The Scientific Approach to a Financial Life

You don't need to be a scientist

A novel, historical nonfiction, and even a college textbook can serve as tutors and learning mechanisms to help us grow. As a subscriber, if you are “in” on a household finance adventure, you may relate to Lesley Robert’s problem at the end of this installment. Tickling her interest is a simple question, “What do I really spend each month for fun?” Sometimes, we may need the motivation and the architecture to know the number and learn how to change it for the better.

You don’t need to be a scientist to manage your household’s financial planning, and if this serial installment proves worthy, you will know what you need to know to separate sound financial planning from financial folly. Serial 3 completes the introductory chapter of Economic-based Personal Finance by extending financial basics toward how to evaluate the pros, professional advisors, and CFPs whom you may retain now or will in the near future. We introduce the work of Yale School of Management’s James Choi, who, with great seriousness, wonders why rules of thumb still exist when we know much more today than twenty years ago.

Subsequent chapters will give readers the tools and practice to make financial decisions using a new standard, updated and fully functional to implement our present state of knowledge.

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