Become financially literate

Just recently brought Rich Dad Poor Dad And was intrigued by how much i didnt know about money. I couldnt even put the book down for too long. a young entreprenuer at 22 i still have a long way to go and looking to get around people who can offer advice wisdom and knowledge. Where do I go from here?

After neglecting this area of my life for the last ten years I have decided it’s time to get smart with money. Living abroad it was easy to neglect areas like my pension fund so I’m trying to address that now. My first step has been to start buying a money magazine every month.

I attended a meeting today, that let me know that I don’t know a damn thing about money, and that if I stay on the path I’m on I’ll be working way into my 90’s. So I want to educate myself on the matter and somehow get a tax shelter (once I figure out what it is) and a retirement plan independent of my job.

Update: I did learn something this year by doing an Economics class project. We had to plan the next 30 years of our life with a major financial event occuring each year. That forced me to do a lot of research on buying a house, investing, inflation, private health insurance, etc. Also, for the first time ever, we started building up a savings account. It’s been very exciting to see our savings balance grow and reassuring to know that if an emergency happens, we won’t have to increase our debt by using a credit card. Our plan this year is to continue building our savings and to make some investments.

So far I’ve read
Personal Finance for Dummies
Unconventional Success (<--great book)
Fool.com
NYT
How to incorporate a business in TN
How to Start a home based landscaping business

Now the goal will be set up a SEP-IRA
and start investing

that all the people on the front of these financial magazines always look so smug?! They’re sitting there in their perfect outfits, perfectly coiffed, looking perfectly relaxed about their perfectly perfect financial portfolios. Their taxes were all filed January 2, every paper they own is neatly filed in the office of their practically-paid-for multi-million dollar home and of course their fave five includes their stockbroker, accountant, lawyer, financial advisor and estate planner. Maybe it’d be easier to read that magazine if I saw someone like me on the cover. Someone totally clueless with $28 in the bank, no assets and looking a teensy bit concerned about the future with no health insurance.

Received the February issue last week and then the March issue came a few days after that. So, the update is that they’re here and technically not collecting dust since they’re in a vertical file holder. However…. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get to them. Ok, that’s not true. My next round of tests will be over the 21st of February, so that’ll be a good time to read them. Maybe THEN, I’ll know something about finances that I DIDN’T learn from playing Monopoly.

Yay! I was starting to wonder if I’d subscribed too late to get this month’s issue. So! Now I have something else to read in addition to my very weighty textbooks. Well, there are 25 more days in February so no need to panic just yet.

Finally got the January issue of Kiplinger’s out of the car where it’s been languishing for a month. I went through it, read most of the articles and started a list of questions that I didn’t know the answers to, like “What’s an annuity”? It turned out to be less of a mystery than I thought. I read about one company that spends months going over the fine print in hundreds of annuity contracts to find the few that are actually worthwhile. Now that’s a job that could drive someone to drink!

Ordered a subscription to Kiplinger online this morning. First issue should be arriving in 3-4 weeks. I’m actually looking forward to reading it.