Get Good at Finance

The whole thing in four lines

Most personal finance advice is either an ad or a lecture. Here is the short version, and the rest of the site is the detail behind it.

1. Cover your bills, then build a small cash buffer.
2. Take the full employer match, then kill high-interest debt.
3. Fill the tax-advantaged accounts you qualify for.
4. Buy broad, cheap, diversified funds and leave them alone.

If you do those four things in that order, you have beaten most of the optimizing that people spend years arguing about.

Sections

Start HereThe philosophy, the order of operations, and your emergency fund.

BankingWhere your money lives. A bank is infrastructure, not a relationship.

Credit CardsMake spending you were already doing slightly cheaper. Nothing more.

InvestingAccounts, funds, portfolios, and the things you can safely ignore.

TaxesBrackets, withholding, and keeping what you legally can.

Financial DecisionsBudgeting, debt, cars, houses, and insurance.

Life and MoneyPartners, kids, jobs, equity comp, and estate basics.

PlaybooksWhat do I do right now. Short answers, then links.

What this site is not

It does not sell anything, it takes no affiliate money, and it will not tell you which bank or card is best. It tells you what to look for so you can decide. Every number that changes yearly is kept in one place and sourced, so you can see how current it is.