1. Start educating yourself about personal finance. One of the weird things about the modern age, is that even though money plays such a huge role in our lives, most of us don’t get any formal personal finance classes in school. Parents often don’t talk with their kids about the finer points of money management either. This is unfortunate, because knowledge truly is power.
When I was in law school I started a blog called The Frugal Law Student. I wanted to share tips with fellow law students about how to save money while getting your JD. Yet at the time, I didn’t know much about personal finance myself! So I went into autodidact mode and started learning about money, saving, and so on. This self-taught course really enriched my life.
You don’t have to start a blog to become a savvy money manager. It’s never too late to start educating yourself about the world of personal finance, and it’s as easy as reading the vast amount of free content online about the topic. Here are some of the sites I found invaluable during my own finance education (as well as a few that started after I hung up my FLS hat):
- Get Rich Slowly
- The Simple Dollar
- I Will Teach You To Be Rich
- Wise Bread
- Mr. Money Mustache
- Consumerism Commentary
- Mint.com Blog
- Financial Samurai
- LearnVest Blog
- Two Cents (by LifeHacker)
- Coursera (while not a blog, Coursera offers several personal finance-related classes)
In addition to reading personal finance sites, I read pretty much every single book on personal finance in Tulsa County’s library system. Here’s a short list of the books that helped me the most:
- Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
- I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
- Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in You Twenties and Thirties by Beth Kobliner
- Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing
- Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin
- The Richest Man in Babylon by George Clason
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