The only financial planning book I’ve ever really read through (a few times) is The Ultimate Financial Plan: Balancing Your Money and Life by Tim Maurer and Jim Stoval. Tim was actually one of my undergrad professors.
It’s not sexy, but it’s an easy to digest way to play the long game. I like the book and Tim a lot.
What is everyones take on the barefoot investor?
I was doing great with these and then I kept going and read some real estate investment books from Bigger Pockets. I got all motivated and tried to use some creative financing to get instant equity in a rental property. It backfired and now I’ve paid $125k for a property worth $75k. FML.
The way I see it is investing and running a business your first time is like going to college. You ALWAYS pay tuition. You just paid $50k in tuition. Make sure you learn something.
Is it cashflowing? It might pay off if you hold it long enough. Surely you didn’t pay the full $125k? If you followed the rich dad advice you’re probably in for $25k max.
It’s mostly financed and the debt will hopefully be paid down by other people. The renovation was finished in December and I’m still trying to find a tenant.
I could sue the first contractor for about $30k but I don’t know if it’d do me any good. I’m not sure he has anything for me to take and if he doesn’t then I wouldn’t be able to pay the $195/hr attorney. I could end up losing more money.
I don’t know your market. Are you getting at least 1,250/month in rent?
Nope. I’ll be lucky to get $1,000. 
Oh, well. If I hold it long enough then it’ll be profitable.
If you hold it until it’s paid off it should free cash flow about $650/month (depending on utilities, vacancy, taxes etc…) after the note is gone.
Congratulations, you screwed up a bit and still managed to add an inflation resistant $7,800/year to your retirement. Well done.
Big fan of this book for a mindset. I’ve used those principles a lot through real estate. I’ve got some rental properties mainly by living in a place for ~2 years and renting it out instead of selling. The properties are all cash flow positive for passive income that I use for repairs/upgrades while principle continues to go down through low interest 15yr mortgages. The value gain has been a lucky coincidence on two of them, but has gone up substantially.
Outside of real estate, I recommend Ramit Sethi’s “I Will Teach You To Be Rich”. He has a good blog, but the advice is usually pretty straight forward:
For Roth/401K/Stocks, I prefer retirement accounts that automatically balance your portfolio for you, and I prefer Vanguard as they usually have the lowest fees around. If it’s not a retirement account, I put it into an index fund. I don’t pretend like I know how to pick stocks, so I go the long and slow approach.
Im looking to start a side business. Thinking about bubble tea stand in a town with no bubble tea operators.
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Before you go into business for yourself… put yourself in the mental position of your competitors and then come up with every way you and your brain trust can think of to destroy you. Then think of your counter moves. Pretend you’re Sun Tzu. Only then do you have half a chance at success.
dafuq is bubble tea?
Shit will change your life.
It’s terrible hipster shit. But goddamn are they fun to drink.
Hipsters drank this 12 years ago when I was in college. Now every FB FarmVille mom drinks Boba.
I can’t man… My wife’s already into the essential oils, I can’t chance more hippy shit in my house for my boy’s sake.
Lmao! Fucking essential oils. I get that shit at work, from the office lady, and at home. They’re like “you feel a little sad, here’s some cheer oil”.
That and detoxing. I can’t stand people telling me I need to detox and try random crap.
Apparently Chinese women love it…
Dude… I know, right. I just nod anymore. Okay, honey, go put some calming beet root on or whatever and feel better.
Do you have diffusers in every room too?
I swear, the only thing that will make me happy is if people do their job and stop trying to pin shit on a lack of oil. Some kid in Yiwu, China, who doesn’t speak English, slaps a fucking sticker on random oils and that’s what it does.
Nah, we just have one diffuser. She’s hasn’t gone completely off the deep end, yet.