, but most of your rental income is profit. And once you get a few paid for properties, the income starts rolling and you can build as big as you want.

The Total Money Makeover Workbook: Classic Edition: The Essential Companion for Applying the Book's Principles https://www.amazon.com/dp/1400206502/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_8SSHDbWCFDPG8


This one was on a list of recommend books

The Book on Rental Property Investing: How to Create Wealth and Passive Income Through Intelligent Buy & Hold Real Estate Investing! https://www.amazon.com/dp/099071179X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_yoSHDbKZR7WT0

Hey! I just started investing as well. I jumped straight into ETFs for various reasons.

I think your idea is great. I wanted to mention that when you start nearing $10,000, take a look at this book: https://www.amazon.ca/Value-Simple-Practical-Complexity-Investing/dp/0987818910

You can find the PDF version online if a library doesn't have a copy. The only part I looked at is how to invest in ETFs using Questrade. I was intimidated by the Questrade platform and trading on a real stock exchange network. This walks you through how to buy and sell ETFs on Questrade which is perfect. You can also open a practice account on Questrade to try all of the buttons they have on their trading platform website. One thing to note is that the book is a little outdated as the user interface has changed. Regardless, you'll definitely find your way around easily.

Good luck!

Hi I'm not sure if these are the books you would enjoy, but I do have a couple of them in my pocket list:


Personally in recent years I'm interested in topics about algorithms/cryptology and economics, so The Code Book by Simon Singh, Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street by William Poundstone, The Physics of Wall Street: A Brief History of Predicting the Unpredictable by James Owen Weatherall, these are the ones of my all time favorite "history" books about math and science and their applications. : )


I can still come up with another (popular) book, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, but I didn't really enjoy the book, guess I didn't agree some of the conclusions in that book. But maybe you would find it interesting. :)


Hope this helps! ☺️

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.

Totally, you can sand flask cast or even just spend $20 on some investment and carve into that. That's how I made this one:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jobafunky/33992999986/in/album-72157625644500091/
Not perfect but for my first one, not bad either. There's also permanent iron molds that you can get for making variable sized flat bars and round bars for wire drawing. You can also get draw plates for a lot less than $100. Of course the best thing you can do before spending on equipment is educate yourself. So make the first $8.50 you spend on casting be on this book:

https://smile.amazon.com/Practical-Casting-Studio-Reference-Revised/dp/096159845X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1520630217&sr=8-1&keywords=practical+casting+by+tim+mccreight

If you are ready to get some equipment, then just ask us where. Good suppliers are an asset.

Not a task to be undertaken lightly. You will likely spend more money on tools and supplies than on actual silver. It's fun as heck, though, and learning the process is it's own reward.


To see what kind of hell process you're getting into, I recommend Practical Casting: A Studio Reference by Tim McCreight. Welcome and good luck!

My opinion on a holding individual bonds, is that I would only do it if: a. I wanted to provide myself near guaranteed cash flows (via a bond ladder) or b. had significant amounts (hundreds of thousands to millions) to invest in bonds.

If you know you will need money at a certain date in the future, individual bond purchases (ie: treasury direct) or CDs could be useful. The bond fund's price will fluctuate greatly with changes in rates, so you bear some risk of the price being low when you want your cash. This is the risk/benefit to weigh. I am not concerned about this as my emergency fund at LMCU gets 3% interest and would cover about 6 month of expenses. I also hold roughly 6 months of expenses in precious metals. I view PMs as currency diversification, not as an investment. I like diversification, so I hold my emergency fund in USD and PMs. My bond allocation is entirely through VBTLX currently. Consider tax efficiency of how you hold your bonds.

Rick Ferri has a book All about asset allocation that covers the concept of reducing volatility leading to higher long-term returns. It is a little less deep/technical than Bernstein.

Bernstein has a series I really enjoyed call "Investing for Adults". Rational Expectations (Book 4) covers the volatility/return relationship. He can get a bit technical this series, but I think it is worth reading if you are going to do your own financial planning. (Note: I am also a nerd and enjoy reading about these topics). Four Pillars was also a great read.

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.

It's kind of addictive when you start earning good money. You never want to go down. I just had a great two yr contract end and I'm using the cash generated over the next four months to market myself in a sector I'd love to be working in, next.

Also worth buying a copy of Rich Dad Poor Dad if you've not read it. The author's style annoys me, but his message is spot on. Just don't bother buying any of his other books.

And yes, better to freelance as the pimp than the hooker ;)

Dan from CCP has some suggestions for low cost ethical investing but the article is from 2010 and may not be current info. One of the commenters who says he's a fee-for-service advisor has created an Organic Couch Potato Portfolio that uses some of Dan's suggestions. I dunno about those solar bonds.. might not be super liquid.

Rebalancing is not that complicated. The Value of Simple by /u/HolyPotato explains exactly what to do (and has lots of other good information), otherwise there are some great blogs like Canadian Couch Potato and Canadian Portfolio Manager that can help.

I think everyone has to learn this for themselves, but don't overthink it. When I launched my passive portfolio I was checking on it every day, I was keen to reinvest my first dividends as soon as they were paid out, and I spent a lot of time researching, tweaking and convincing myself that what I was doing was right.

A year later I'm checking less and less, I have a 'meh' attitude towards doom and gloom in the financial news and I'm just gonna rebalance when I contribute to my portfolio once a year and leave it alone unless there's a crash.

Not the technical junk. "Cups, bases" . . . you can ignore all of that. This is old school "chartistry", drawing lines on stock price charts, trying to find patterns.

When you look at IBD's "CAN slim" methodology . https://www.investors.com/ibd-university/can-slim/

it's basically a momentum investing style, and momentum investing generally has been successful for the last decade or more. IBD hasn't been any more successful than any other momentum investor, but you definitely could take note, there are a bunch of momentum investing funds available a ETFs, including one based on IBD's picks, ticker symbol is FFTY. Its a MUCH better idea than trying to pore over stock tables and calculate this stuff.

Momentum investing is really something you want to have someone doing algorithmically, rather than try to do it yourself, it involves a lot of recalculating, trading and portfolio rebalancing, which is both expensive and time consuming for an individual picking stocks.

