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Starter 15 lessons

First Portfolio Builder

The bridge from understanding money to actually being invested. Learn asset allocation, the three-fund portfolio, target-date funds, opening a brokerage account, dollar-cost averaging, and rebalancing -- everything a first-time investor needs to go from a paycheck to a working portfolio. Recommended pre-reading from behavioral-finance-201: bf-3 (Loss Aversion), bf-11 (Disposition Effect), and bf-12 (Naive Diversification).

Before this course

These cover the assumed background. You can start here anyway — nothing is locked.

Personal Finance Foundations

Lessons in this course

Work through them in order, or jump to whichever fits where you are. Every lesson is free and saves your progress locally.

  1. 01Asset Allocation by Time Horizon
  2. 02Stocks vs Bonds vs Cash: The Numbers
  3. 03The Three-Fund Portfolio
  4. 04Target-Date Funds and Glide Paths
  5. 05Opening a Brokerage Account
  6. 06Funding Your Account and Your First Buy
  7. 07Dollar-Cost Averaging vs Lump-Sum
  8. 08Position Sizing and Rebalancing: Keeping Your Target Weights
  9. 09Rebalancing Rules: Calendar vs Threshold
  10. 10Asset Location: Which Account Holds What
  11. 11Tax-Loss Harvesting -- The Mechanics
  12. 12I-Bonds and TreasuryDirect
  13. 13Sequence-of-Returns Risk
  14. 14Equity Compensation as Concentrated Risk
  15. 15The 5 / 10 / 30-Year Checkup
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