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Comment by sakisv | Hacker News Reader

I'm in my (very) early 30s and I found it very interesting. I don't necessarily agree with the entire mindset, but overall is one of the "I should have read it 7 years ago" articles.

Most of the "lessons" are not groundbreaking, they are rather things that are obvious and most of us know about. The value for me came from having them all written down in an organized way. It's much easier to refer to something more tangible than your memory.

One thing that bugs me and puts me off is the financial literacy that Troy mentions. I try to translate some terms to my mother tongue only to find that, even then, I still don't really understand them.

Does anyone has any pointers on how you can start improving on this like finances 101 or something?

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here's some material i found useful:

* the concept of savings rate, and relationship with time until retirement. e.g. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si...

* good books about investment. William J Bernstein has a reading list here: http://www.efficientfrontier.com/reading.htm

* Bernstein also has some advice for a younger US audience here: "If you can", very short book, free download: http://efficientfrontier.com/ef/0adhoc/2books.htm

* the other useful discovery, which wasn't a book, was randomly finding out that i could double my annual revenue for doing the same or easier (but more frustrating) development work by switching to contract work for large orgs rather than being a permanent employee at a small business. this will be very location / market dependent i guess, but perhaps the general lesson might be something like "consider if you could sell your skills in a slightly different market" & being open to exploring opportunities

Thanks for sharing!

I think it highly depends on where you live. Although some rules are universal, many aspects rely on taxes and laws in your country/area.

That's a good point. There are enough financial bloggers out there that you should be able to find one in your country, which will be easier to understand.

> Most of the "lessons" are not groundbreaking, they are rather things that are obvious and most of us know about.

Possibly. Looking at figures for unsecured household debt where I live I'd say these things are not that obvious. The other point is that fundamental truths don't always seem groundbreaking. E.g. spend less than you earn. Not groundbreaking...but I wonder how many people violate that principle...

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