And again, do yourself a favor: if you're new to investing, read

"A Random Walk Down Wall Street" -- now in its 12th edition, written by my old econ professor, Burt Malkiel. Its a disciplined look at all the things that provably _don't_ work. Reading charts is one of them. Market timing is another . . .

Or see his talk at Google "The Elements of Investing" on Youtube . . . its where someone new to investing should start.

See, this to me is the wrong way to think about business.

RIM was leader in enterprise systems until late last year and is still second. They have huge market share. They also hold niche markets like secure smart phones and tablets. From a business perspective, they are in an enviable position.

The problem isn't with their position; it is with their trend. If they had been on an upward trend to the position they are currently in, everyone would be screaming about how great they are. In business it is position that matters more than trend. A trend can change, and effort can be put in to change the trend if you understand it. Many companies have done this. Apple is a prime example of a failed company that turned it around and became a market leader. Twelve years ago everyone thought of Apple the way people think of RIM today.

RIM is in a good position right now, and if they make the right moves they can reverse that trend. iPhones/iPads are fine, but they aren't perfect. They became fashionable and trendy and possibly overhyped. Steve Jobs was part of that trendiness. With him gone, and iPhone losing its "newness", it seems to me the time is ripe to move to change those trends.

I don't know what the right moves are. The question is whether RIM can figure it out, or gamble correctly, to change those trends. They definitely have the makings for it with top notch hardware and OS software, key differentiators and niches, and potential (such as Android apps working on PlayBook and soon phones).

The over-reliance of investors (and "trendy" consumers) on trends is fairly well documented. (My favorite book on the subject right now is The Drunkards Walk, though a A Random Walk Down Wall Street is probably the better known classic.) It's what causes bubbles on the upswing, and undervalued stocks on the downswing. It's also why investors who ignore those trends and invest via risk management principles tend to do much better than trend followers.

I'm keeping an eye on RIM to see what they do. I certainly won't write them off yet.

Hi baldeagle1776! I'm going to throw out my meager recommendation in hopes of drawing out better ones from other people :)

Personally, I think this subreddit's FAQ section is a fantastic place to start - it's one of the best "overviews" of PF information I've seen anywhere.

Not sure if you're looking for introductory books or a deeper dive into topics, but my only other recommendation is "A Beginner's Guide to Investing" by Alex Frey. http://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Investing-Money-Smart/dp/1477463992/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8

And I'm eagerly awaiting other people's recommendations here :)

I highly recommend The Bogleheads Guide to Investing and All About Asset Allocation to start with. They are both very understandable and you can read them in one weekend. It's your money and your life so it's worth it to spend a few bucks and an afternoon here and there to learn answers to questions you never even thought of asking before.

>at least half of American households have the majority of their networth in real estate.

Correct. Many/most Americans buy way too much house and are undiversified with a massive illiquid asset on their balance sheet. It costs them money and time to maintain while trapping them in one location and limits employment options. A healthy investment portfolio would have cash, bonds, stock, and some real estate.

Your original post asked specifically about real estate but I'm urging you to consider developing a long term workable plan beyond speculation and rental properties, which IMHO is shortsighted. You and your wife have a real shot at tremendous success because you are young DINKs with good income but you need to broaden your horizons a bit beyond the typical "let's buy real estate" idea.

The Book on Rental Property Investing: How to Create Wealth and Passive Income Through Intelligent Buy & Hold Real Estate Investing! https://www.amazon.com/dp/099071179X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_gzbrDb6QRAYFY

Also aside from reading this, check out the authors channel on YouTube he has some very informative videos about real estate. It’s called bigger pockets.

Also Graham Stephan on YouTube as well is another very knowledgeable and successful real estate investor.

I started out reading rich dad poor dad and it was my gateway drug. Now I’m on a mission to know everything about money.

I 100% agree with all of the above recommendations for Bogleheads but I'd also recommend The Simple Path to Wealth by J.L. Collins.

It boils down to low cost index funds. Invest there and watch your money grow. Good luck.

> What are the other allocations aside from CCP that are often recommended?

For passive investing, the CPM Model ETF Portfolios. For something more active, probably factor investing. Larry Swedroe has written a great book on this, which you can find on the Library Genesis. The main problem with this approach though is a lack of Canadian ETFs which capture the factor premiums effectively, so you have to do your own research here.

> Also here is WS allocations. What do you think of the assets below? Should I copy it at Questrade?

Seems solid to me. Captures all the main asset classes - US, Canada, International Developed, Emerging Markets, and Fixed-Income. Don't see the point of 5.5% in cash though. Also, this will be harder to rebalance on Questrade (I assume WS does the rebalancing for you?) as you pay a fee of at least $4.95 for selling ETFs. To help with that, consider going with 5 ETFs - one for each of Canadian aggregate bond index, Canadian equities, US equities, International developed equities, and emerging market equities.

Another option would be to use WS Trade, as they charge no commission for buying/selling stocks/ETFs. But if you want to hold US-listed ETFs, they do charge a currency exchange fee, which you can avoid on Questrade using something called "Norbert's Gambit". Holding US-listed ETFs is best in an RRSP though (which WS Trade currently does not let you open), as you avoid the 15% withholding tax on dividends imposed by the US government. But I still think WS Trade is the best option for TFSA accounts.

It is on the reading list but I highly recommend I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

It is geared for someone in their 20s although it can be applied at any age. It's broken down into six weeks where he goes over your credit and banking accounts and then guides you into starting an investment account and setting up a budget. An updated edition of this book is coming out in May but the advice in the book is still sound and relevant.

Edit: Found one more book on that list that seems perfect. Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your Twenties and Thirties.

I also really liked Suze Orman's The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke but it came out in 2005 so some of the content is outdated. This is one of the few books I have seen that really targets the issues young people face with money.

This is a great small-shop handbook

https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Casting-Studio-Reference-Revised/dp/096159845X

I work in jewelry/metalsmithing and do a ton of casting, and they look pretty good! I wasn't trying to be critical, only offering to help a tenno out :)

The single best book I've read is, "A Random Walk Down Wall Street." I'm with the OP, fuck Suze Orman.

