Meeting an O:KR of reading about finance. 

After getting over halfway through “The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing” I felt that I probably was not ready for diving into the deep-end of this book with investing in my current path to financial freedom. And, just to be clear before you read the rest of this writing, this isn’t really a book overview, but more of thoughts that came with reading this book and how it relates to my current path as a novice in the financial world. 

The decision to read it was based on having a “Objective:Key Result” (O:KR) goal for the year to keep reading financial books, wanting to have an eye out for the next course of action on my financial journey, and being interested in what investors have to say – this book helped meet those goals.

After finishing the book, I think it is a good resource to come back to at different stages in the investment journey. With further financial reading provided, name dropping and a general philosophy to help the reader “stay the course” and not forget why they set out on this adventure in the first place. I also felt that while the Bogleheads have chapters internationally, this book is more geared for the United States based audience. They do have a forum though at https://www.bogleheads.org/ that might also be worth looking at for those of us on an overseas path and for live information on investment possibilities. 

Though this book is about investing and “staying the course” (as John C. Bogle often said), I found it to have some clear advice that paralleled the ideas of the book, “The Simple Path to Wealth” by JL Collins, which is probably my go to book in ideals to follow for where I’m currently at (would recommend for those who are looking for novice financial language on a super simple, but difficult, path). 

A summary of almost all of these ideas can be found under the heading What We’ve Learned, on page 266. I am the type of person who likes to read a whole book to begin with, but feel I should have read Chapter 23 first and then gone back to the nitty-gritty of the whole book. The ideas presented there simplified some of the more complex language, and put it in terms of the basics that the authors then repeated over and over in earlier parts of the book. 

Some of the main takeaways as a whole were basic guides to finance, including: living within our means, being at zero in debt, having a goal aligned with our preferred risk, investing in index funds, balancing and rebalancing out investments, and not listening to what the authors call “noise” (anything that steers you away from your chosen course).

One of the parts of “The Bogleheads” that I found to be most helpful was Chapter 19, starting on page 223. This chapter was about emotional investing, or knowing how your emotions affect your investments. I feel that the financial path really is a mind game and knowing your emotions in that game is important. 

After reading this section, my musings were that our emotional reaction to investing and money is somewhat fluid in nature. At different parts of our life, our emotions can shift and we can be a combination of emotional mishaps or even switch where we are led. 

For example, I felt that in the past I was the “negligent” type of investor. I had someone else actively managing my funds because I felt that I was ill equipped to understand what I was doing and not willing to do so. In other words, I was willfully ignorant of my own financial path and wondering lost in the woods. 

As I’ve started to understand more about finance, I’ve become more about “mental accounting”. Meaning that I treat money differently depending on the source, even though it is all money. I’m realizing that this is still about learning. That, of course, I am emotionally tied to my future, but I also want to enjoy my present situation. I am still learning to balance the two and I think awareness is a big part of the storyline. 

So, in summary, this is a great reference book and resource for US Americans who would like to go deeper into investing and financial decisions. I also found it helpful for reflecting on my own reactions and where I would like my financial path to lead to next.

Lindauer, M., Larimore, T., & LeBoeuf, M. (2014). The Bogleheads’ guide to investing. Hoboken: Wiley.