An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest - Benjamin Franklin.
And relevant knowledge, when properly applied, is the most valuable skill we have.
Hey everyone Daniel here and welcome to Next Level Life a channel where you can learn about
Investing, debt, retirement, and many other general financial education videos because
the school's aren't going to do it for us.
So if any of those topics sound interesting to you or if you want to learn how to better
handle your money and have more financial freedom be sure to hit that subscribe button
and the bell next to my name to be notified every time I upload a video.
And if you want to further support the growth of this channel you can check out some of
the links I’ve left down in the description below which includes a 30-day free trial of
Audible and 2 free audiobooks of your choice as well as a list of some books on money I’d
recommend checking out, or you can share this video with a friend, and leave a comment below
letting me know what topics you’d like me to cover in future videos.
So today I just wanted to make a quick video, since it is the holiday season and I didn't
want to go into anything too deep or take up too much of your time.
Therefore, I thought it would be a good idea to take a little time to introduce a couple
of other sources from which you can learn about finances and money in general.
As many of you know I learned a lot of what I know about finances from my dad but he was
not my only teacher.
Throughout my life, I have sought insight from as many sources as I can get my hands
on and that's an approach that I think everybody should take regardless of what it is they're
trying to learn.
And one of the easiest and quickest ways to get your feet wet in that arena is to read
books.
So today I'm going to very briefly go over 5 books that I feel everyone interested in
increasing their own Financial intelligence and getting a better handle on their money
should check out if they haven't already.
For each book in this video, I will discuss who I think the book will be particularly
ideal for and why using key insights that can be gained from the book.
I have left links to all of these books in the description below this video if any of
them interest you feel free to check them out.
They are also my affiliate links so it's a great way to support the channel at no additional
cost to you but obviously don't feel obligated to use those links if you're not interested
in the book.
Also, be sure to stick around to the end of the video as I’ve got a channel update that
I’d like to share with all of you.
With that out of the way let's get started.
The Millionaire next door was written by Thomas J Stanley in 1996 paints the portrait of the
typical millionaire thusly: 57 years old married with 3 children.
About one-in-five are retired and two-thirds of those who are working are self-employed.
This gives us an insight into how important having a side hustle is seeing as how only
about 20% of the workers in America at the time of the writing of the book were self-employed
but they account for nearly two-thirds of the millionaires.
About half of the millionaires according to this book had wives who did not work outside
the home and those that did were usually teachers.
The average household net worth was about 3.7 million however some had accumulated net
worths of well over 10 million which skews the average data upward.
The median net worth was 1.6 million.
And here's the crux: most live well below their means.
according to the book on average the total annual realized income is less than 7% of
the millionaires' wealth or in other words they live on less than 7% of their wealth.
And about 80% of them are first-generation rich, they didn't receive any inheritance
they did it all themselves.
This book is one of my personal favorites and it is one of the first books on money
my dad ever showed me.
I think I might have been 12 years old at the time but I was able to follow it so I
think it is a great read for anyone really but particularly those who are just getting
started on their own Financial journeys.
Because it really does help paint the picture that yes anyone can achieve this million dollar
net worth goal so long as they have their priorities in order and learn the fundamental
skills of budgeting, living below their means and investing consistently over time.
Rich Dad Poor Dad is a book written by Robert Kiyosaki in 1997 this part of a series that
teaches people about the basics of financial intelligence.
in this book among other things, Kiyosaki goes over the four pillars of financial intelligence
which are accounting, investing, understanding markets, and the law.
He also goes through six different lessons that were talked to him by his Rich Dad which
are that the rich don't work for money they have money work for them, reasons to teach
financial literacy to begin with, tips for how to mind your own business, the history
of taxes and the power of personal corporations, how the rich invest money, and the importance
of working to learn instead of working to earn.
This book may be a little bit lighter on the here is a step-by-step guide on how to do
specifically this then some other books out there but it is very good at getting you to
think a little more like the rich which I think is very important.
But if you prefer books that are more step-by-step based this probably isn't the best one for
you.
Seven steps to save your financial life now by Daniel Solon is maybe a little bit less
well-known of the book than many of the other ones on this list but it is a very quick and
easy read that gives a lot of good points.
As the title suggests that goes over seven things that you can focus on and do that can
help improve your financial life such as making sure you're getting reliable data when you're
researching finances, ignoring those who are claiming to have the ability to predict the
future of the market because nobody can do that, comparing active and passive investing
which I've done on this channel already, not trying to time the market and avoiding brokers
if at all possible.