"Random Walk" is a fairly interesting/easy read for a personal finance book. Malkiel should convince you by the time it's through why index funds are the way to go.

If you want something more challenging after that, try David Swenson's "Unconventional Success" It was a much tougher read for me, I really had to slog through it. But Swenson's record is pretty amazing, and he makes a convincing argument about why it's important to set up a simple approach to diversification. And it really is simple - 6 different categories, rebalance annually, that's it.

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

Some useful subs:

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

For once, I'm actually useful! I just set into this myself and I've found this book to be more than everything I could ever want to know on the subject, with a great bit of information specifically on lost wax. This one by David Gingery (who has several other excellent books for the home foundry) details the basis of the kiln I intend to build much more inexpensively than they can be bought, with the added benefit of being completely scalable to any size of project.

While you're waiting for the books, I can't recommend www.backyardmetalcasting.com enough either. Some of the links are now defunct but there are lifetimes of information there. YouTube, too, I've found found to be a surprisingly good resource when it comes to metal casting.

Ok, great, start educating yourself on financial management. Even if you hire someone to do it, don’t trust them blindly. Shady people love to take advantage of high-income doctors, because most doctors are incapable of managing their money responsibility.

Start reading some of the content over on White Coat Investor. It will change your life.

https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com

Also, the book:

https://www.amazon.com/White-Coat-Investor-Personal-Investing/dp/0991433106

I like this book. It's short, simple, quick read and lines up well with the /r/personalfinance principles.

Maybe get her something fun though too, as useful as that book is, it's still a book about finance haha.

If you're new to investing, I wouldn't recommend that you start with a high-risk, undiversified investment like weed stocks. Here's a brief introduction that I wrote up.

Investing basically means lending out your money, and getting some kind of return on it.

There’s two kinds of investments: debt and equity. With debt, you lend the money and get a fixed rate of interest. With equity, you buy a small slice of a business and get a share of its earnings. Typically the business will pay out some as a cash dividend and reinvest the rest to expand its business (for example, by buying or building another factory), causing its value to grow.

Either way, the value of your investment compounds over time. The rule of 72 says that if your annual return is x%, then it takes about 72 / x years for your money to double. At 5%, for example, it doubles every 14 years or so. So if you can invest $10,000 at 5% and not touch it for the next 40 years, it’ll double a bit less than three times, increasing to $70,000.

Equity investments are volatile: they go up and down. So investors aren’t willing to pay as much as for debt investments, resulting in a higher return on equities. In the long term, equity investments grow faster than debt investments. You take a higher risk and get a higher return.

There's different approaches to investing in equities:

1. Stock picking - you look for companies which you think are undervalued, i.e. selling for less than they're worth, and buy their shares.
   
   
2. Buy a mutual fund - a mutual fund is run by a manager who actively decides what companies to invest in, spreading your investment over a larger number of companies. Charges an annual fee of 1-2%.
   
   
3. Buy an index fund - an index fund has much lower fees (0.25% or less), because you just buy a small slice of all companies in the stock market ("passive investing"). There's no need to pay a manager and their staff to look at each company and decide whether it's undervalued or not.
   
   A common approach is to keep your costs low by just buying index funds. Stock picking is hard: it's like trying to find a diamond in a field that's already been searched by an army of professionals. With mutual funds, you’re paying a lot. When your expected average annual return is around 5%, 1-2% is a big chunk. And because stock picking is hard, mutual fund managers have a very hard time doing better than average.
   
   Index funds are liquid (you can sell them easily) and diversified (you’re not going to lose all your money if a single company or a single economic sector does badly).
   
   You probably don't want 100% of your retirement savings in equities, because they go up and down, which can be pretty hard to take. (You don’t want to panic and sell whey they’re low.) A common recommendation is to keep 40% or 50% in bonds (interest-paying debt investments), which are less volatile, providing some stability and reassurance when the stock market is going through a meltdown.
   
   The Vanguard Balanced ETF Portfolio fund, VBAL, is a simple, hands-off way to keep your investments 60% in equities, 40% in bonds, with annual management expenses of about 0.25%. (If you want a different allocation, VGRO is 80% equities / 20% bonds, and VCNS is 40% equities / 60% bonds. iShares and BMO also offer asset allocation funds.)
   
   For a step-by-step guide, I'd recommend John Robertson's book The Value of Simple: A Practical Guide to Taking the Complexity out of Investing. (He comments here as /u/HolyPotato.)

You Can Be a Stock Market Genius: Uncover the Secret Hiding Places of Stock Market Profits By Joel Greenblatt There are a lot of great suggestions on this board. This book gives a lot of great common sense advice for special situations investing. Also, The Ivy Portfolio by Mebane Faber is a good read.

Doing that job well is not very hard. All the investment advice you'll need fits on a postcard.

>Max your 401k or equivalent employee contribution.
>
>Buy inexpensive, well diversified mutual funds such as Vanguard Target 20XX funds.
>
>Never buy or sell an individual security. The person on the other side of the table knows more than you do about this stuff.
>
>Save 20% of your money.
>
>Pay your credit card balance in full every month.
>
>Maximize tax-advantages savings vehicles like Roth, SEP and 529 accounts.
>
>Pay attention to fees. Avoid actively managed funds.
>
>Make financial advisor commit to a fiduciary standard.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Index-Card-Personal-Complicated/dp/1591847680

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/099071179X/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I just finished this book and it's outstanding. I couldn't put it down. It's packed with great information and there is even an index of forms in the back to give you an idea/template of what you will need. The author is the guy from the 'bigger pockets' podcast and he covers in good detail what you'll need to know.

Wow you're knowledge is at zero. An RRSP is an investment vehicle, unless it's a special kind offered by a bank you won't even get anything if you let it sit there as cash.

I'd try to explain things but it would take me forever.

.

1. Read up on RRSP and TFSA
   
   
2. Realize you need to buy Index Funds or ETFs
   
   
3. Open a brokerage account with Questrade or a bank.
   
   .
   
