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Comment by maximente | Hacker News Reader

this is a tough lesson to learn, but let it be known that any and all information asymmetry available can and will be used against you. needless to say, it's critical you become as informed as your adversar- err, colleagues, when spending years towards building someone else's (to include investors') dream.

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Unfortunately most people do not have a clue at what financial literacy really is. Even fewer people are willing to admit they are financially illiterate, and of those only a tiny amount will put in the effort to educate themselves.

I am financially illiterate, fully aware of it, suffering some anxiety because of it, I'll be 41 years old in a few days, and I have no clue where to even start (never tried though, it's just recently that I started thinking about it).

Do you have links to approachable and beginner-friendly educational material?

Cut the problem down into smaller sections. Focus on either investments, or raising capital or how to structure offerings for a new company at various seed rounds. Get the basics and fundamentals down and then the ancillary knowledge will fill in the gaps

Literally everything you said rings no bells at all. That's definitely not beginner-friendly or small!

What does "focus on investments" even mean?...

Like, imagine being me. Just a hard-working guy all his life. ZERO CLUE about financial markets. Null. Nil. Void.

How do you start them up?

I'm saying you cant eat an elephant at once so start with the first bite. This will be a decades long journey since it's probably the problem man spends the most time thinking about. Don't worry about where you are, just try to break it down in to topics of relevance. Like there are some financial principles that apply more universally than others and I'm suggesting starting with topics most useful for the initial creation of wealth. Then as your nest egg grows, you can learn more refined tricks to keep more of what you earn.

Okay, that sounds better.

But... I don't even know HOW do you increase your wealth. I suppose speculation but outside of that I have zero clue. I am aware that people "buy low, sell high" but beyond that, nothing. Plus, there's a ton more out there compared to the normal stocks, no?

Where can I learn about various entry-level wealth increase techniques?

i am just a random internet person and definitely not a financial advisor. i did find this really helpful when i didn't know much about wealth over long time horizons.

https://jlcollinsnh.com/manifesto/ - skim this, see if it's interesting to you

follow up with https://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-series/ if so

Much appreciated.

I would suggest starting with some books. Specifically "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and "Rich Dad's Cashflow Quadrant".

Once you understand the basics of assets, liabilities and cash flow it will be much easier to understand other concepts.

From there think about what would interest you and dive in.

If it's stocks then the ASX has some excellent PDFs explaining how it all works.

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