Compound

Lessons

The course, in order. Each page is that lesson's reading. Practice questions are in the app, and lessons unlock one at a time.

Money Foundations

Banking Basics

  • Where Your Money Actually LivesChecking is for spending, savings is for waiting, brokerage is for growing. The container determines the outcome.
  • The $250,000 PromiseFDIC (banks) and NCUA (credit unions) each insure $250,000 per depositor, per institution, per ownership category. Investments are never covered.
  • APR, APY, and the Rule of 72APY already counts compounding; APR doesn't. Convert before you compare — and divide 72 by a rate to know how long money takes to double at it.
  • The 0.38% ProblemIdle cash in a low-rate account loses to inflation every year. Moving it is one form and one afternoon. The rate you land on still floats.

Budgeting

  • What Is a Budget, Really?50/30/20 splits take-home pay into needs, wants, and savings/debt. It came from a book, not a law, and the 20% is the only part that builds anything.
  • Needs, Wants, and the Gray ZoneThe test isn't whether you enjoy it. It's what breaks if you stop paying it.
  • Fixed, Variable, and Knowing Your FloorFixed costs are hard to cut but easy to predict. Variable costs are the opposite. Your floor is what sets the size of your emergency fund.
  • Pay Yourself FirstMove the money on payday, automatically, before you've seen it. You then live on the rest, which is far easier than not spending money that's already sitting in checking.
  • Sinking Funds and the Irregular Expense TrapA sinking fund converts an annual shock into a monthly line item. If you know it's coming, it isn't an emergency and shouldn't touch your emergency fund.

Income And Taxes

Emergency Fund

  • The $400 QuestionIn 2024, 63% of US adults could cover a $400 emergency with cash or equivalent. 13% couldn't cover it at all. Small buffers prevent large spirals.
  • How Big Is Big Enough?3-6 months of your essential-expenses floor. Stable income and dual earners lean toward 3; variable income or sole earners lean toward 6+.
  • Where the Emergency Fund SleepsInsured, liquid, and boring. A high-yield savings account is the default. Not stocks, not locked in a CD you can't break.
  • What Actually Counts as an EmergencyA real emergency is unexpected, necessary, and urgent — all three at once. Fail any one of them and the expense belongs somewhere else, however much it feels like a crisis.
  • Using It, and Rebuilding AfterUsing the fund is success, not failure. Rebuild it before resuming other goals, pausing extra debt payments and investing if you have to.

Credit

Debt

  • Good Debt, Bad Debt, and the Only Number That MattersInterest rate and whether the thing gains or loses value. That's the whole framework. Everything else is branding.
  • Avalanche vs SnowballAvalanche (highest rate first) minimizes interest. Snowball (smallest balance first) improves follow-through. The best plan is the one you finish.
  • Student Loans in 2026: What Just ChangedSAVE is being wound down. Anyone whose first federal loan lands on or after July 1, 2026 chooses between a tiered Standard plan and the new Repayment Assistance Plan — and RAP is the one that stops a balance growing.
  • Forgiveness, PSLF, and the Fine PrintPSLF needs 120 qualifying payments, on a qualifying plan, at a qualifying employer, on qualifying loans. Miss any one of the four and those payments simply don't count — and in 2026, 'qualifying plan' changed.
  • Car Loans and the Depreciation CurveLong loans plus fast depreciation equals negative equity. Being 'underwater' means you can't sell the car without writing a check.
  • Mortgages: 28/36, PMI, and Rate Math28/36 caps housing at 28% of gross income and total debt at 36%. Under 20% down usually means PMI, and rate changes dwarf everything else.

Consumer Protection And Fraud

  • The Shape of Modern FraudThe scam most likely to reach you is not the one most likely to ruin you. Frequency and severity are different risks, and they need different defences.
  • Freeze Your CreditA credit freeze is free at all three bureaus under federal law, blocks new accounts being opened in your name, and can be lifted in minutes.
  • Disputing a Charge: Credit vs DebitCredit cards are governed by the Fair Credit Billing Act; debit cards by the Electronic Fund Transfer Act. Debit liability rises the longer you wait — credit liability does not.
  • Identity Theft: The First 48 HoursClose the accounts where fraud already happened, then fraud alert and credit reports, then report at IdentityTheft.gov — it generates an FTC Identity Theft Report and a personalised recovery plan that the remaining steps depend on.
  • Imposter Scams and the Urgency TellEvery imposter scam needs urgency, isolation, and an irreversible payment. Recognising the structure beats memorising the stories.
  • Data Breaches and What Actually FollowsNot all breached data is equally dangerous. Match the response to what was exposed, and treat free credit monitoring as detection, not prevention.

