Financial Advice for My New Son

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Something to Read:

Financial Advice for My New Son | The Motley Fool

My wife and I welcomed a son into the world on Sunday. It's the coolest experience anyone could ask for. 

His only interest right now is keeping us awake 24/7. But one day -- a long time from now -- he'll need to learn something about finance. When he does, here's my advice. 

1. You might think you want an expensive car, a fancy watch, and a huge house. But I'm telling you, you don't. What you want is respect and admiration from other people, and you think having expensive stuff will bring it. It almost never does -- especially from the people you want to respect and admire you.

When you see someone driving a nice car, you probably don't think, "Wow, that person is cool." Instead, you think, "Wow, if I had that car people would think I'm cool." Do you see the irony? No one cares about the guy in the car. Have fun; buy some nice stuff. But realize that what people are really after is respect, and humility will ultimately gain you more of it than vanity.

Read the Rest of the Article

Something to Watch:

You Don't Have to Do What the Spreadsheet Says! | Morgan Housel

A lot of subject matter in personal finance is intricate and can seem like you need a finance degree to understand, but many times the info is FAR from practicality.

Academics (aka Intellectual Yet Idiots as Nassim Taleb says) lean on equations, spreadsheets, and theory while omitting a variable we call reality.

Argument such as the benefits of active vs passive investing, rent or homeownership, buying a new car vs used... each of these arguments could be solved with equations and evidence, but no one person has the same situation as their neighbor.

For example: I currently lease (over buying) my car. Now this makes no sense to most, but I did it for flexibility purposes. 

Something to Listen to:

Bob Moses - Love We Found

Listen to this track and many others on La Fórmula, a playlist by Modern Analects

A Tweet to Think About:

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Until next week.