   To get the above answered I recommend looking through this sub or buying this book (It's not mine but it is very easy to read in a weekend and gives you an explanation for everything).
   
   http://www.amazon.ca/Value-Simple-Practical-Complexity-Investing/dp/0987818910/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1420877097&sr=8-2&keywords=simple+investing
   
   

a great place to start is join and learn from Bigger Pockets and also David Greene's book on out-of-state investing is great.

https://www.amazon.com/Long-Distance-Real-Estate-Investing-State/dp/0997584750

I’m wrapping up a book on long distance real estate investing and I think it sounds like a pretty feasible thing to do. The book: https://www.amazon.com/Long-Distance-Real-Estate-Investing-State/dp/0997584750.

His basic thesis is that with current technology you can set up a system and team that will allow you to avoid the pitfalls associated with being far away from your investment. He suggests finding a realtor, property manager, contractor, and lender in the given location and using them as your eyes on the ground, while also using each of them as a check on the other (e.g. if your realtor tells you a house will make a great rental, make sure you run it by your property manager).

The big advantage is that you get to pick a market that suits your real estate investing goals. I’m in a major metropolitan coastal city so it’s basically impossible to find properties that will cash flow with the amount of money I have to invest. That’s not true in many other parts of the country, including several that are expected to see population and economic growth.

I found the book to be a little repetitive and not particularly well written, but well worth the $16.

Looking for this one too. For non-aus one, am planning to get this: The Simple Path to Wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01H97OQY2/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_CmjyCbV4KKJJS

I enjoyed the book A Random Walk Down Wall Street. It's not entirely apropos your interests, but I think you will find it agreeably skeptical about the prevailing economic mumbo-jumbo. Steven Landsburg's The Armchair Economist is another easy, thought-provoking read. I have not read it, but I am curious about More Heat than Light ("Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature's Economics ").

Honestly one of the best books I've read for beginners is investing for dummies. It's very good at explaining risks associated with different types of investments. You don't even have to read the whole thing just what you need to get started.

Investing For Dummies https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119320690/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_D4rVCbK6RTN7F

Released just last year, I really like Bigger Pocket's book on rental property investing. Very specific when it needs to be with an active investor who is walking the walk as the author.

https://www.amazon.com/Book-Rental-Property-Investing-Intelligent/dp/099071179X?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc

Also the Bigger Pockets podcast is an excellent resource.

Best advice I have for small business in general: Dave Ramsey's EntreLeadership

His related material is also excellent.

This is a pretty decent, easy to understand primer in understanding the ways to invest:

https://www.amazon.com/Investing-Dummies-Eric-Tyson/dp/1119320690/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3A8SVKX0AXTP9&keywords=investing+for+dummies+2019&qid=1573331955&sprefix=investing+for+du%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-3

​

Of course, do additional research based on the other links shared by others. You can't take all your advice from one source.

Either of these books are what you need to get started. The complete metal Smith was like a jewelry bible for me. Good luck.

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Metalsmith-Illustrated-Handbook/dp/0871922401/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1517803513&sr=8-5&keywords=Lost+wax+casting


https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Casting-Studio-Reference-Revised/dp/096159845X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517803438&sr=8-1&keywords=Lost+wax+casting

the simple path to wealth by JL Collins

I suggest reading some personal finance blogs before getting books. information in bite size pieces, so you won’t feel overwhelmed, you can get a general consensus from many bloggers, and you will realize that investing and planning for retirement isn’t super complicated.

And podcasts! I am really into Suze orman’s new podcast “women and money”

Not saving any of my disposable income - if I invested even 10% of what I earned in my 20's I'd own a house now that I'm in my 30's, but instead I'm just now trying to catch up with that train.

EDIT: For those interested in learning to invest, I'll share some resources below. As for how I invest - I have 60% in high-interest 5-year CD account (about 3.1% APY) and the rest in mutual funds (VMVFX and VTMFX to be exact). I am putting 10% of my pre-tax income into my employer's 401(k) (they match some of contributions) and am contributing maximum amount possible to my IRA. Finally I keep about 5% of the cash in a savings account which provides a relatively low interest rate of 2% (but I can access that money at any time).

What I'm excited about: moving my investments to ESG (responsible environmental, social, and governance) funds. These funds carefully screen companies for negative impacts in that area - for example, tobacco and alcohol companies would be excluded, as would oil companies, and fashion retailers that use unsustainable labor practices. One such ESG fund is run by Vanguard - VEIGX.

Tips for saving: learn about concept of paying yourself first - that means automatic deductions into a savings account that you can't easily touch that happen after each of your paycheck. This has been the key to saving - automating it so that it's not something I have to think about - like a mortgage or bill payment - makes sure I don't spend the money meant to be saved. Do some budgeting to figure out where your money goes - there's lots of tools online, like Mint, that allow you to easily break down spending by categories and even set a budget. Estimate your living expenses (rent, food, bills, transportation) and prioritize saving for a 6 months worth of living in case of a job loss or accident. Learn about lifestyle creep and always live below your means - buy used not new, avoid cheaply made low quality products, think twice whether you really need the thing you're buying, can you get it used, can you borrow it? How much is the thing you're buying a liability in terms of maintenance, insurance, etc? Prioritize spending on yourself (experiences, learning, self-development) rather than on things.

Relevant reading:

• FIRE calculator: https://engaging-data.com/fire-calculator/ (also see /r/financialindependence)
  
• Three-fund portfolio: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio
  
• Renting vs buying: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-calculator.html
  
• Boglehead's Guide to Investing: https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/0470067365
  
• A Random Walk Down Wallstreet: https://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-Down-Wall-Street/dp/1324002182

I'm gonna throw some book titles at you.

• Your Money Or Your Life
  
• Rich Dad, Poor Dad
  
• Getting Things Done
  
• How to Win Friends and Influence People
  
  The first two will help with the money problems. The third just helps you deal with life and achieving your goals. The last may be the most important because everything in life involves dealing with other people.

