How to get a grip on finance?
"I think this question is perfectly on topic, and probably has been asked and answered many times.  However, I cannot help myself. Here are some basics however: Personal Finance is not only about math.  As a guy who ""took vector calculus just for fun"", I have learned that superior math skills do not translate into superior net worth.  Personal finance is about 50% behavior.  Take a look at the housing crisis, car loans, or payday lenders and you will understand that the desire to be accepted by others often trumps the math surrounding a transaction. Outline your goals  What is it that you want in life?  A pile of money or to retire early?  What does your business look like?  How much cash will you need?  Do you want to own a ton of rental properties?  How does all this happen (set intermediate goals). Then get on a budget  A budget is a plan to spend your money in advance.  Stick to it.  From there you can see how much money you have to implement various goals.  Are your goals to aggressive?   This is really important as people have a tendency to spend more money then they have.  Often times when people receive a bonus at work, they spend that one bonus on two or three times over.  A budget will prevent this from happening. Get an Emergency Fund  Without an emergency fund, you be subject to the financial whims of people involved in your own life and that of the broader marketplace.  Once you have one, you are free to invest with impunity and have less stress in a world that deals out plenty.  Bad things will happen to you financially, protect against them. The best first investments are simple:  Invest in yourself.  Find a way to make a very healthy income with upward mobility.  Also get out and stay out of debt.  These things are not sexy, but they pay off in the long run. The next best investment is also simple:  Index funds.  These become the bench mark for all other investments.  If you do not stand a good chance of beating the S&P 500 index fund, why bother?  Just dump the money in the fund and sleep well at night."
"To me, your question emphasizes something I've heard many times before: personal finance is as much or more about behavior than it is about mathematics or ""head knowledge"".  Sure, you know you shouldn't be wasting a lot of money on something you will use very infrequently, but how do you make this behavior stick?  Here are a few tricks that might help: The other aspects of your question really touch more on psychology than finance.  But getting yourself into a discipline habit with money will help.  And realizing the full cash price of items in relation to how much your disposable income is will help you get control of your impulses, as you review your budget monthly, and keep limit yourself using the envelope system.  But honestly, everybody wants stuff they don't have, it's human nature.  The key is finding ways to put physical limits and guards on yourself to keep you from obeying the self-destructive impulses." Become genuinely passionate about the subject and the knowledge/experience will guide you.   If you're really desperate to get a position in finance ASAP, i would recommend a financials sales path. Sales is usually the most avoided path, as well as one of the most important skill sets to have. Most people don't even know that the top investment banking positions are sales, lol..... The Khan Academy has a huge series on finance (Sal Khan used to work at a hedge fund before he started his magnum opus): http://www.khanacademy.org/#core-finance  Some are pretty basic stuff, but he does have some interesting commentary and snippets of more interesting topics. They're all very low-commitment and bite-sized. Frederic Mishkin wrote a few text books on financial concepts that are widely used in colleges.  If you're not looking for a textbook - I'd really recommend Khan Academy on YouTube.  He's got some great videos on supply and demand - bonds, exchange rates - monetary policy by the federal reserve. All academically sound. They're very easy to digest and watch over again for reference. A couple of good books I enjoyed and found very understandable (regarding the stock market): As for investment information you can get lost for days in Investopedia.  Start in the stock section and click around. The tutorials here (free) give a good introduction to different financial topics. Regarding theoretical knowledge: start with what you know well, like your career or your other interests.  You'll get a running start that way. Beyond that, it depends on what area of finance you want to start with.  If it's your personal finances, I and a lot of other bloggers write about it all the time.  Any of the bloggers on my blogroll (see my profile for the link) will give you a good perspective.  If you want to go head first into planning your financial life, take a look at Brett Wilder's The Quiet Millionaire.  It's very involved and thorough. And, of course, ask questions here. Your question just doesn't make sense in terms of finance. The reason I recommended those questions is because it'll make yours more coherent.  There's deep confusion in your question, put another way. I don't think you're thinking about money properly, specifically the ownership and it doesn't appear you've read much about trading.  