Education And Family Funding

  • 529s: How the Tax Break Actually WorksContributions are after-tax federally; growth and qualified withdrawals are tax-free. The benefit is the compounding, so time in the account is the whole game.
  • The 529 Escape HatchesChange the beneficiary, spend up to $20,000/year on K-12, or roll up to $35,000 lifetime into the beneficiary's Roth IRA if the account is 15+ years old.
  • How Financial Aid Is Actually CalculatedThe FAFSA produces a Student Aid Index. Aid eligibility is the school's cost of attendance minus that index — so the same family gets different numbers at different schools.
  • Borrowing Limits and Degree ROIFederal Direct Loans are capped by year and in aggregate. Debt above those caps loses income-driven repayment and forgiveness options entirely.
  • Custodial Accounts and the Kiddie TaxUTMA/UGMA assets belong to the child irrevocably and transfer to their control at the age of majority. The kiddie tax can push their unearned income to the parents' rate.
  • Childcare Costs and the Dependent Care FSAThe dependent care FSA limit rose to $7,500 for 2026. Contributions avoid income tax and FICA, but it's use-it-or-lose-it and elections are locked for the year.

Personal Finance & Protection

Insurance And Risk Management

  • Risk Transfer BasicsInsure what would ruin you; self-insure what would merely annoy you. The deciding question is never how likely a loss is, but whether you could absorb it if it happened.
  • Term vs. Whole Life InsuranceMost people need income replacement for a fixed span of years, which is exactly what term is built for. Permanent policies bundle that with a high-cost savings product; separating the two usually buys the same coverage for a fraction of the price.
  • Disability & Umbrella InsuranceDisability insurance protects the income your career produces, and the definition of 'disabled' in the policy decides whether it ever pays. Umbrella liability sits above your auto and home limits and is sized to what a judgment could reach.
  • Health Insurance HDHP vs. PPOAn HDHP trades predictable premiums for a lower fixed cost and a larger worst case, and it is the only plan that makes you eligible to fund an HSA. Compare total annual cost at your realistic usage, not the monthly premium.

Income And Negotiation

  • Salary & Equity NegotiationBase salary is the number that compounds, so it's the one to push. Let the employer name a range first, and negotiate against market data rather than against what you currently earn.
  • Equity Compensation: RSUs, ISOs, & ESPPsRSUs are ordinary income the day they vest, so selling immediately costs nothing extra in tax and removes concentration risk. ISOs can trigger AMT at exercise, before you have sold anything. An ESPP discount is real money, and the shares are exposed to the price until you sell them.
  • Human Capital vs. Financial CapitalEarly on, the present value of your future earnings dwarfs your savings — so protecting and growing that income matters more than optimising a small portfolio. And it makes investing in your own industry a double bet.
  • Career Pivots & Skill CompoundingTwo solid complementary skills can be rarer, and better paid, than the top of one crowded field. Because a career now spans a dozen jobs, the skills worth building are the ones that travel between them.

Wealth Psychology And Decisions

  • Lifestyle Creep & Hedonic AdaptationSatisfaction from a higher standard of living fades, but the cost doesn't. The reliable defence is structural: redirect part of every raise automatically, before it ever reaches the account you spend from.
  • Money Scripts & Financial FrictionMoney scripts are inherited beliefs that drive behaviour before reasoning starts. You can't argue with them in the moment, but you can add friction to the actions they produce — and remove it from the ones you want.
  • Financial Automation SystemsAutomatic transfers work because they remove a decision, not because they change the maths. Saving has to happen before the money is available to spend, or it competes with everything else and loses.
  • Defining 'Enough' & Purpose AlignmentDefine 'enough' as a number tied to your spending, not to your income or to anyone else's balance. It's the only version that can be reached, because it doesn't move every time your peer group does.