One of the best intro books I've read that covers different assets is "All About Asset Allocation" by Rick Ferri: http://www.amazon.com/About-Asset-Allocation-Second-Edition/dp/0071700781

Much of the below text is based on personal opinion and reading many articles and books such as "Ivy League Portfolio" (http://www.amazon.com/The-Ivy-Portfolio-Endowments-Markets/dp/1118008855). I lack sources for majority of the comments below, so feel free to call my bluff just know that I know I have read everything below in multiple locations.

Stocks are more risky than bonds over a short duration, however they have a higher expected return over a long duration. A "balanced" portfolio will include both stocks and bonds to be able to both decrease volatility (ups and downs) but also so that you can rebalance between the 2 and sell stocks to buy bonds when stocks are high and bonds are low or the opposite.

Within stocks there are different things you can hold. One example if REIT, another (this is maybe not actually within stocks but it is not within bonds) is commodities. Or, you can focus on the size, small cap versus large cap. So you can hold all of the equity or you can hold (domestic: small cap, large cap, REIT, commodity, bonds), (international: small cap, large cap, REIT, bonds). You can also add in actively managed mutual funds as those also can act as diversification.

Now, most people will simply suggest a 3-fund portfolio (domestic equity, domestic bonds, international stock). Some research such as displayed within "Ivy League Portfolio" suggests a 5-fund portfolio (domestic equity, domestic REIT, domestic bonds, commodities, international stocks) and holding those 5 gives better volatility control as well as better gains from re-balancing. Other people are quite lazy and simply invest 100% U.S.A. equity such as S&P 500 index. To make matters worse, there have been studies which suggest that re-balancing actually provides no benefits other than decreased volatility.

So, let me try a different track. https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/saving-investing/model-portfolio-allocations According to Vanguard, historically speaking, having the ability to re-balance between stocks and bonds has provided worse return than 100% stock. The only historic benefit of being able to re-balance between domestic stock and domestic bonds is significantly reduced volatility. Now, you are asking whether or not you should add more complexity to your portfolio. More complexity means that you need to pay slightly more attention to your asset allocations, more work involved with re-balancing, if this is a taxable account more paperwork due to dividends even without re-balancing, and potentially slightly worse return. Worse return specifically is due to historically speaking real estate has had slightly lower return than the U.S. stock market as a whole.

If you are most concerned with trying to decrease volatility and the actual return is secondary then fine, add a REIT fund. If you are more concerned about long-term growth and prefer to be more hands-off and passive then just go with the U.S. equity fund.

Has anyone read The Index Card? I just listened to the Freakonomics podcast featuring the author and it seems like it might be a better primer to give away as gifts to my nieces/nephews compared to Dave Ramsey (I like most of his concepts, not the evangelizing).

From a local viewpoint, Martin Hawes's books I find pretty solid. Very much a get rich slow approach that gels with my money personality though.


The Millionaire Next Door is quite America-centric with some of their specific advice, but it's a good one to read to get into the FIRE headspace

The Index Card I would also recommend

No, I am more interested in privately holding properties in IN and my hometown in AL.

That one is still a work in progress. Getting very close to pulling the trigger on my first property, though.

One of the more useful books I've come across is:

• https://www.amazon.com/Long-Distance-Real-Estate-Investing-State/dp/0997584750

throwaway (despite the name) is legit.

If you want to know more about the stock market and why index funds are where it's at, check out A Random Walk down Wall Street. You learn things like 80% of "managed" mutual funds perform worse than index funds. not only that, managed funds charge much more in the way of fees, effectively charging you more to lose money. He also investigates if the stock market is correlated with fashionable skirt length in women or the superbowl champion (yes these are real theories).

If you want to learn more about personal finance, check out The Richest Man in Babylon. To this day one of my favorite books. If you let money be your master, you will always be a slave. If you are the master of your money, no one can ever own you. fuck yeah.

On that note read this book: https://www.amazon.com/White-Coat-Investor-Personal-Investing/dp/0991433106

Small things that she will appreciate:

Black out curtains. Her hours are going to be irregular and after a night shift there is nothing better than coming home to completely dark room in the bright morning to sleep.

A nice pair of trauma shears like Leatherman Raptors.

Also if you want some great investment strategy for your accounts read this: The Ivy Portfolio: How to Invest Like the Top Endowments and Avoid Bear Markets
http://amzn.com/1118008855

And also go here ... http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Monthly-Moving-Averages.php

Hi, just came across your book browsing this subreddit. Looks great, and I ordered it on amazon.ca

Just wanted to let you know that the availability is showing as 1-3 months. I ordered from amazon anyway because I'm hoping that's just an error and it will ship sooner. But you might want to look into it; at the least it's probably deterring orders.

Looking forward to reading it! I'm about to start using RRSPs and wanted a primer for the whole system.

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0987818910?

I recently came across the book "The White Coat Investor." Haven't started reading it yet, but it seems well reviewed. Book is meant for students in addition to residents and attendings.

http://www.amazon.com/The-White-Coat-Investor-Investing/dp/0991433106

The author also has a blog in case you want to validate his content and advice first:
http://whitecoatinvestor.com/new-to-the-blog-start-here

There are roughly 5 components in the practical CAPM model: (i) market risk (ii) value (iii) size (iii) momentum (iv) profitability.

The market risk beta was developed in the 60's and captured around 60% of volatility.

Adding the value beta and size beta - developed by French and Fama - brought the tally up to 90%.

The momentum beta then bumped up volatility capture to 95%.

So... if you have a single factor CAPM - the traditional market risk measure - you are still leaving around 40% of volatility unexplained.

In short: Add factors! Even if (European) CAPM traditionalists frown upon this.

Edit: This is a great book on the topic, and covers all recent academic publications!

Whatever you do, do not sacrifice your own financial security for their sake. Make sure you have your emergency fund set up; do not ever under any circumstances ever ever ever co-sign any loans for them or give them any credit cards under your name ever, on any planet. Ever. See this previous post of mine for just one reason why.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad is a good book for understanding different perspectives on personal finance.

