Personal Finance Reading Techniques
I just got finished reading Save Now or Die Trying by Mark Bruno and for the first time, I realized that there are different ways of reading a personal finance book.
1. Read a book from cover to cover. Just sit down and plow through the material like you were reading Marx in college. Dry and not too fun.
2. Read for research. You’ve got a question and you’re going to find the answer by looking up the subject in the index and reading the 3 pages it lists till you’ve got the answer.
3. Read with a calculator/spreadsheet and your last paystub in hand. You read something and you start calculating what numbers apply to you.
Obviously, we’ve all done these sorts of things before. Some books out there are meant to be read from cover to cover. Others are resource books that can sit on your shelf when you want to reference them. But then there are some books that lend themselves to an interactive experience. There are worksheets printed in them. They command you to take 10% of your gross income and put that aside annually in a savings account. I wholeheartedly believe that if you read a personal finance book slowly and deliberately with your paystub next to you, you’ll get a lot more out of it.
I started out using the paystub as a bookmark and realized I could open it up and really see where the money was going with a personal finance book to guide me through. I could see that I’m doing ok by saving 17% of my annual salary in a 401k account and a Healthcare Savings Account. I could manipulate numbers with a calculator to adjust and see other things happening to my money while absorbing the ideas the book.
Give it a try the next time you’ve got a personal finance book you are reading. I don’t promise an epiphany, but maybe some good insights will come your way.
Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge / Carnival of Personal Finance #159 is Up! wrote:
[…] the first time in ages, I participated in a carnival. Not only did I submit, I got accepted! It feels like I got into college! Ok. That’s an exaggeration, but even so. It’s still […]
Posted on 02-Jul-08 at 7:07 pm | Permalink
Carnival of Personal Finance, #159: The First Zero-Emissions City | Greener Pastures: Personal Finance wrote:
[…] from Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge presents Personal Finance Reading Techniques, and says, “There’s lots of ways to read a book, but have you tried reading it with […]
Posted on 06-Jul-08 at 1:55 am | Permalink
quick posts from the last carnival of personal finance | plonkee money wrote:
[…] personal finance reading techniques @ mapgirl’s fiscal challenge - this is stuck right at the end of the carnival, but reading personal finance is a great skill to learn so try not to miss this post. […]
Posted on 06-Jul-08 at 6:01 pm | Permalink