Markets & Investing

Investing Basics

  • What You Own When You Own a StockA stock is fractional ownership of a business. Its long-run value comes from what the business earns, not from what the chart did last week — and the share price alone tells you nothing about how big or how cheap a company is.
  • Bonds: Being the LenderA bond is a loan with a schedule. Its coupon is fixed, so when market interest rates rise the only thing that can move is the price — which is why 'safe' bonds lose money in a rate shock.
  • Funds: Mutual, ETF, IndexMutual fund and ETF describe the wrapper — how it's priced and traded. Index and active describe the strategy. Any combination exists, and the strategy is where the fees are.
  • What an Index Actually IsThe S&P 500 is committee-selected, float-adjusted market-cap weighted, and rebalanced quarterly. Weighting by size means the largest handful of companies drive most of the movement.
  • Risk, Volatility, and the Word 'Bear'Averages hide the ride. The S&P 500 has fallen 57% peak to trough and recovered, and losses need bigger gains to undo them. Volatility is the price of the return, not a malfunction.

Retirement Accounts

Portfolio Construction

  • Asset Allocation: Tolerance vs CapacityRisk tolerance is what you can emotionally handle. Risk capacity is what your finances can absorb. Plan around the lower of the two.
  • Diversification and What It Can't DoDiversification removes company-specific risk, not market risk. Correlations rise in crises, which is exactly when you wanted them low.
  • Rebalancing and the Glide PathRebalancing restores your target mix by selling what grew and buying what lagged. Target-date funds automate this, plus a glide path toward bonds.
  • Fees: The Silent 0.80%Index equity ETFs average about 0.14%; index equity mutual funds about 0.05%; equity mutual funds overall about 0.40%. Actively managed equity funds sit well above that blended figure. The gap compounds for decades.

Market Mechanics

  • Bid, Ask, and the Order You ChooseMarket orders buy certainty of execution. Limit orders buy certainty of price. You can never have both.
  • Where Trades Actually GoCommission-free isn't free. Payment for order flow means your broker gets paid to route your order. US settlement has been T+1 since May 2024.
  • Reading a Company: Market Cap, EPS, P/EMarket cap is size. EPS is profit per share. P/E is what you pay per dollar of earnings. High P/E means high expectations, not 'overpriced'.
  • Dividends, DRIP, and BuybacksA dividend isn't free money; the share price drops by roughly the dividend on the ex-date. Reinvesting is what turns dividends into compounding.

Behavior And Risk

  • Loss Aversion and the Disposition EffectLoss aversion makes us sell winners too early and hold losers too long. Knowing the bias doesn't remove it; systems do.
  • Trading Is Hazardous to Your WealthOver Barber and Odean's 1991-1996 sample, the most active traders earned 11.4% a year against 17.9% for the market. Activity is not the same thing as progress.
  • Timing: The Honest VersionBest and worst days cluster together, so dodging the worst would help as much as catching the best. Nobody does either reliably. The record supports staying invested, and it is deliberately uneventful.
  • Red Flags: Scams, Finfluencers, and Gamified RiskGuaranteed returns don't exist. Urgency is a weapon. And an app that makes trading feel like a game is designed to increase trading, not your returns.

Advanced Investing

Fixed Income Deep Dive

  • Bond Pricing and Yields: Par, Premium, and DiscountBond prices move opposite to interest rates, because a fixed coupon can only be repriced by moving the price. A bond trades at a discount when market yields exceed its coupon and at a premium when they don't.
  • Duration & Convexity: Measuring Rate SensitivityModified duration estimates the percentage price change for a one-point move in yields — duration 8 means roughly 8% per point. It's a straight-line estimate of a curved relationship, and convexity is the name for what it misses.
  • Treasuries, TIPS, & I-Bonds: Inflation ProtectionTIPS adjust the principal itself with CPI, so the fixed coupon is paid on an inflated base. Series I bonds instead reset their interest rate every six months. The practical difference is a purchase cap: I bonds are limited to $10,000 per person per year, TIPS effectively aren't.
  • Credit Ratings & High-Yield Debt: Default Risk & SpreadsThe credit spread is a corporate bond's yield minus a comparable Treasury's — the market's price for default risk. Below BBB-/Baa3 a bond is speculative grade, and spreads widen exactly when the rest of your portfolio is also falling.

