What I'd Add To The Index Card

Last week we reviewed the principles in the book The Index Card.

ICYMI here's the original card: While I love all these principles, I think they missed a few obvious ones.

What'd they miss?

Taxes - taxes are our heaviest financial burden and understanding how they work can be a significant factor in our wealth building. From using (ideally maxing out) tax-advantaged retirement savings accounts to understanding how much lower the tax rate on qualified dividends is, understanding how taxes work can be a major driver of our wealth accumulation.

Diversifying your income stream - These days, there are so many ways to earn money (passive and active) that hardly anyone I know works only a W-2 job. We have access to online businesses, side hustles, gig work, and so much more. We should take advantage of that to earn some side money (ideally passive!) to create more income, protect ourselves from the possibility of a job loss, and leverage our time.

Managing our credit score - perhaps the single most important building block of our financial life is our credit score. It can determine the jobs we have access to, the cost of our insurance, our ability to finance a car, buy a home or have access to credit (credit cards, HELOCs or personal/business loans).

None of it is complicated. Just a few good habits, repeated over time, can change everything.