For stubborn parents, I find that a little bit of a guilt trip goes a long way in helping them understand the potential impact of their actions -- i.e., they have no savings for retirement, what do they expect to do when they want to stop working in 5-10 years? Live off of your income? How is that fair to you? You would most likely just be starting a family of your own and trying to save for potential children's educations and your own retirement, do they really want to be an impediment to that?

This was a pretty good book on the subject. Similar conclusion to OPs.

https://www.amazon.com/Ivy-Portfolio-Invest-Endowments-Markets/dp/1118008855

It is basically a valid approach but there are a lot of details you have to get precisely right. And you will have significant periods of underperformance.

The book "complete guide to factor based investing" has a good discussion of the magic formula and its limits.

https://www.amazon.com/Your-Complete-Guide-Factor-Based-Investing/dp/0692783652

I would definitely recommend having disability insurance for your wife. Specifically make sure to have own occupation disability. This means if she practice her specific specialty anymore, even if she can still work, she will still get compensation. Basically all of your life planning is going to be based on her having an excellent income. Long term disability could be devastating if she isn't able to work as a physician anymore. $375 /month seems high.

For reference, I have a disability policy (own occupation) with Standard Insurance that pays around $8-10k per month (cant remember exact amount) and my YEARLY premium is $1050. For life insurance, 2 million 30 yr term for me plus 1 million 20yr term for spouse is about $2800 per year. If that $375/mo includes term life insurance for both of you plus disability insurance, then that may be reasonable. Also, getting insurance earlier allows locking in lower rates. As she progresses in her career, the premiums for disability insurance will go up.

Someone else linked white coat investor. Cannot recommend this enough. Really wish I would have read it in med school. It's a really quick read and is nicely broken up into stages of training.

The White Coat Investor: A Doctor's Guide To Personal Finance And Investing https://www.amazon.com/dp/0991433106/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_-K1MDbBH237KB

With the lost wax casting I've done (in silver and brass, mostly) the investment was heated to around 1200 degrees. A hot mold is what you want, it'll keep your metal from being bound up in the sprues as easily. Also http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Casting-Reference-Revised-Edition/dp/096159845X/ is the best.

My goal when I started investing was to learn as much as I possibly could without spending a dime. This means not buying stocks or mutual funds immediately, but instead reading and understanding from people who have already done well. If you are unwilling to pick up a book at this stage, then you're going to make some costly mistakes down the road.

My advice: ignore the $2500 and go to the library. Below are my recommendations (taken from the /r/investing sidebar):

• A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel
  
• The Warren Buffett Way by Robert G. Hagstrom
  
• The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing by Larimore, Lindauer, LeBoeuf
  
  > My first (probably terrible) idea was when I noticed that apple shares fluctuate about 30 dollars a day on average. Even if I just had one share and sold high and bought low, 30 bucks a day is bathing in money when you're at school. I realize I'm probably missing something and it isn't that simple, but that's why I want to learn.
  
  This is pure speculation, not investing. Investing means long term (> 10 years) holdings that produce a consistent, reliable return (there is an ebb and flow, of course). Speculating is akin to gambling. If you want your money to work for you, investing is the course much more likely to accomplish that goal. If your goal is a quick buck, then you'll probably have better odds in Vegas than on Wall Street.
  

Here are two great books to start with:

Personal MBA - https://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591845572?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Entreleadership - https://www.amazon.com/EntreLeadership-Practical-Business-Wisdom-Trenches/dp/1451617852/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466870653&sr=1-1&keywords=entreleadership+dave+ramsey

I read this book to help with my market expectations.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H97OQY2/
My conclusion is that Betterment is an investing tool to help me stay on my simple path.

I apologize if you had indicated your gender and I missed it. Otherwise I am old school (got this from my 60 year old female freshman English teacher way back in the day) and unknown genders use the masculine form.

As far as reading materials:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01H97OQY2/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1479088087&sr=8-1

I haven't read this book. I've read everything on his blog, and it's my understanding that the book is a reorganization of the key parts of the blog. I wanted to read the book before recommending but it's been checked out of my library since they got it (and the author is so serious about financial independence that his recommendation was to get it from the library instead of buying!). It is available on the kindle.

Most of the info in the book is probably included for free in this series of blog posts.

http://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-series/

Get the book Poor Dad Rich Dad and read it. Then invest in assets.

yea, biggerpockets [the book] (https://www.amazon.com/Book-Rental-Property-Investing-Intelligent/dp/099071179X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525098461&sr=8-1&keywords=BiggerPockets) is the beginner book of choice these days. Site has some valuable blogs as well

Personal Finance for Dummies

https://www.amazon.com/Personal-Finance-Dummies-Eric-Tyson/dp/1119517893/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=personal+finance+for+dummies&qid=1568165153&s=gateway&sprefix=personal+finance&sr=8-3

Investing for Dummies

https://www.amazon.com/Investing-Dummies-Eric-Tyson/dp/1119320690/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=investing+for+dummies&qid=1568165219&s=gateway&sr=8-3

Same author. I read the older version of Investing for Dummies by the same author something like 15+ years ago. I did not read the personal finance one, but the investing book will put a lot of things into perspective for you. It really would be great if these were studied in highschool and\or college. Always get the latest version. They update it for current tax law. The general ideas are always the same.

Pay down debt or avoid incurring it. No investment is 100% except paying off debt. Don't buy more than you can afford. Diverse mutual funds are good. Pre-tax 401k is good.

I just started reading A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkel (latest edition is 2019), and it's pretty good so far. I've also seen several recommendations for John Bogle's The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, though I haven't read it yet.

There are also free courses on Coursera to get your feet wet (e.g. Robert Shiller's Financial Markets class, Yale Unv). These aren't always designed for your everyday retirement investor, but Shiller's course is still really informative.

The Poundstone book fortunes formula has a lot on Shannon. And it is great

Get a Financial Life is my favorite personal finance for young adults.

Bogleheads is the place to go for investing. Very beginner friendly. The videos are super cheesy but very accurate and unbiased.

Try to target 6-12 months of living expenses. Call this your emergency fund.

Do you have any debt? Pay that off next.

Third, try to invest money in tax advantaged spaces, (IRA, Roth IRA, 401k).