Valuation And Fundamentals

  • Reading Financial Statements: Balance Sheet, Income & Cash FlowThe balance sheet is a snapshot of what's owned and owed, the income statement covers a period of profit, and the cash flow statement tracks money that actually moved. Profit is an accounting judgement; cash is not, which is why they can diverge for years.
  • Valuation Ratios: P/E, PEG, Price-to-Book, and EV/EBITDAP/E is price per dollar of earnings, PEG adjusts it for growth, EV/EBITDA counts the debt an acquirer would inherit. A ratio is only meaningful against a comparison — the same company, its competitors, or its own history.
  • Discounted Cash Flow (DCF): Calculating Intrinsic ValueA DCF projects future free cash flow and discounts it to today. Terminal value typically dominates the output, so the valuation rests mostly on an assumed perpetual growth rate and discount rate — which makes a DCF a range to argue with, not an answer.
  • Economic Moats: Competitive Advantage and QualityA moat is a structural barrier that lets a company keep earning returns above its cost of capital. Morningstar identifies five sources, and durability matters more than the current size of the returns — a great product with no barrier is not a moat.

Derivatives And Alternatives

  • Options 101: Calls, Puts, Leverage & Premium RiskA call is the right to buy at the strike; a put is the right to sell. One contract covers 100 shares, which is where the leverage comes from — and an option that expires out-of-the-money is worth exactly zero, not a reduced amount.
  • Commodities, Gold, & Crypto: Speculation vs. Store of ValueGold, commodities and crypto produce no cash flow, so the only way to profit is for someone to pay more later. That isn't a criticism, but it does mean these assets cannot be valued the way a business can — and it's the reason position sizing carries the whole argument.
  • Private Equity & Venture Capital: Illiquidity & J-CurveCapital is committed rather than paid, and drawn down over years by capital call. Fees are charged on the full commitment from the start, which is why reported returns trace a J — negative early, positive only once exits arrive.
  • Covered Calls and Cash-Secured PutsA covered call caps your upside in exchange for premium. A cash-secured put obliges you to buy at the strike. Neither reduces downside beyond the premium collected.
  • Leveraged and Inverse ETFs: The Daily ResetThese reset daily. Over any longer period, compounding means returns can diverge sharply from the stated multiple — and volatility makes the gap worse.

Factor Investing And Macro

  • Factor Investing: Value, Momentum, Quality, and SizeFama and French's five factors are Market, Size, Value, Profitability and Investment. Momentum is Carhart's addition, not theirs, and Low Volatility comes from a separate literature again — useful factors, different authors. Costs come out of any premium before you see it.
  • Macroeconomics for Investors: Fed Rates & Yield Curve InversionThe Fed sets an overnight rate; the market sets everything longer. When short yields exceed long ones the curve is inverted, which has preceded most postwar recessions on a long and variable lag — a description of conditions, not a timing signal.
  • International Investing: Currency Risk & Emerging MarketsAn unhedged foreign holding combines the local return with the currency move, multiplicatively rather than additively. Market-cap weights put roughly a third of global equity outside the US, and that share drifts on its own.
  • Sequence of Returns RiskWhen you're withdrawing, the ORDER of returns matters as much as their average. Early losses combined with withdrawals do damage later gains can't undo.
  • Backtests, Data Mining, and Factor DecayPublished return predictors decay: McLean and Pontiff found returns 26% lower out-of-sample and 58% lower after publication. A backtest is a hypothesis, not a result.

Real Estate & Assets

Homeownership Mechanics

  • Total Cost of Homeownership: PITI, HOA, and MaintenanceYour real monthly cost is PITI plus HOA plus a maintenance reserve of roughly 1–2% of the home's value a year. The parts the mortgage calculator omits are the ones that don't shrink as you pay the loan down.
  • Rent vs. Buy Math: Opportunity Cost & Unrecoverable CostsCompare unrecoverable costs on both sides: rent against interest, property tax, insurance, maintenance and the return your down payment isn't earning. Only the principal portion of a mortgage payment builds anything.
  • Home Equity & Refinancing: Rate-and-Term vs. Cash-OutA rate-and-term refinance changes the terms of what you owe. A cash-out refinance, a HELOC and a home equity loan all increase what you owe, secured against the roof over your head — which is what makes the interest rate low and the downside severe.
  • Escrow, Title Insurance, & Closing Costs DecodedClosing costs run roughly 2–5% of the loan amount. The Closing Disclosure must reach you three business days before closing, and comparing it against your Loan Estimate is the highest-value hour in the whole transaction.

