Introduction
Part I. You!
▪ What about All Those Personal Finance Rules You Have Been Told About? -- Chuck Them
▪ You May Be the Biggest Risk to Your Personal Finance
▪ Protect Yourself from Yourself
▪ You Cannot Have a Personal Financial Plan Unless
▪ You Are True to Yourself
▪ Are You on a Never Ending Cycle of Slavery?
▪ Why Would I Forsake Youth, Beauty for Getting by in Old Age?
▪ At All Costs, Avoid a Life of Quiet Desperation
▪ It's About You and You Alone
▪ Ensure Your Cash Flow
▪ Choose Your Spouse Very Carefully
▪ Postpone Getting Married Before You Ensure Your Passive Cash Flow
▪ Postpone Getting into Buying a House
▪ Buying a House is Not a Top Priority
▪ Develop an Alternate Fun Career
▪ There is a Time to Have Fun and That's When Your Money is Best Spent
▪ Don't Tell Anyone About Your Money
▪ Keep 25% of Your Money in an Account / Investment That No One Knows of
▪ Yes, You Can Be Rich! Very Rich! But Stick to My Rules
▪ Preserve What You Have
▪ You Must Plan for Breaking up With Your Spouse
▪ How Do You to Protect Your Assets
▪ You Will See More Extreme Events in Your Life Than You Think
▪ Your Fidelity is Way Lower Than Past Generations
▪ Writing a Will
▪ Three Generations
▪ Keep a Budget for Litigation Expenses
▪ Keep a Cash Chest for Medical Expenses
▪ You Don't Age Gracefully
▪ Drinking Budget
▪ Sheep in Tiger Skin
▪ Think of Leaving Some Money Abroad
▪ Money Must Come Out When You Crush the Cane
▪ Sitting in Cafe's is Not About Generating Money
▪ Don't Do What You Like But What You Have the Competence for
▪ Never Ever Put Your Own Money in Starting a Business
▪ Make Sure Your Paperwork is Airtight
▪ Take Some Risks
▪ Don't Make Decisions for the Next 50 Years Based on How Life Has Been in the Past 5 Years
▪ Think of Personal Finance in Terms of Time Not Money
▪ Your Current Status on Personal Finance is Like a Hamster in the Circle Show Me!
▪ Luck Plays a Big Role in Personal Finance
▪ Don't Screw up Your Early Years -- Fortune is a Fickle Lady
▪ Low Income is a Sure Way of Getting Stuck in a Never Ending Cycle of Misery
▪ Don't Ask Others about Your Ideas
▪ Go Back 10 Years and You Will Know Why the Next 10 Years Will Look Nothing Like Today
▪ Don't Read Too Much About the Long Term from Recent Events
Part II. The Family!
▪ Family, Oh, My Loving Family!
▪ Marriage is Not About Love or Lust
▪ More than Any Past Generation, You Will Have to Be Constantly Pleasing Your Spouse -- and That is Expensive
▪ No Money, No Honey -- and Grumpy Children
▪ Spouses May Not Stay Around Till Death Do Apart
▪ Children Are Not Going to Take Care of You
▪ Don't Create a Sense of "Endowment" in Your Children
▪ Don't Create Unhappiness in Your Children by Leaving Too Much Property
▪ Your Children Don't Have to Be a Part of Your Business
▪ Be Ready for Switching of House Financing Between Spouses
▪ Your Income / Her Income But Not Our Income -- Plan for Being a Single Parent
▪ Perpetual Children
▪ Think of Children Returning to Live With You Again at 40 or 50 -- Marx Socialism Funded by Capitalism
▪ Your Children Will Want You to Pay Higher Fees
▪ Keeping Up With the Jones's
▪ If Your Children are Good, Why Save; If Your Children are Bad, Why Save
▪ Don't Buy Crutches for Your Children
▪ When You or Family Live Abroad
▪ When Your Children Live Abroad
▪ Family Members with Different Citizenships
▪ Parents Need Your Money
▪ Send Kids to Schools Because They Will Make the Right Connections
▪ Family Business Means You Need to Give Financial Shelter to Family Members
▪ "It Was My Father's Wish or My Mother's Wish"
▪ Money Almost Always Spoils Relationships
▪ You Are Not Obligated to Take Care of Anyone
▪ Get Your Children Out of Your House
▪ You Need Money Even for Your Own Family to Respect You
▪ Who Are You Trying to Impress
Part III. Earnings, Spendings and Savings
▪ Just How Difficult It is to Save
▪ You Will See Many More Ups and Downs in Your Earning Capacity than You Think
▪ Plan for Being Out of a Job for Longer Stretches Than Before
▪ Use the Corporation
▪ Don't Mortgage Your Future by Getting into Debt
▪ Just How Difficult It is for You to Save
▪ Your House is Not an Investment
▪ You Don't Have to Save for Your Children
▪ What about Inflation
▪ You Don't Need to Save for Your Medical Expenses
▪ Get a Second Income
▪ Get Out of Enslavement
▪ Don't Look at Your Income as a Trend Line But as a Leaping Leopard
▪ Born in Adversity? Tough Luck
▪ Use Every Booster You Can Get
▪ Take Jobs That Take You to the Next Stage
▪ Be Very Very Careful of Borrowing or Being in Debt
▪ No Amount of "Busy Work" Will Increase Your Income or Your Investment Retur
▪ Does Personal Finance Apply Only to Salaried People?