Plenty of good books out there on investing and personal finance. I favor the book below:

The Index Card

Why Personal Finance Doesn't Have to Be Complicated
https://www.amazon.com/Index-Card-Personal-Finance-Complicated/dp/1591847680

​

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing
www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Common-Sense-Investing/dp/1119404509

I recommend reading Rick Ferri's All About Asset Allocation.

I'd suggest this book as an easy starting place. https://www.amazon.com/Index-Card-Personal-Finance-Complicated/dp/1591847680

Congrats of taking responsibility for learning about finances? As you get older you'll realize that many adults have awful finances, know next to nothing about money, and just hide it very well. The fact that you're asking means you're already ahead of a lot of people.

You should read The Book on Rental Property Investing by Brandon Turner. It will help you get your head around deciding if it's worth the investment. You're asking all the right questions

https://www.amazon.com/Book-Rental-Property-Investing-Intelligent/dp/099071179X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466017665&sr=1-1&keywords=the+book+on+rental+property+investing

>The rich pocket the money

Here's a book for them

Bogle-heads is a fantastic source of financial information

Vanguard is my go-to investment company.

A Random Walk Down Wall Street

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing

>Kelly criterion, interesting formula but it doesn't apply to bitcoin, because p is highly disputed. It's a one time event - there's just no way to even estimate it.

You can do scenario analysis to apply it:

• If bitcoin goes 20x with probability 10% (and to zero otherwise), invest 5% of your money.
  
• If bitcoin goes 100x with probability 10% (and to zero otherwise), invest 9% of your money.
  
• If bitcoin goes 50x with probability 50% (and to zero otherwise), invest 49% of your money.
  
• etc.
  
  The range of values for p and b that you find believable, will give you a range for the fraction of your money you should be investing. Many traders only invest a fraction (eg half) of what Kelly dictates, because Kelly feels pretty bold to most. "The Kelly Criterion marks the boundary between audaciousness and madness."
  
  Even if you only make one single (long term) bet on bitcoin, Kelly still applies, as long as you keep making other bets with your investments later. However, it only applies to lump sum investments. It does not apply if you have a continuous income stream from which you invest $x every month, say.
  
  When professional traders give advice on position sizing, it is almost always based on some (fractional) Kelly argument. The book 'Fortune's Formula' by William Poundstone about this is fantastic.

I don’t see any replies to your question about investing in bonds. It’s not a simple answer. I would stick to a high yielding savings account or a CD if your goal is to leave the money sitting for 0-5 years.

This might sound silly, but this book is simple to read and keeps you engaged. If you have the financial means to invest, this is a great starting point to get your bearings:

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

It's $8 on Amazon, that's probably a worthwhile investment to begin with

My own advice would be to start early (you're doing that) and to go with no/low fee investments. This will make a huge difference over time.

You might also check out the personal finance book "The index card," and the video "How to Win the Losers Game."

I liked this one:

https://www.amazon.com/All-About-Asset-Allocation-Second/dp/0071700781

So I guess we're talking about this book?
http://www.amazon.com/EntreLeadership-Practical-Business-Wisdom-Trenches/dp/1451617852
It's hard to say. Is this an ongoing theme throughout the book? My guess is yes, since the author, Dave Ramsey, works for Fox and his Wiki page says: "His books and broadcasts often feature a Christian perspective that reflects Ramsey's religious beliefs."

You will like this BOOK there is one used spiral bound copy still available as posting.

EVERY rotary casting machine I have used has been mounted inside some tub or shallow weighted drum.

I'm in a similar situation. I live near Los Angeles City. The price to rent ratio is like 0.3. I have been reading David Greene's book, Long Distance Real Estate investing

https://www.amazon.com/Long-Distance-Real-Estate-Investing-State/dp/0997584750

See if there are any community colleges near your offering personal finance courses! And my mom (a former accountant/insurance agency employee) recommends this book which she actually just ordered for me too!

Kinda surprised at no Enterleadership by Dave Ramsey.

Practical advice on how to grow your business, treat people, and manage money.

Before you even go to a financial advisor or one that any Redditor might post to recommend as friends, go borrow these books from the library for a read so the investment world makes sense to you when you do talk about money with a planner and want to make sure you're getting good advice:

http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Practical/dp/0060555661

http://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-Down-Wall-Street/dp/0393081435

http://www.amazon.com/Warren-Buffett-Way-Second/dp/0471743674

If you're really lazy, at least read the first one.
If you're really, really lazy. Follow this blog for a bit http://canadiancouchpotato.com/

After that, only then should you take referrals and recommendations. Go to a few, and armed with some knowledge, you'll be much prepared to sift through advisors that are trying to bullshit you for front-loaded commissions, etc.

Oh I wouldn't call Dr. Dahle random - he's a well known and financial expert (and physician). Here's his book on Amazon.

If you already don't have debt, I recommend Beginners Guide to Investing. The philosophy is, spending 4-5 hours a year is all you need to invest well. Short quick read.

This book is very good, admittedly I haven’t actually done it yet but I’m planning on it.

https://www.amazon.com/Long-Distance-Real-Estate-Investing-State/dp/0997584750

Check out this book from David Greene: https://www.amazon.com/Long-Distance-Real-Estate-Investing-State/dp/0997584750

While I haven’t jumped on his strategies just yet, I plan to for my first multi-family purchase as living in Boston anything over 2+ units is crazy expensive. Really really good read.

As a fellow EM Doctor that had $300K+ in debt, you should find a higher paying job.

$230K/Yr is a pittance for what you do. I make (almost) twice that in a major metro area, had 8 interviews fresh out of residency that paid from $185-235/hr, from rural areas, to midsized town, to 1,000,000+ cities. You should be able to find a job at $200/hr easy. $200hr x 144hrs/mo x 12 months = $345K/yr. That's like $80K extra post tax per year that you can put towards loans / savings / vacations / whatever. Every 80K you miss our on early in your career stacks up over time, on missed savings, missed loan payments, etc.

