Plan any subject, week by week

Pick a subject and say how many hours a week you actually have. You get the real order the skills have to be learned in, the graded work each stretch ends in, and an honest total in weeks. It is arithmetic over a published skill map, not a plan a model wrote on the way to you.

No accountNo email7 subjects

01 · The estimate

8 weeks at 4 hours a week

28.8Hours of work

8Weeks

16Things to do

3Marked

That is the core path. Personal Finance & Investing also declares 1.5 hours of specialist skills that are not counted above — take those too and it is 8 weeks. Both numbers assume you hit 4 hours every week, which nobody does; the plan does not expire if you don’t.

02 · The plan

Week by week, in the order it has to be learned

Each line is one thing to be able to do. The order is the skill map’s own: nothing appears before what it needs.

Week 15h starts here
- What the money is for, and whenState a financial goal with an amount and a date, and say what the horizon rules out1.5h
- Knowing where you standProduce a net-worth statement that reconciles and states what it excludes1.5h
- Cashflow, not salaryBuild a monthly cashflow that includes annualised irregular costs and reconciles to a bank statement2h · runs into week 2
Week 23.5h starts here
- The buffer, and where it sits in the orderSize a cash buffer from your own fixed outgoings and justify the number of months1.5h
- CompoundingProject a balance forward under compounding and show the working2h · runs into week 3
Week 33.5h starts here
- The cost of debtCompare two repayment orders by total interest paid, with the arithmetic shown2h
- Real returnsConvert a nominal figure to a real one and state which basis a projection is on1.5h
Week 45.5h starts here
- Fees and dragCompute the lifetime cost of a percentage fee against a stated horizon1.5h
- Risk is not just volatilityDistinguish volatility from risk of loss for a stated horizon and goal2h
- DiversificationExplain what a given spread of holdings protects against and what it leaves exposed2h · runs into week 5
Week 54h starts here
- Stating assumptionsList every assumption a projection depends on, with the value used for each1.5h
- Stress testing a planBreak your own plan under a stated adverse scenario and say what breaks first2.5h · runs into week 6
Week 63.5h starts here
- Tax-advantaged accountsExplain the mechanism of a tax wrapper and identify what you would need to check for your own jurisdiction2h
- A position statement that reconcilesMarkedRead the checklist it is marked against1.5h · runs into week 7
Week 73.8h starts here
- A projection that states what it rests onMarkedRead the checklist it is marked against2h
- Break your own plan on purposeMarkedRead the checklist it is marked against1.8h · runs into week 8

This is the same plan we would give anyoneThere is no box here for how good you already are, because saying so has never made it true. This is what Personal Finance & Investing takes, and the only thing that takes work out of it is work of yours that has been marked. What the ten-minute check gives you is the other half: where you stand in it before you start.

Check where you stand in Personal Finance & InvestingAbout ten minutes. No account.

The plan above is Personal Finance & Investing in full, and the marked work in it is published with its checklist before you start. Want a subject nobody has written? Ask for it — that one does need an account, and a few minutes.