Christmas is coming - What books can you recommend?

[Deleted User]

Well, its not about buying a bunch of products  that work here and now. Really isn’t. Its about understanding risks and asset allocation. For the long term.

You probably didn’t get passed the historic discussion, which is also applicable regardless of jurisdiction and timing. In fact, UK is covered, at least in some of the books within the series. 

Mistermeaner

Genuine question - is there a benefit in reading all this stuff over and above living prudently , monthly investing into a low cost global tracker and having a simple yet decent spreadsheet with some reasonable growth and withdrawal assumptions ?

Thrugelmir

Mistermeaner said:

Genuine question - is there a benefit in reading all this stuff over and above living prudently , monthly investing into a low cost global tracker and having a simple yet decent spreadsheet with some reasonable growth and withdrawal assumptions ?

If a low cost global tracker allows you to meet your personal objectives then stick with it.  With spreadsheets you can create any number of scenarios. Unfortunately forecasts tend to be inaccurate. The further into the distance, the greater the margin of error. 

OldMusicGuy

Mistermeaner said:

Genuine question - is there a benefit in reading all this stuff over and above living prudently , monthly investing into a low cost global tracker and having a simple yet decent spreadsheet with some reasonable growth and withdrawal assumptions ?

Absolutely. Reading some (not all) of this stuff gave me the confidence to decide how to invest a large DC portfolio to achieve my goals. The conclusion I came to was to use low cost multi-asset funds, but I came to that conclusion myself and it stopped me getting FOABP (fear of a better portfolio) because before I read those books, I would read posts on here from people saying this fund/that fund is great and I'm getting x% returns from this and I kept switching investments based on fads or clever-sounding posts. I also thought timing the market might work (and tried it myself at one point).

So doing research helped me understand why a slight variant of your approach makes sense for me. YMMV.

[Deleted User]

Mistermeaner said:

Genuine question - is there a benefit in reading all this stuff over and above living prudently , monthly investing into a low cost global tracker and having a simple yet decent spreadsheet with some reasonable growth and withdrawal assumptions ?

The only area where it helps is understanding your risks and allocating the assets appropriately. 

Can also improve behaviour. 

And its interesting. At least to crazy people like me. 

Blackavar

Thanks guys, that's perfect. Really appreciate the input. At least 2 on my list with maybe more in the future.

Jonesy1977

"Money Master the Game" by Tony Robbins is a really interesting read.  It includes interviews with over 50 participants including Buffet, Paul Tudor Jones, Jack Bogle and Ray Dalio but aimed at the individual planning for their future.  I really enjoyed this and then Dalios own book "Principles" was also a good read.  

[Deleted User]

Patrick Boyle (brilliant YouTube channel btw) has a few suggestions for good read finance books
https://youtu.be/I08SRDHwCos
He also talks about more here, but includes educational ones as well
https://youtu.be/PtDzY3-7ieE

Both videos have the books in the description as well

saver_ali

Pension Magic (subtitled “How to make the taxman pay for your retirement”) is the book that enabled us to retire early. It helped me understand how to maximise tax relief on saving into pensions.

https://www.taxcafe.co.uk/pensionmagic.html

Albermarle

Mistermeaner said:

Genuine question - is there a benefit in reading all this stuff over and above living prudently , monthly investing into a low cost global tracker and having a simple yet decent spreadsheet with some reasonable growth and withdrawal assumptions ?

I think like a lot of things it is down to personality and interests.
Probably  you know the basics about tax and asset allocation etc and how not to make any big mistakes like trying to time markets etc and you are happy with that . Already in that case you are probably ahead of >95% of the population on these issues . Not every investor feels the urge to research investments in great detail , do cash flow analysis , work out Monte Carlo scenarios ( whatever that means ) etc