▪ What About Taxes?
▪ Savings
▪ Why Buying a House Makes No Sense Whatsover
▪ Cash is the Best Way to Hold Savings Unless Everyone Else is Sinking
▪ Credit Rating
▪ Never Undertake a Business That Cannot Generate Cash to Sustain Itself
▪ Don't Mortgage Your Home for a Business
▪ Cash Heavy in Feel Good Times and Zero Cash in Crappy Times
▪ Take a Salary Even if It is Your Own Business
▪ Dealing With Assets and Investments in Many Countries
▪ Dealing With Reported and Unreported Wealth
▪ Heath Care Will Wipe You Out
▪ Avoid Any Instalments and Debts
Part IV. Investing
▪ Investing is All About Return, Risk and Time
▪ Shapes and Sizes of "Financial Products"
▪ What Kind of a Person Are You?
▪ Just How Difficult is It for You to Earn Anything on What You Save
▪ The High Return Choices You Have
▪ There is Money in Passive Investing and Trading
▪ Invest at the Source
▪ What are You Really Doing With Your Money?
▪ Investment Popularity is Inversely Proportional to the Returns You Will Make
▪ Why Regular Investing Plans are Nothing but Regular Commission Earning Scheme
▪ Multiple Shavings of Your Returns -- The Many Layers of Commissions or Fees You Pay
▪ Tax Planning
▪ Investing Has to be Based on Where the Market is
▪ Where and When Should You Invest
▪ Never Be in Anything That Requires "Regular Investing"
▪ Always Be in a Dividend Payout Plan
▪ Beware Insurance Products Masquerading as Investments
▪ Don't Be Stuck with Illiquid Real Estate
▪ At Least 2% to 5% of Your Money Should Be in Gold
▪ Keep 1% of Your Money in an Exchange Currency
▪ Don't Buy Products That Lock You in for 10 to 15 Years
▪ You Can Save Regularly But Must Not Invest Regularly
▪ Timing Your Investments is the Only Way You Can Save Yourself from Being Fooled into Parting with Your Money
▪ You Just Have to Understand How Investing Works
▪ Investing
▪ No Single Style Fits All Kinds of Investing
▪ Experimentation is Not Failure -- Try Stocks, Commodities, Gold, Trading, Investing
▪ Are You Speculating or Investing?
▪ More Than Once in Your Life You Will Invest in Things That You Don't Understand
▪ All Underlying Investments Have Cycles -- Stocks, Bonds, Real Estate
▪ Focus on Not Running Out of Money at a Stage in Your Life When You Cannot Earn Anymore
▪ What Does Well Today Will Not Do Well in the Future
▪ Why Have Things Done Well -- is It a Superior Method or Being at the Right Place at the Right Time or a Fluke?
▪ Averaging is Exactly the Way to Screw Yourself Up
▪ The Long Term is a Series of Short Terms
▪ The Fallacy of the Long Term Argument
▪ If the Sources of Returns are Not
Around, How Can
▪
Advisors Give You the Long Term
Spiel
▪ Why a Mutual Fund or Insurance Company will Never Beat a Smart Investor or Trader
▪ Will You Invest in the "Worst Performing Funds"?
▪ There are Times You Have to Trade and There are Times You Have to Invest
▪ What If?
▪ Diversification is Not What You Understand it to be
▪ Even Mutual Funds Have to Be Timed
▪ What Do You Need to Buy in Insurance and When
▪ What Do You Need to Buy in Investments and When
▪ The Only Investments You Need
Part V. Of Salesmen and Financial Products
▪ Doctors Need Experience, Teachers Need Experience, But Financial Salesmen . . .
▪ Who Feeds These Hundreds of Thousands of Salesmen? -- You! Of Course!
▪ The Salesman is Around to Sell But Disappears When Markets Don't Deliver
▪ The Anatomy of a Financial Salesman or a "Financial Planner"
▪ Why There are So Many Young People Selling Financial Products
▪ What Does This Kid Know That You Don't?
▪ Investment Advice is Very Expensive and It is Not Available to Individual Investors
▪ Financial Planning is Humbug -- You Cannot Plan for an Uncertain Future
▪ What about Insurance
▪ Continuous Adjustment to Your Plans to Adjust to the Changing Times is the Only Way to Deal with Personal Finance
▪ Products are Adjusted to the Colour of the Season, Not Your Needs
▪ Conventional Financial Planning is Nothing but Record Keeping
▪ You Cannot Plan for Your Retirement or Your Child's Education -- You Can Only Make Short Term Plans
▪ Plans by Nature Must Be for the Immediate or Short Term
▪ Returns Happen in Short Spurts
▪ The More the Intermediaries, the Less Your Money Works for You
▪ You Tell Me Your Fears and Desires, and I Will Show You a Package with the Right Labelling
▪ Products are Designed to Be "Sold" to You Not to Be "Owned" by You
▪ There are No Auto Pilots in Personal Finance
▪ Most Information You Are Hearing is Irrelevant if Not Downright Misleading
▪ Your Advantage Over Those Who You Give Your Money to Manage
▪ What about Insurance
▪ Child Plans
▪ Alchemy -- the Entire Business of Financial Products is a "Show Paradise and Stick the S . . . t on the Client"
▪ How Competent is the Financial Planner
▪ Be Clear About What Each Financial Product Does for You
▪ What were People Doing with Their Money 50 Years Ago (or 100 Years Ago)?
