Barry Ritholtz asked people for their top 10 money rules last week.
Here are mine.
Spend less than you make. Invest the difference in the VTI. It is much easier to decrease spending by 80% than to 5x your income. Focus where your impact is more leveraged.
Spend no time “investing.” If you are not a professional investors (and even if you are), follow rule one and get back to your day job. It may not be as fun, but thats life.
Money doesn’t solve all your problems, but it solves all your money problems.
Freedom is the goal of money. If making more makes you less free, you are doing something wrong.
With patience and long-term habits, anyone in a 1st world, free society can become wealthy. Warren Buffett once said, “Charlie [Munger] and I knew we’d be rich one day, we just weren’t in a hurry.
Getting rich and staying rich are different things that require different skills.
The most effective wealth building ideas are the most boring and the most simple, which is why most people won’t follow them and most people will never achieve freedom.
Most of the FIRE movement is a hoax. Gaining financial independence is not. Making your own dish soap so you can “retire” at 31 in a trailer doesn’t sound like a good long term strategy. Most narratives in this world are told by people who hate their jobs so much they’d rather live 70+ years sub optimal than do the hard work of finding work they don’t have to run from.
The typical retirement narrative (62.5 y/o, annuities, etc.) is a trap set up by money managers. Most of the things you are putting off until retirement can can be had way sooner than you think.
Never accept money you didn’t earn, it can destroy you. Here is a cautionary tale.
Debt removes options, savings add them. And yes, that includes student debt.
What are yours? I’d love to know.