A Hodgepodge of Personal Finance Study Materials!

[Scott Trench]

Hi All,

I think most people on BP are self-taught or self teaching when it comes to Personal Finance.  I know that my study has been a hodge-podge of Corporate Finance, blog and Podcast study, books, and trial and error.

I wish there was a course on how to do all this, but being young and naive ( @Ben Leybovich ) I would love to have some structure to my ongoing education in personal finance!

Can anybody list some resources that did the following for them:

- Sparked interest/passion in personal finance

- Changed their outlook on finance/investing

- Actually got into the nitty gritty of specific types of investments

- Just proved useful when studying personal finance in some other way

Some of my favorite personal finance materials so far are:

The Four Hour Work Week - Tim Ferris

The Millionaire Next Door - Thomas Stanley + William Danko

Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki

For more in depth study, I look to Coursera courses and of course blogs like BP.  

Anyways - I would love to hear your favorite resources and read up on them!

[Bryan Hancock]

I have read hundreds of finance books and have a MBA in finance.  After reading tens of thousands of posts on BP, reading/writing blogs, speaking at national conferences, practicing for going on 12 years in the real world, etc. my main advice is to learn how to raise money.  People spend inordinate amounts of time on abstruse buy-side strategies or trying to carve out 1% extra from the stock market.  These are very low payoff activities to me.  Learning to raise money allows you to do bigger projects and is probably the most valuable skillset you can learn as a business person.  

People's main constraint to wealth growth is that they don't have enough wealth to get access to the deals where there is less competition and bigger dollar margins.  The only feasible way to get to that rung of the ladder is to spend time learning to raise money.  I would suggest doing the following:

• Read finance textbooks - You need a good base to grow from
• Get out in the real world and do some deals to build a track record over time
• Find a quality mentor in your area and slave away for them to learn what they know.  Offer value to them
• Fly to conferences on raising money like Gene Trowbridge's conference, Pitbull Mortgage Conference, Joel Block's Dealmaking Symposium, etc.
• Read online about securities laws and crowdfunding
• Do case studies to structure deals in the real world either via your mentor or using canned examples
• Learn to build financial models

If your goal is to grow you need to be armed with a high power rifle and not a slingshot.  It takes time and most people quit long before they get there.  BE THE PERSON that doesn't quit and is willing to do whatever it takes to get there.  The brick walls are there for a reason.  They're there to stop the OTHER PEOPLE that don't want it badly enough.