Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

@wiverson
Last active May 13, 2022 00:27
Show Gist options
  • Select an option

  • Save wiverson/63afea6a4e6cf4faf7138c0663dae368 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.

Select an option

Save wiverson/63afea6a4e6cf4faf7138c0663dae368 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.

Getting Started

A great resource for starting out is Reddit's /r/personalfinance/ community. Especially if you are managing debt and/or a negative net worth. If you don't really know how to calculate your net worth then you probably should start with the Reddit Personal Finance wiki (above) or perhaps a book like I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

The Reddit Personal Finance Wiki is an absolute no brainer.

Budget / Portfolio Management

If you only have a bank account and credit card with a single bank and pay off your card every month, you can probably just your bank's apps to track your money. When you need to do analysis, export the data as CSV and import it into Excel or Google Sheets. Once you have at least three (preferably six) months of cash reserves built up, you should absolutely switch to putting the money you are saving into a portfolio. The easiest thing is to open up an account and just buy a single fund - a total market index fund.

If you are managing debt - in particular, if you have more than one credit card and/or don't pay off your card[s] each month, I'd suggest starting out with Mint. In this scenario, your goals are to get to at least three (preferably six) months of cash reserves and wiping out your credit card debt.

If you pay off your credit cards each month and are tracking investments of any kind, I would suggest Personal Capital.

Both Mint and Personal Capital pull in your account data automatically, including automatically classifying most transactions. I usually export all of my data as a CSV file each year when I do my taxes, which is also a great chance to tweak any transaction classification if I haven't gotten around to do it earlier. You can tweak the classification of any transaction with the mobile apps. More fun and less stressful than social media!

If you are thinking about building a portfolio but are worried about trying to pick the right stocks, check out the three fund portfolio to start. In brief - just pick a few large, well diversified, low fee index funds. You can buy these index funds with just a few clicks with any online broker - most banks are partnered with one, or you can just use something like Schwab. Then, just move the money back and forth as needed.

Planning

Investing

Articles

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment