2. Consider Your Family Plan (and Save) for Retirement

Prioritization—This means that you’re able to look at your finances, discern what keeps the money flowing in, and make sure that you stay focused on those efforts.

Assessment—This is the key skill that keeps professionals from spreading themselves too thin. Ambitious individuals always have a list of ideas about other ways that they can hit it big, whether it is a side business or an investment idea. While there is absolutely a place and time for taking a flyer, running your finances like a business means stepping back and honestly assessing the potential costs and benefits of any new venture.

Restraint—This is that final big-picture skill of successful business management that must be applied to personal finances. Time and again, financial planners sit down with successful people who somehow still manage to spend more than they make. Earning $250,000 a year won’t do you much good if you spend $275,000 annually. Learning to restrain spending on non-wealth-building assets until after you’ve met your monthly savings or debt reduction goals is crucial in building net worth.

Learn About Personal Finance

Few schools offer courses in managing your money, which means that most of us will need to get our personal finance education from our parents (if we’re lucky) or pick it up ourselves. Fortunately, you don’t have to spend much money to find out how to better manage it. You can learn everything you need to know for free online and in library books. Almost all media publications regularly dole out personal finance advice, too.

Online Blogs

A great way to start learning about personal finance is to read personal finance blogs. Instead of the general advice you’ll get in personal finance articles, you’ll learn exactly which challenges real people are facing and how they are addressing those challenges.
Mr. Money Mustache has hundreds of posts full of irreverent insights on how to escape the rat race and retire extremely early by making unconventional lifestyle choices.¹⁵ CentSai helps you navigate myriad financial decisions via first-person accounts.¹⁶ Million Mile Secrets and The Points Guy each teach you how to travel for a fraction of the retail price by using credit card rewards.¹⁷¹⁸ These sites often link to other blogs, so you’ll discover more sites as you read.
Of course, we can’t help tooting our own horn in this category. Investopedia offers a wealth of free personal finance education. You might start with our special sections on budgeting, buying a home, and planning for retirement—or the thousands of other articles in our personal finance section. And don’t forget to listen to “The Investopedia Express with Caleb Silver,” our weekly podcast, and sign up for Investopedia newsletters.

At the Library

You may need to visit your library in person to get a library card if you don’t already have one, but after that, you can check out personal finance audiobooks and e-books online without leaving home. Some of the following best sellers may be available from your local library: I Will Teach You to Be Rich, The Millionaire Next Door, Your Money or Your Life, and Rich Dad Poor Dad. Personal finance classics such as Personal Finance for Dummies, The Total Money Makeover, The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, and Think and Grow Rich are also available as audiobooks.

4.Free Online Classes

If you enjoy the structure of lessons and quizzes, try one of these free digital personal finance courses:

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