Resources

Aren’t all the personal finance books basically the same?

Generally, yes. Personal finance is fundamentally mathematics. While the math will be the same, the approaches and attitudes will be different, and the way it’s taught will vary from book to book. 1+1=2 in every math textbook I’ve ever read, but there are still dozens of really great math textbooks out there that teach you how to do it.

Aren’t you selling this book to make money or don’t you have money from selling this book?

Nope. I didn’t pay for and suffer through a Bachelors and Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering to come out to sell people courses on how to get rich–I’ll leave that to the Instagram and TikTok influencers. Every dollar that I’ve ever made came from a normal weekday engineering job and running my tutoring business, where I make a living teaching people how to think and approach hard problems. Most importantly, I learned much of what I know through trial by fire and want to teach you so you don’t have to make the same mistakes. “Smart people learn from their mistakes, but wise people learn from the mistakes of others.”

Can I just follow the advice and steps from this book blindly and be ok?

Yes! Just like how you can follow the steps of a recipe precisely and it will turn out well. However, it may not suit your taste perfectly. A good chef who understands the ingredients and technique will know how to adjust a recipe to suit their taste and the taste of their guests.

But you didn’t work in finance. How are you qualified to write this book?

Lots of people who work in finance know about corporate or business finance, but not personal finance. Despite them looking like the same topic, the only similarity is that there are dollar signs in front of all the numbers. People who work in corporate finance do not (and should not) let their personal life or needs interfere with their jobs. In personal finance, it’s all about applying and bending traditional rules to fit your life. Moreover, the best teachers are usually not the super nerds you see in the movies (don’t get me wrong, I AM a nerd), but rather someone who can teach complicated things in simple ways. How many times have you heard a really smart person explain something that really isn’t that complicated, but they made it seem very complicated? (Hint: financial advisors sometimes do this to financially illiterate people to convince them to become clients because investing is “too hard” for the “common folks.”) In Personal Finance for Young Professionals, I’ve done the opposite: taken things that can be very complicated and intimidating, and broken them down so that they are simple. A decade and change of math tutoring experience helped me get the job done.