I often get requests for help with personal finances.

I have a $0 course on personal finance available at Udemy that you can access here. It walks you through the basics of managing your money well by avoiding bad debt, saving aggressively, and investing wisely.

The most important thing about managing your money is actually doing it, and I’ve read a lot of books that will get you started. My favorites include I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi and The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach. I’ve also enjoyed Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover. Dave Ramsey’s program helped Megan McArdle, author of The Up Side of Down, deal with serious financial trouble–like massive student debt–that she found herself in during the financial crisis.
Financial wisdom goes beyond dollars and cents. Your most valuable assets are the things that allow you to produce: your time, your energy, and your focus. I think we all feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff that is coming at with each new day. My favorite thinker on time management and productivity is Jason Womack, author most recently (with his wife Jodi) of Get Momentum: How to Start When You’re Stuck. I’ve been the Womacks’ client for years. I’m a member of their Get Momentum Leadership Academy, and I can’t recommend their work highly enough. My own system for managing projects, goals, and responsibilities is built on David Allen’s Getting Things Done system, and Tim Ferriss’ The Four-Hour Workweek is a great resource for how to think about work and life. Here’s a page with links to a lot of my other favorites in this genre.

We use online subscriptions to save money but perhaps most importantly, time. Using Amazon’s “Subscribe and Save,” my wife and I have automated deliveries of all this stuff. We’re still not making the most of it, but it’s really nice to know that we’ll never have to add dish detergent or paper towels to the shopping list. With Dollar Shave Club I never have to worry about shaving with a dull razor. Recently, my wife signed me up for Bombfell, which puts my clothes shopping in the hands of a personal stylist and allows me to add shopping for clothes to my “things I’ll never do again” list and instead focus on things I enjoy or the things people pay me to do. Here’s a link for $25 off your first order.

I’ve learned that managing my money wisely is just a very small part of managing my life wisely, and these are some of the resources I use to do it. I’m always learning, and please feel free to share if you have any suggestions.

Speaking of sharing, if this has helped you please share it to a friend who might also be looking to make better financial choices.