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Question for hackernews: where did everyone else learn about this stuff? Going through the material, I found I already knew 50-75% of it, but from bits and pie

Question for hackernews: where did everyone else learn about this stuff? Going through the material, I found I already knew 50-75% of it, but from bits and pieces of information I learned over the years, not one consolidated place. Is it the same for others?

The_Hoff 9y ago
Go into it with a grain of salt, but https://reddit.com/r/personalfinance https://reddit.com/r/personalfinance is a good resource. The sidebar and recurring themes in posts are really useful. Additionally https://bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page https://bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page is a good starting place for putting together an investment portfolio.
ryanwaggoner 9y ago
I read a bunch of books on personal finance (of mixed quality) in high school and college, and I also took actual finance classes in college, which help with concepts like compound interest, present / future value, etc.
- sslash 9y ago
  Do you have any particular books to recommend? I've read Money by Tony Robbins. Good book, even though the guy himself is a little too much for me
  - walshemj 9y ago
    The intelligent investor by benjamin graham - Warren buffets mentor
  - davidddavidson 9y ago
    The Bogleheads Guide to Investing
  - sn9 9y ago
    Ramit Sethi's I Will Teach You to be Rich.
alistairSH 9y ago
None of this was covered directly at any level of school (well regarded public school system in Northern VA). I'd guess 50% or more I learned from my parents, 25%-ish from other school work ("advanced" math in secondary school, economics major at university), and 25%-ish from experience (huh, how did I run up this credit card? I shouldn't do that again!). I had the impression that as an honors student, enrolled in primarily advanced classes from middle school onward, and then attending a top-20 university, it was just assumed I would know this stuff, or figure it out before getting into financial trouble. That was mostly true, though it's hard to comprehend how hard it can be to manage credit until you have a large credit line and a stable income.
- walshemj 9y ago
  I think that university still expects its incoming students to pick up stuff from their parents - you can see this on sites like stack overflow where graduates who are the first in their family to goto Uni - they don't seem to know stuff that say mat parents taught me
walshemj 9y ago
Newspaper finance sections originally (the daily telegraph is the bests in the UK) latterly the intelligent investor and mags like the Investors chronical
gdubs 9y ago
The Millionaire Next Door is a good read on lifestyle choices and changing perspective on what it means to be wealthy. Random Walk on Wall Street is a great book on investing (spoiler alert: index funds). I actually really found value in Tony Robins’ book on finance, even though it’s couched in a bit of an infomercial style. (And he advertises for some of his own companies, albeit transparently.) You Need a Budget (the app / company) also made me think differently about budgeting. But, I still use the old version of their app and have no idea how well the new web-based version works in comparison.
olalonde 9y ago
"A Random Walk Down Wall Street" covers a lot of that material and convinced me to start saving and investing in the stock market (through ETFs mostly).
antognini 9y ago
I remember spending a lot of time reading Investopedia the summer after my sophomore year of college.
almost_usual 9y ago
This book If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly - William J. Bernstein And all of the sources referenced in it. The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham is also a good one.
sn9 9y ago
Ramit Sethi's I Will Teach You to be Rich.

The_Hoff 9y ago

Go into it with a grain of salt, but https://reddit.com/r/personalfinance https://reddit.com/r/personalfinance is a good resource. The sidebar and recurring themes in posts are really useful. Additionally https://bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page https://bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page is a good starting place for putting together an investment portfolio.

ryanwaggoner 9y ago

I read a bunch of books on personal finance (of mixed quality) in high school and college, and I also took actual finance classes in college, which help with concepts like compound interest, present / future value, etc.

sslash 9y ago
Do you have any particular books to recommend? I've read Money by Tony Robbins. Good book, even though the guy himself is a little too much for me
- walshemj 9y ago
  The intelligent investor by benjamin graham - Warren buffets mentor
- davidddavidson 9y ago
  The Bogleheads Guide to Investing
- sn9 9y ago
  Ramit Sethi's I Will Teach You to be Rich.

alistairSH 9y ago

None of this was covered directly at any level of school (well regarded public school system in Northern VA). I'd guess 50% or more I learned from my parents, 25%-ish from other school work ("advanced" math in secondary school, economics major at university), and 25%-ish from experience (huh, how did I run up this credit card? I shouldn't do that again!). I had the impression that as an honors student, enrolled in primarily advanced classes from middle school onward, and then attending a top-20 university, it was just assumed I would know this stuff, or figure it out before getting into financial trouble. That was mostly true, though it's hard to comprehend how hard it can be to manage credit until you have a large credit line and a stable income.

walshemj 9y ago
I think that university still expects its incoming students to pick up stuff from their parents - you can see this on sites like stack overflow where graduates who are the first in their family to goto Uni - they don't seem to know stuff that say mat parents taught me

walshemj 9y ago

Newspaper finance sections originally (the daily telegraph is the bests in the UK) latterly the intelligent investor and mags like the Investors chronical

gdubs 9y ago

The Millionaire Next Door is a good read on lifestyle choices and changing perspective on what it means to be wealthy. Random Walk on Wall Street is a great book on investing (spoiler alert: index funds). I actually really found value in Tony Robins’ book on finance, even though it’s couched in a bit of an infomercial style. (And he advertises for some of his own companies, albeit transparently.) You Need a Budget (the app / company) also made me think differently about budgeting. But, I still use the old version of their app and have no idea how well the new web-based version works in comparison.

olalonde 9y ago

"A Random Walk Down Wall Street" covers a lot of that material and convinced me to start saving and investing in the stock market (through ETFs mostly).

antognini 9y ago

I remember spending a lot of time reading Investopedia the summer after my sophomore year of college.

almost_usual 9y ago

This book If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly - William J. Bernstein And all of the sources referenced in it. The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham is also a good one.

sn9 9y ago

Ramit Sethi's I Will Teach You to be Rich.