New, Free, Public Domain Book Release on Index Investing

I have released a new, short book (twenty some pages), that summarizes what I feel is necessary to read and watch to learn how to invest in index funds. You'll notice it is almost exactly the same Open Access curriculum for Personal Finance that is contained within this website. It is the culmination of studying this topic for six years, and at this point I don't believe I will write any more about investing. I am moving on to different topics now that I have verified there isn't much more to learn on the topic. Like studying the multiplication table, at some point you know the table and it's time to move on to different topics in math. Learning about investing has been a great hobby, and I'm happy I discovered the topic at the time I did. I have implemented what I learned and don't feel there is much to optimize in regards to the six-fund portfolio I recommend in the book.

I firmly believe in Open Access, so I have released the book as CC0 public domain. Unfortunately since the book is mostly links to other open access books, there is a lot less prose than a "real" book because I don't feel like repeating the same points that have been made by the included Open Access authors. So that means no audiobook, no seven hour read. But you'll still find many months worth of learning if you are new to the topic. I hope you learn a lot about index investing from my book. Knowing how to invest is as important as a college degree, and the earlier you learn about these things, which I must emphasize is necessary in America where there are no pensions and 401ks are entirely self-managed, the healthier and happier (dare I say easier) your life will be. It's not easy to live frugally, but it's a necessary skill in my opinion if you are working or middle class or didn't inherit wealth. To resist consumer culture is as important of a lesson in life as a college education, and must be taught through affordable channels like Open Access books and websites. I believe nowadays you don't need to spend any money to learn how to invest, there is such a plethora of open educational resources. I hope my OER is a worthy inclusion to your extant free studies of frugality and personal finance. It is an admirable goal to learn about this topic.

The book is called "They Began to Open FIRE!: An Open Educational Resource on Investing and Financial Independence." The silly pun is in honor to the many progenitors of FIRE that released their works or websites free-to-use, in which many of them probably didn't even know what Open Access was or is. It would be much more expensive to learn about the topic without their contributions, if you didn't have a close-by, well-stocked public library. Hopefully there will be more OA FIRE books in the future, but this ebook is my contribution to the field by assembling my favorite resources.

The book (PDF, EPUB, and Excel file) is located at:

https://gitlab.com/96d7af/open-fire

Also archived on Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/open-f.-i.-r.-e.

Enjoy and spread the word about this free resource! Similarly, we have our Personal Finance and Investing curriculum here at Little #96d7af Books that includes much of the same material, in a friendly website format.

The next book I am currently working to finish is a reflection on the utility and joy contained within public libraries. In a world of Open Educational Resources (OER) and similar free, open source Creative Commons ebooks, the public library becomes a lifelong entertainment and education incubator that is filled with relevant and useful open access books. Public libraries of the future will contain hundreds of thousands of Open Access books -- many lifetimes worth of learning. What can you do with them? Keep an eye out, it will also be Open Access/public domain!

COMMENTS