If you're interested in a financial career, you need to be very willing to learn independently. I think my questions are a good place to start.  Honestly, you should buy a finance textbook and just go through it. It's insanely complex at the top levels so reinforcing the foundation stuff is extremely beneficial. Just by chance I recently encountered this link - Do It Yourself MFE, which describes an attempt to self-educate to the level of Master of Financial Engineering. It lists books, online courses, etc. which I think may be interesting for you too. as someone who made a fair attempt at understanding money subjects, I'd like some more writing from you.  I took high school level Marketing; Business economics; commercial law. it took six months on top of my previous High school ( with high level maths).  during those months I got medium grades, and failed  in- can you believe it - marketing. I had a go at The intelligent investor. I made it to page 96. But honestly I felt like I needed a lot of background in order for me to understand it. English is my second language. Sure I can understand  words like liability vs assets. but to this day i still can't remember the difference between a bull and bearish market. I know its about risk assesment on a national/ global level.  So who honestly gave finance a go but got their ass kicked. What would you say?  any books? "The first thing you have to do is to decided what area in finance you want to get into. For example, investment banking and quant are very different jobs. Learning all the CFA material is useful, so you might as well take the exams too while you are at it. You may be able to get into financial IT or some type of financial programming job. That is one step closer to your goal because at least you will be at a finance company and you can network with people that are in the field.  Also, if you want to go into the buy side like I did, I recommend you invest your own money and manage your own portfolio. That way you would have some intimate familiarity with some companies/strategies. You can't get this from a textbook. There is something a little wrong with someone who wants to manage other people's money when he doesn't manage his own. That is a tough sell.  You can't be too picky about where you get in. Getting in the door is the most important. I got a lot of quant interviews because I was an engineer. Those interviews consist of a lot of math and brain teaser type questions. For fundamental analyst positions, they will typically want to figure out how you think about businesses/companies.  You can typically steer the interview any way you want, which is why I think it is important that you invest your own money. If you say ""the largest position I hold is in XYZ company"", you can be 99% certain that they will be asking about that investment for the next 15 minutes (at least). That is your opportunity to show how you can add value.  Most companies prefer students for entry level, because why hire a guy who is already working in another field when you can get someone fresh? I stood out in the interviews because I could say ""I put $50k into this position because..."". It's not the only way to do it, but I can only provide you with my anedoctal experience." The book HOLD: How to Find, Buy, and Rent Houses for Wealth by Chader et al. was one of the best I've read on the subject. It has all of the basics, explanations, examples, and gives you real-life assumptions for your inputs when you do your analysis. It does contain some less-relevant information now that was more realistic before 2007, but it's a worthwhile read (or listen). They have some good starter worksheets, as well, on their website to help you do your analysis, which I found useful despite already having my own. The free Yale Course taught by Bob Shiller called Financial Markets is really good. Find it on youtube, iTunes U, academic earth, or yale's site. What is the best way to get into knowledge about the financial world? I have been reading some guides on investopedia, discussing the financial world with others, and looking at some tutorial videos. Are there any good books/websites that are for a newcomer to the financial world? Any help would be greatly appreciated Get really good at Excel.  Make it a goal to have it become a specialty of yours.  Practice the basics, learn to create models, read books on it, watch videos etc.  As far as publications, just try and get to the usual suspects on a daily basis.  WSJ, Economist, CNN Money, Yahoo Finance, Seeking Alpha, etc. Buy an accounting for MBA's book and go through that.  It's the absolute base of finance.  I can't see how you can even wrap your head around most of the articles in FT or in the Economist if you don't know what a balance sheet, income statement, cashflow statement or statement of shareholders equity is.    This is absolutely a requirement for any understanding of the finance sector, or you'll become just another schmoe on CNBC. What are your goals? Managing your finances is not the same for everyone. For example, do you want a more hands-off approach to finance or more hands-on? Are you looking at investments as well or just saving money? Those types of questions.