Real Estate Investing

  • REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts): Liquid Property InvestingA REIT must distribute at least 90% of taxable income. It isn't tax-exempt — it's a taxable corporation that deducts what it pays out, which is why the yield is high and why the dividends are mostly taxed as ordinary income.
  • Rental Property Math: NOI, Cap Rate, & Cash-on-Cash ReturnNOI describes the building. Cap rate prices the building. Cash-on-cash measures your deal, after financing. NOI deliberately excludes debt service, which is why two buyers compute the same NOI and very different returns.
  • Deal Screening & the 1% RuleScreening heuristics exist to reject bad deals fast, not to justify good ones. A property that clears the 1% Rule still has to survive real underwriting; one that misses it badly rarely repays the effort.
  • Real Estate Tax Benefits: Depreciation & 1031 ExchangesDepreciation shelters rental income without costing cash — but §469 suspends the losses for most higher-income W-2 earners until the property is sold. It's also recaptured on sale at ordinary rates capped at 25%, so much of the benefit is deferral rather than forgiveness.
  • House Hacking & Multi-Family: Reducing Living ExpensesOwner-occupant financing covers 1–4 unit properties at far better rates and down payments than investment loans. Rent from the other units offsets your housing cost — but the offset is smaller than the headline once vacancy, repairs and reserves are counted.
  • Syndications & Commercial Real Estate: GP/LP StructureThe GP runs the deal and the LPs supply capital for a preferred return plus a share of profits. A preferred return is an ordering rule, not an income stream, and the position is illiquid for the life of the deal.

Tax Strategy & Estate

Tax Optimization

Business And Side Hustle Taxes

  • Entity Selection: Sole Prop vs. LLC vs. S-CorpSole props and single-member LLCs pay SE tax on 92.35% of net profit. An S-Corp election splits profit into W-2 salary, which is taxed, and distributions, which aren't — but the salary has to be defensibly reasonable and the election carries real overhead.
  • Schedule C Write-Offs: Ordinary & Necessary ExpensesA deductible expense must be ordinary and necessary for the trade, and documented. The costs people most often get wrong are the ones that feel obviously work-related: commuting, and any space that isn't used exclusively for business.
  • Solo 401(k) & SEP-IRA: Self-Employed Tax SheltersA Solo 401(k) contributes twice — a flat employee deferral plus an employer profit-sharing percentage. The flat deferral is why it beats a SEP-IRA at lower incomes, and neither can ever exceed what you actually earned.
  • Quarterly Estimated Taxes: Safe Harbors & DeadlinesSafe harbor is the lesser of 90% of this year's tax or 100% of last year's — 110% if AGI is over $150,000. Meet either and the penalty goes away. But the four periods aren't equal quarters, so the right total on the wrong schedule still costs you.
  • The QBI Deduction: 20% Off Pass-Through IncomeSection 199A lets most pass-through owners deduct up to 20% of qualified business income. Below the taxable-income threshold ($201,750 single, $403,500 joint for 2026) almost everyone gets the full 20%, whatever the trade. Above it, the service-business exclusion and wage limits phase in.

Estate Planning And Wealth Transfer

  • Estate Planning Basics: Wills, Intestacy, and ProbateAssets move by three separate channels: contract beneficiary forms, joint titling, and the will. The will only governs what the first two didn't already claim, which is why an unreviewed beneficiary form quietly outranks it.
  • Incapacity Planning: Power of Attorney & DirectivesA durable financial POA and a healthcare proxy cover two different domains and neither can act in the other's. Without them, your family petitions a court for guardianship — expensive, public, and slow at the worst possible moment.
  • Trusts Decoded: Revocable vs. Irrevocable TrustsYou cannot both keep control of an asset and put it beyond your creditors. A revocable trust buys probate avoidance and privacy while you keep control; an irrevocable trust can buy protection and estate-tax removal, but only if you genuinely give the asset up.
  • Estate & Gift Tax Rules: Unified Exemption & Step-Up in BasisThe lifetime exemption is $15,000,000 per person in 2026, covering gifts and estate together, so gifts above the annual exclusion consume exemption rather than triggering tax. Inherited assets get a basis step-up; gifted ones carry your basis with them.
  • FIRE Withdrawal Strategies & the 4% Rule4% was a finding about a 30-year horizon and a specific portfolio mix, not a law. It's a good planning anchor, and a longer retirement, taxes, and a bad first few years all push the sustainable number lower.

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