You're getting screwed at $230K/yr. Get a higher paying job, and get an accountant that works with other doctors (will save you so much money!). Also read White Coat Investor.

https://www.amazon.com/White-Coat-Investor-Personal-Investing/dp/0991433106

Buy it and put it in the bathroom, and read it 5 minutes at a time until you're done.

Docs earn outsized incomes. Here's a link to that discussion. I'm not saying it's undeserved, just that it's outside the sphere of mere mortals here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/5sr1ix/30_year_old_resident_doctor_with_310000_in/

>Thankfully, I just accepted an offer as an emergency physician with a starting salary of $230,000.

Peeps scolded him for accepting such a low ball.

>As a fellow EM Doctor that had $300K+ in debt, you should find a higher paying job.
$230K/Yr is a pittance for what you do. I make (almost) twice that in a major metro area, had 8 interviews fresh out of residency that paid from $185-235/hr, from rural areas, to midsized town, to 1,000,000+ cities. You should be able to find a job at $200/hr easy. $200hr x 144hrs/mo x 12 months = $345K/yr. That's like $80K extra post tax per year that you can put towards loans / savings / vacations / whatever. Every 80K you miss our on early in your career stacks up over time, on missed savings, missed loan payments, etc.
You're getting screwed at $230K/yr. Get a higher paying job, and get an accountant that works with other doctors (will save you so much money!). Also read White Coat Investor.
https://www.amazon.com/White-Coat-Investor-Personal-Investing/dp/0991433106
Buy it and put it in the bathroom, and read it 5 minutes at a time until you're done.


The more you know.

> but I've never ever found a good guide who can really tell me how this all works

I actually would have to recommend Investing For Dummies. Seriously. It's got all the information that someone with little-to-no background would need.

If you move the decimal over. This is about 1,000 in books...

(If I had to pick a few for 100 bucks: encyclopedia of country living, survival medicine, wilderness medicine, ball preservation, art of fermentation, a few mushroom and foraging books.)


Medical:

Where there is no doctor

Where there is no dentist

Emergency War Surgery

The survival medicine handbook

Auerbach’s Wilderness Medicine

Special Operations Medical Handbook

Food Production

Mini Farming

encyclopedia of country living

square foot gardening

Seed Saving

Storey’s Raising Rabbits

Meat Rabbits

Aquaponics Gardening: Step By Step

Storey’s Chicken Book

Storey Dairy Goat

Storey Meat Goat

Storey Ducks

Storey’s Bees

Beekeepers Bible

bio-integrated farm

soil and water engineering

Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation

Food Preservation and Cooking

Steve Rinella’s Large Game Processing

Steve Rinella’s Small Game

Ball Home Preservation

Charcuterie

Root Cellaring

Art of Natural Cheesemaking

Mastering Artesian Cheese Making

American Farmstead Cheesemaking

Joe Beef: Surviving Apocalypse

Wild Fermentation

Art of Fermentation

Nose to Tail

Artisan Sourdough

Designing Great Beers

The Joy of Home Distilling

Foraging

Southeast Foraging

Boletes

Mushrooms of Carolinas

Mushrooms of Southeastern United States

Mushrooms of the Gulf Coast


Tech

farm and workshop Welding

ultimate guide: plumbing

ultimate guide: wiring

ultimate guide: home repair

off grid solar

Woodworking

Timberframe Construction

Basic Lathework

How to Run A Lathe

Backyard Foundry

Sand Casting

Practical Casting

The Complete Metalsmith

Gears and Cutting Gears

Hardening Tempering and Heat Treatment

Machinery’s Handbook

How to Diagnose and Fix Everything Electronic

Electronics For Inventors

Basic Science


Chemistry

Organic Chem

Understanding Basic Chemistry Through Problem Solving

Ham Radio

AARL Antenna Book

General Class Manual

Tech Class Manual


MISC

Ray Mears Essential Bushcraft

Contact!

Nuclear War Survival Skills

The Knowledge: How to rebuild civilization in the aftermath of a cataclysm

Generally speaking you'll either want a target date fund (which will have a higher expense ratio, but is "set it and forget it" kind of thing), or dump into something like VTSAX (or whatever equivalent you have access to). You can opt to do other portfolio strategies, but those are the two most commonly used for general suggestions. Many will feel that VTSAX is investing in only one stock, which is inaccurate as VTSAX invests in the broad market.

Also, if you have some time go and read through JLCollin's stock series (note - it's currently down for some reason, looks like their web host is having issues). Or read the simple path to wealth.

TL:DR - if you want 100% stocks, throw it in VTSAX and forget about it. Over the past 10 years VTSAX has returned 12%, with the worst 3 year period being -8% and best 3 years being 33%.

https://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Investing-Money-Smart/dp/1477463992

Or an index card

hows this book btw: http://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Investing-Money-Smart/dp/1477463992/

Try this: The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn't Have to Be Complicated

And here's a podcast/interview on the book.

A Random Walk Down Wall Street

An individual investor should NEVER invest in single stocks.

Read this and this to understand why.

rears head

GAMBLANG

http://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-Down-Wall-Street/dp/0393081435

https://www.amazon.com/Your-Complete-Guide-Factor-Based-Investing/dp/0692783652/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486570140&sr=8-1&keywords=complete+guide+to+factor+based+investing

are you using any kind of release? for air bubbles that is. we use a mix of mop n glo and water. something to make the wax "slippery" to the air. hmmm.... check out a copy of any of Tim McCreight's books but especially http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Casting-Reference-Revised-Edition/dp/096159845X.

Check out The White Coat Investor: https://www.amazon.com/White-Coat-Investor-Personal-Investing/dp/0991433106

First Med school is 4 years, not 8-10.

After School you will go into residency making about ~40k/ year.

And for any more advice read the book white coat investor.

Check out The WhitE Cost Investor. It's a blog (http://whitecoatinvestor.com) and book (The White Coat Investor: A Doctor's Guide To Personal Finance And Investing https://www.amazon.com/dp/0991433106/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_US-Hxb3G7PXVG).

White Coat Investor

Here it is The White Coat Investor: A Doctor's Guide To Personal Finance And Investing https://www.amazon.com/dp/0991433106/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_XVDSzbYQSN1G4