Personal Finance for High Earners

Explore how behavioral economics explains why people act irrationally in personal finance and investing, highlighting loss aversion and overweighting small probabilities.

Learn how default bias shapes choices, from organ donation opt-ins to saving habits, and how overconfidence, the Dunning-Kruger effect, confirmation bias, and recency bias distort finance decisions, with reframing strategies.

Discover the two core equations: savings equals income minus expenses, and savings tomorrow equals today’s savings times the rate of return. Explore interactive examples that frame the course.

Apply the two simple equations: income minus expenses equals savings, and savings grow via compounding. See how lowering expenses, like food costs, speeds retirement readiness.

Learn how compounding drives retirement outcomes by comparing saving versus investing in stocks with historical returns, using the rule of 72, time horizons, and starting early.

Build an Excel-based planning and budgeting model that uses income minus expenses equals savings and applies rate of return to project future finances and track goals, then test various scenarios.

Plan and budget by building a monthly income after taxes and expenses model in Excel, set savings goals, input actuals, track progress, and explore scenario impacts.

Use a waterfall chart to track actual savings against the original forecast, adjusting the plan as numbers come in. Learn that income minus expenses equals savings and practice forecasting.

Explore how compounding on monthly savings grows beginning savings into ending savings, with a 0.5% monthly return that turns $2,100 monthly contributions into about $2.1 million by 2051.

Explore how different market scenarios affect your finances by building a simple budgeting and investment model. Use historical returns, compounding, and goal tracking to evaluate strategies and stay deliberate.

Explore compensation trajectories across careers, revise your planning and budgeting model with different income figures, and compare hypothetical job offers using practical frameworks for evaluating jobs.

Analyze how compensation grows with experience across investment banking, management consulting, tech, and medicine, with six-year earnings peaking around $360k. Entrepreneurship fuels wealth as many billionaires start their own companies.

Explores how higher earnings affect retirement timelines using a real data model, showing income minus expenses drives savings, compounding boosts wealth, and aiming for early financial independence.

Apply regret minimization and career frameworks like Eighty Thousand Hours to choose a career with growth, learning, impact, and strong alumni networks for high earners.

Develop a mental framework for valuing assets using time value of money and discounting, apply the present value formula, and use discounted cash flows for bonds, stocks, and rental property.

Explore how discount rates affect the present value of future cash flows using the money tree examples, demonstrating how growth, risk, and perpetuities shape value.

Learn the cornerstone present value formula to value bonds and assets with future cash flows, using discount rates, semiannual coupons, and real-life bond example.

Value the present value of McDonald's stock as a perpetual dividend income stream using the dividend discount model, with dividends, a 7% discount rate, and a 4.3% growth rate.

Learn to evaluate rental properties with cash flow, expenses, and pro forma rents, then apply discount rate, growth rate, and present value to value the asset.

Delve into the basics of investing, examining valuation and pricing, and compare indices versus specific investments while pointing to topics for further exploration.

Explore how discounted cash flow valuation yields equity value per share and how bear, base, and bull scenarios guide buy decisions, and how market timing and fees affect returns.

Apply asset allocation with modern portfolio theory to balance return and risk using stocks, bonds, real estate, and small value; compare lump-sum investing with dollar-cost averaging and tax strategies.

Save and invest together to let compounding grow beyond the one-to-one link between work and retirement; invest in low-cost index funds, minimize fees and taxes via 401(k) or IRA.

Explore diversified asset classes and lazy portfolios to improve returns while reducing risk through less correlated assets. Assess buy vs rent and net worth implications of your primary residence.

Explore how mortgages and other debts affect balance sheets, assessing good debt versus bad debt, leverage, tax benefits, and how to compute net worth through assets and liabilities.

Build an Excel balance sheet to model net worth by tracking assets (cash, brokerage, retirement, home, other assets) and liabilities (mortgage, debt), while routing savings between cash and investments.

Learn how a balance sheet shows net worth as assets minus liabilities, distinguish cash-flow assets from non-producing ones, and compare debt and inflation impacts with simple rough math.

Explore how a unified personal finance budgeting plan models income, expenses, savings, and investing decisions, including the impact of irrational choices, with Excel-based analysis.

See how a raise and a boat purchase affect cash savings, net worth, and retirement projections using a simple financial model.

Project a college cost projection 18 years out, with Stanford annual tuition rising to about 725k for four years from 70k today, and assess its impact on net worth. Adjust inputs like number of kids and savings to see how upfront payments and drawdowns affect long-term finances.

Use practical financial models to test big decisions and refine your plan. Build your own model to compare base cases and scenarios, and end with a discussion on happiness.

Explore how psychology shapes rational decisions and happiness, and identify the other drivers that research suggests influence well-being beyond income before retirement.

Explore the three types of happiness—pleasure, engagement, and meaning—and learn how warm relationships predict long-term health, happiness, and income, while major life events and aging shape daily life satisfaction.

Explore happiness types—pleasure, engagement, and meaning—and how gratitude, mindfulness, and service foster flow and long-term life satisfaction.

Explore multiple types of happiness, why warm relationships and activities that leverage your strengths in service of something bigger than yourself boost well-being, as some aspects remain outside our control.