As I said it's a very quick read, only 48 pages in fact compared to the usual two, three,
or four hundred that you get in these finance books normally.
So it’s an ideal book to check out if you are short on time and don’t have more than
a couple of hours free some weekend down the road.
The behavior gap is a book written by Carl Richards in 2012 and it goes over the phenomenon
that explains the difference between the return of an investment and the actual return a hypothetical
typical investor gets from said investment.
The difference between the two is what Richard’s calls the “Behavior Gap” and it exists
because the typical investor often tends to buy high and sell low simply because most
people, especially when they are first starting to invest, tend to invest emotionally as much
if not more so than rationally.
We saw this pretty recently with Bitcoin.
To quote Richards, “It's not that we're dumb.
We're wired to avoid pain and pursue pleasure and security.
It feels right to sell when everyone around us is scared and buy when everyone feels great.
It may feel right but it's not rational.”
So obviously this book also deals with the passive vs active investing debate, but more
from a behavioral standpoint than other books on this list.
It also gives some handy tips to help investors (and their managers) control their emotions
when it comes to investing.
I think this book would be ideal for the beginning investor because it is vitally important to
know going in how our emotions can affect our investing behavior so that when a crisis
inevitably happens (as it will to all of us eventually) we can better manage it.
However, at 178 pages with lots of sharpie diagrams throughout it is a breeze of a read
and could be a good reminder to anyone who regularly invests their money, especially
with all the investment fear that has been present in the markets recently.
The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to be Complicated is a book written by
Helaine Olen and Harold Pollack in 2016 and is a phenomenally simple guidebook for anyone
in charge of managing their own finances, which is basically everybody.
It is based on Pollack’s premise that pretty much everyone the typical individual would
ever need to know about money could fit on a single index card.
As a matter of fact, that’s how this book came about, after an interview between the
authors many people were asking Pollack on his blog for an index cards with financial
advice on it, so Pollack jotted down nine simple rules on an index card, took a picture
of it, and posted it online.
The image went viral and was covered on many internet news sites and later the book was
written, going more in depth to each of the rules as well as adding a few that they felt
were left off the original card.
Now the reception for this book was mixed, which I actually find quite interesting.
Publishers Weekly even said that while the book had an "admirable mission," the rules
it goes over "are too old and readily available in any listicle to be worth building a book
around."
It called the book "unsatisfying to all but the most unaware consumers".
I find this interesting, or maybe confusing is a better word, because the advice in the
book wasn’t wrong (even if you certain can take some of the concepts further than what
the authors did in the book.
If you need an example just look at the financially independent; retired early community who have
taken the idea of savings rates way further than the 10% or 20% mentioned in this and
many other books.), it was just simple advice.
But if it works, then what exactly is wrong with that?
Do we really want financial success to be complicated and/or overly difficult to achieve?
I don’t think so.
I certainly don’t want it to be that way anyways.
So who is this book ideal for?
Those who want a simple, easy to implement plan to help get their finances on track.
It’s not going to teach you anything too complex, I mean just look at the title of
the book, that was never the point.
It’s just meant to help get people started.
And I have to imagine that there are still quite a few people who need that first, before
digging into the more complex side of finances.
If that weren’t the case, there probably wouldn’t be people living paycheck to paycheck
or at least not as many as there currently are.
Okay, for those who are still around it is time for a channel update.
The holiday season is once again upon us and I don’t want to take up too much of anyone’s
time during this time of the year.
I’m sure that many of you have plans with either family or friends over the Christmas
and New Year’s holidays, and so do I.
So in the interest of not taking time away from your plans or mine, there will not be
a video next Monday on New Year’s Eve.
I’ll also be on the road just after the holidays as I’ve got a friends wedding to
go the first week in January so unfortunately, I will not be able to post a video that Monday
either.
I will be back that following Monday, January 14th.
I know that last time when my personal schedule got too overwhelming to maintain my regular
uploading schedule many of you were wondering where I was, since I didn’t really mention
what was going on in my last video, I apologize for that, I didn’t realize that I would
end up being gone for as long as I was and I didn’t want to leave you guys in the dark
on this one.
So I hope you guys enjoy the holidays and I will see you in January.
But that'll do it for me today once again if you enjoyed this video be sure to subscribe
and hit that Bell next to my name so that you'll be notified of all my future uploads.
I generally upload every single Monday, and if you have a friend that would be interested
in this kind of content be sure to share it with them and let's really get this information
out there and start our own Financial revolution.