▪ You Cannot Be in the 12th Grade of Personal Finance without Going to 1st Grade
▪ Financial Product Creation and Selling is Timed to Benefit the Producer
▪ Mutual Funds, Brokers, Financial Planners are Not Your Friends
▪ The Entire Financial Services Business is Parasitical in Nature
▪ Useless Products Being Sold as Useful
Part VI. Alchemy and Other Personal Finance Fantasies
▪ Personal Finance Books are Taking You to Some La La Land Fairy Tale That Neither Exists or Applies to You
▪ Financial Products are Designed to Skim Investors
▪ Personal Finance is Dynamic and Contextual
▪ Your Challenge is to Deal with Misinformation
▪ Don't Get Fooled by the Map
▪ Most Investment Product Sponsors are Not Even Around in Your Lifetime
▪ There is No Way to Learn to Win Unless You Lose Frequently
Part VII. Now Bloom! Earn More, Spend More, Save More! And Light Up Your Investments
▪ Take 2 to 3 Hours a Week to Think about New Ways of Increasing Your Income Exponentially
▪ Fortune Favours Those Who Put Away Some of Their Money to Find New Worlds
▪ What Do You Do With Your Business
▪ Unlock Your Value
▪ Brand Yourself
▪ Bring in a Financial Brand
▪ You Will Have to Build Your Personal Finance Puzzle a Number of Times in a Lifetime
▪ Stay Away from Comfort Zones
▪ If Your Idea is Not Working, Kill It and Move on
▪ Grab Opportunities When They Come
▪ Most of Your Big Money Will Be Made in Very Short Spurts
▪ Leopard or a Cow? -- Don't Pursue Money with Blinkers On
▪ Take up Jobs Where Income Can Multiply Exponentially with an Increase in Your Skills and Reputation
▪ Enhance Your Network and You Will Enhance Your Earning Capacity
▪ Think of Changing Your Carrier or Your Line of Work Midway
▪ Skip the Trapping of Motorcycle Ridings and Other Mid-Life Carrier Embarrassments
▪ Avoid Jobs Which are a Time Driven Ladder
▪ Venture Out and Look for Fortune
▪ Cut Out the Dead Investments
▪ Change Your Entry and Exit Points
▪ Stay Away from Watching Financial TV
▪ Why You are the Last Mile Holding the Garbage
▪ Why Brokers Make Money When You Act Silly
▪ Why Mutual Funds Cannot Beat Markets
▪ Understand the Bottom Line of Investment Products
▪ Timing is Everything
▪ Access to Quality Information or Investment Vehicles
▪ Do It Yourself
▪ What is Risk?
▪ Risk and Return are Not Related
▪ Risk and Reward
▪ The Devil Takes the Hindmost
▪ Relationship with Your Parents
▪ Relationship with Your Siblings
▪ Don't Waste Time on Charities
▪ We Destroy What We Create
▪ Question Established Conventions
▪ Ambition without Money is Just a Hobby
▪ Pursuing What You Love Usually Ends up with Working Odd Jobs at Some Point
▪ You Can Be Derailed at Home and at Office
▪ Develop Some Ancillary Skills to Sustain Yourself
▪ Life is a Bouncing Ball, Not a Straight Line Heading North
▪ All of Personal Finance Will Go for a Toss if You Enter into an Affair
▪ Your Mental Health is Going to Impact the State of Your Personal Finance
▪ Be Prepared for Losing It All and Starting Again
▪ My Money, Your Money, Our Money
▪ Avoid False Dreams for Your Children
▪ Dealing with Inherited Wealth
▪ Come out of Your Father's Shadow
▪ Don't Look for Others to Blame
▪ So Where Do You Put Your Money
▪ Don't Save, Increase Your Income
▪ Don't Be Fooled into Believing You Will Make It -- 99% Start-ups Fail and Send People Back to Boring Jobs
▪ Men and Women are Different
▪ Keep Information in Compartments Where the Whole is Only Known to You
▪ Who You are Decides What Your Personal Finances Will Eventually Look Like
▪ What Kind of Life Do You Want?
▪ Plan But Update
▪ Working for Others versus Working for Yourself
▪ Scaleable Business and How Much to Remove
▪ Youth and Beauty are God's Most Precious Gifts
▪ Think of the Opportunity Cost
▪ Is Your Time Whiled Away in Twitter, Facebook?
▪ Find a Second Job
▪ Remove the Weeds from Your Past
▪ Insurance is Not Investing and Buying Insurance Products is a "Bad" Idea