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Got any good advice for building wealth from books or other sources, please share!
Me: After years of neglecting my retirement accounts ("no time, too busy") I found myself unemployed at the end of 2019, so I had no more excuses for not tidying things up. By sheer dumb luck, I put my money into an S&P 500 index fund at the end of April 2020, just in time to see my paper net worth soar farther than it would have gone had I continued at my old job and not tidied up my accounts. (sweet, but I'm not rushing out to buy a set of Kii speakers on the basis of unrealized gains).
Here's some of the money-related books that I've read to date:
Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist
I must have read this in the 1990s when I had even less of a clue on how to invest than I do now. And it encouraged me to treat investments as a nice boring activity and not something to be constantly tracked and tweaked. But maybe I got a little bit too lax with oversight.
The Millionaire Next Door
It's been years since I've read it, the only part I recall off the top of my head was a factoid that the Ford F150 was apparently the self-made millionaire's vehicle of choice at the time the book was written. Maybe I should review to see what I've forgotten.
Your Money or Your Life
I encountered this at a time when I was in debt and hadn't really considered whether it was a problem. Quickly came to appreciate that I was not going to get rich fast while paying a bank 18% interest for my latest toy.
I Will Teach You to be Rich
Cheeky writing style and gimmicky title, but so far as I can see, the actual advice is anything but gimmicky - lots of examples of how to take advantage of services which I was already vaguely aware of, but had never put into action. But I wonder what to make of the suggestion to invest in target-date funds - is it overly conservative?
Rich Dad Poor Dad (series of books)
Since it was checked out at the library, I didn't start with the original "Rich Dad Poor Dad" but rather, "Rich Dad's Who Took My Money?". For a man who by his own admission lacks writing skill, Robert Kiyosaki certainly has managed to crank out a lot of books! WTMM struck me being rough around the edges, full of tales used to illustrate the author's points, and here and there, a random zinger, such as including IPOs as a possible way to make money. I came away thinking that there might be some valuable information contained in the book, but not all bits are to be taken as good ideas, much less recommendations.
And yet, for me there's a core appeal to Kiyosaki's writing: My own "Poor Dad" would have been lost without his stable federal job, and I feel like I was brought up with some unhelpful beliefs which I could stand to unlearn (pretty much the same "Study hard, get a good job, work hard" ethos that the author got). I like the notion of building wealth by letting other people, and other people's money, work for me but don't have any particular ideas as to what's right for me.
Me: After years of neglecting my retirement accounts ("no time, too busy") I found myself unemployed at the end of 2019, so I had no more excuses for not tidying things up. By sheer dumb luck, I put my money into an S&P 500 index fund at the end of April 2020, just in time to see my paper net worth soar farther than it would have gone had I continued at my old job and not tidied up my accounts. (sweet, but I'm not rushing out to buy a set of Kii speakers on the basis of unrealized gains).
Here's some of the money-related books that I've read to date:
Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist
I must have read this in the 1990s when I had even less of a clue on how to invest than I do now. And it encouraged me to treat investments as a nice boring activity and not something to be constantly tracked and tweaked. But maybe I got a little bit too lax with oversight.
The Millionaire Next Door
It's been years since I've read it, the only part I recall off the top of my head was a factoid that the Ford F150 was apparently the self-made millionaire's vehicle of choice at the time the book was written. Maybe I should review to see what I've forgotten.
Your Money or Your Life
I encountered this at a time when I was in debt and hadn't really considered whether it was a problem. Quickly came to appreciate that I was not going to get rich fast while paying a bank 18% interest for my latest toy.
I Will Teach You to be Rich
Cheeky writing style and gimmicky title, but so far as I can see, the actual advice is anything but gimmicky - lots of examples of how to take advantage of services which I was already vaguely aware of, but had never put into action. But I wonder what to make of the suggestion to invest in target-date funds - is it overly conservative?
Rich Dad Poor Dad (series of books)
Since it was checked out at the library, I didn't start with the original "Rich Dad Poor Dad" but rather, "Rich Dad's Who Took My Money?". For a man who by his own admission lacks writing skill, Robert Kiyosaki certainly has managed to crank out a lot of books! WTMM struck me being rough around the edges, full of tales used to illustrate the author's points, and here and there, a random zinger, such as including IPOs as a possible way to make money. I came away thinking that there might be some valuable information contained in the book, but not all bits are to be taken as good ideas, much less recommendations.
And yet, for me there's a core appeal to Kiyosaki's writing: My own "Poor Dad" would have been lost without his stable federal job, and I feel like I was brought up with some unhelpful beliefs which I could stand to unlearn (pretty much the same "Study hard, get a good job, work hard" ethos that the author got). I like the notion of building wealth by letting other people, and other people's money, work for me but don't have any particular ideas as to what's right for me.
