I have been introduced to the concept of personal finance around 2 years ago in 2016 (at age 32), when I moved to Bay area. It was pure luck and coincidence, a tad late but better-late-than-never one. Until then, I was actually unconsciously investing (through company RSUs which I didn’t even attempt to sell, because I didn’t know their value at the time), and I was already living below the means, making me the champ on the saving part. But as for investing, I had a long way to go.
By the time I moved to Bay area at age 32 in 2016, I have already worked in corporate for 4 years, but Bay area compensation for engineers were at a different level than any other location I worked at (New York and Seattle). But investing bell did not ring for me, until I was introduced to an anonymous workplace app called Blind. The idea of Blind is: you sign up to the app using your work email, and write posts anonymously. Being the unnecessarily-extra-polite and shy me, I have never asked people around me about saving and investing. And when some of my friends suggested me to invest my money, including retirement accounts, I was just ignoring them, thinking that just saving the money (which was sitting in a checking account!) was more than enough. And from my family, I did not learn anything, because money was a taboo topic and it was never a good idea to talk about it in the family, although we were above middle-income class, closer to upper middle class based on the standards in my home country, and despite the fact that my mom did know a lot about investing (and my dad, who instead relied on my mom in investing, did not). In this setting, I never got to learn about personal finance and investing, until I read posts on Blind app.
The nice thing about Blind was that you could ask any question you want, you could read a lot of posts where people were free to give advice anonymously, and you could learn. And people in the app were reasonable, putting aside the trolls, there were some really good suggestions, and crowdsourcing wasn’t a bad idea after all. For a while, I was reading these suggestions on investing, and my mind was rejecting them. The suggestions really made sense, some of them were recommending books to read, short booklets to read, links to actual data to back their hypothesis, finance blog suggestions, links to posts about FI movement. It took me a while to process all this, and convince myself to listen to the sound advice. I didn’t have the time to read long books, but I was reading the web pages at least. I still needed a bigger picture though. I think it was a combination of many signals that made me listen to the sound advice. It started with suggestions from friends whose advice I did not listen for years, but then, the app, Blind. There were a couple of posts on Blind that I remember vividly (although I’m pretty sure there are more that I don’t fully remember). One was a comment on a post related to personal finance, saying “Never, ever keep more than 250K in a bank account”, referring to FDIC insurance limits of bank accounts. And finally, a very striking comment on another post, giving a link to a wonderful, short but dense, extremely powerfully worded, 15-page booklet by William Bernstein, entitled “If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly” .
After reading this 15-page booklet by William Bernstein, which was short enough for me to bear with the booklet and keep going until the end, but also powerful enough to convince me after years, it was the moment of lighting strike for me. The wording in the booklet was so powerful that, the moment Bernstein made his investment suggestion in the first sentence of the booklet, and the moment he emphasized that following the suggestion will make the difference between having a home with your kids in retirement vs. sleeping under a bridge in the rain, I was hit on the head. The booklet also suggested reading other books. I suddenly became very interested in personal finance and investing. I just couldn’t stop listening to audio books, watching videos, and reading blogs on personal finance and investing, and reading short booklets. I even started reading books on personal finance and investing, which was new for me, after years of only reading books related to my major and work, with some exceptions. I suddenly found myself in this frenzy of learning about personal finance and investing: I was reading about investing until long past midnight on weekdays, and almost half of the day at the weekends. I got the fever of personal finance and investing, finally.
After some reading, I started putting everything into practice. I opened a Vanguard account, started investing using a 3-fund portfolio, which I later had to fix after a (free) phone call with a Vanguard personal investing specialist. I already had a Fidelity account due to a past employer’s 401K plan (which I never funded until then). Speaking of 401K, I tried to max my 401K contribution (with 50% company match) in 2016, but the time was not enough. Starting in 2017, I started maxing out 401K, and in 2018 I started maxing out backdoor Roth IRA, and almost maxing out Mega Backdoor Roth IRA. I signed up for Bogleheads forum, asked a lot of questions there, learned from other finance blogs, got introduced to Mr. Money Mustache. The information just kept coming. And there was a time I noticed I was overloaded by information, because some suggestions from different sources were contradicting. So, I learned to synthesize and create my own idea on investing and personal finance.
I read or skimmed through many books during this time. “The Millionaire Next Door” by Thomas J Stanley & William D Danko, “The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing” by Taylor Larimore et al. were good starts. I also read summaries of some books and watched their summary videos. I skimmed through “Four Pillars of Investing” by William Bernstein, the author of the awesome 15-page booklet that started this investing frenzy for me. I listened to the audiobook of “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki, who did not convince me on investing in real estate yet, as of 2018, but he was able to convince me to be an investor and business owner in the future, and making my money work for me.
On the personal investing side, I was already thrifty and living below my means, but as the number of my accounts increased, it turned out that it could be a good idea to follow my finances from one central point. And at this point, I first tried Mint, which was ok, but then I got introduced to the game changer: PersonalCapital. I linked all of my accounts to my PersonalCapital account, and I was able to see my expenses and investments there clearly, even getting some automated investment suggestions from the platform.
After this speedy introduction of mine to personal finance and investing, I reached a point where I felt comfortable with my knowledge, and I was able to weed out incorrect information I read in articles. My friends started asking me suggestions on investing. I felt relieved that I can now make my money work for me through investing, and I can monitor changes via personal finance management platforms.
As you see, it all started with me listening to the advice that was always coming my way, which I didn’t get a chance to open myself to and listen. But from the point on, I started listening and learning the basics (and that’s all you need to learn, basics), I was comfortable that I’m doing the right thing with my money. Then of course, I was introduced to the concept of FI and FIRE. And knowing that I just can’t stop working on things that interest me, over time, I decided to FIRE and create businesses in the future, hence FireToBiz.
My hope is that you were luckier than me and have already learned about investing and personal finance earlier in your life. But even if you did not, it is never, ever too late. The time to start is now. So, in case you haven’t yet, start learning about investing, and one day you will find yourself working on ideas you want to pursue.
Sign up for Personal Capital, personal finance management platform.