In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, I’m talking to Dr. McGraw Hill about the personal finance advice behind my book, “The Personal Finance Survival Guide.
You may have heard about the book based on some of the advice I give to my students, and the podcast based on the advice I give to a number of people. The Personal Finance Podcast is one of the best ways I’ve found to spread the word about the book. It’s free, and it’s a great way to get in touch with people you might not normally talk to.
Dr. McGraw Hill is a medical doctor who has been making money doing personal finance advice for over twenty years. He has a doctorate from Harvard and is a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges. He is very passionate about helping people in this area of finance as well as helping to educate people about their health. He has a number of resources at his website, including about half a dozen videos and articles about personal finance.
We know Dr. McGraw Hill, but we also know he is also working on a personal finance site. This doesn’t mean he has a lot of time to talk about personal finance, but he sure has a great following. He has his own website and Facebook page and is a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges (see www.pfmedical.com). He also makes a pretty good living doing personal finance advice for everyone he can.
So if your self-awareness is just getting to be too big for your own good, then you have a problem. You are on autopilot. You do not have control over your thoughts and actions. You have to use your self-knowledge to make a conscious choice to change your habits, routines, impulses, and reactions. But, as it turns out, you can do it. I like to think of it as “automating your brain”.
I’m not saying you could make all of your decisions 100% automatically, but if you have a plan, you can make every decision. It’s called human-assisted automation. For example, when you buy a car or a house, you are going to go through a lot of research before making a decision. You will likely ask lots of questions about your new purchases, and you will probably want to do a lot of research online before you make a decision.
The problem is that when you take such a long time to make a decision, the brain spends a lot of time analyzing what the decision should be, and then quickly makes the decision, without taking the time to do the work. So if your brain is automating your decisions with the help of a spreadsheet, it’s not going to give you the best results.
I am a big fan of doing due diligence on my purchases, and I find that making the decision quickly helps me avoid all of that “fear”. The good news is that you don’t actually have to do work. You can use this free checklist to make your decisions faster and easier. Checklists will help you cut through the noise of the Internet, and they’ll give you the chance to get a feel for the various options that exist for you.
Personal finance blogs are the most popular online resources for people looking to get financial advice. With more than 70 different blogs to choose from, it can be difficult to figure out which ones are the most useful. I’ve found that the best places to get advice for your personal finance goals are blogs such as HowStuffWorks.com, Money, or Personal Finance Guru.
I really hope this blog is useful. I got a lot of advice from it, and I love getting a feel of the different types of advice available. It is definitely a good place to get financial advice, but I also like reading about the different types of personal finance advice available to make sure I don’t blindly follow any of the advice that comes up.
