Both/And Finance Courses

Course Links | Courses Overview | Ways to Take Courses | Curriculum Details | Questions

Course Links

Find quick links to my courses immediately below. Scroll down further for more information about all courses.

Financial Foundations Course Quick Links:

Financial Foundations Unit 1 - Grounding

Financial Foundations Unit 2 - Forecasting

Financial Foundations Unit 3 - Investment Portfolios

Investment Management Course Quick Links:

Investment Management Unit 1 - Frameworks

Investment Management Unit 2 - Planning

Investment Management Unit 3 - Implementing

Courses Overview

From January - June 2024, I rolled out two self-paced Both/And Finance courses: 1) Financial Foundations and 2) Investment Management.

Together, these two courses are designed to support people in developing their own answers to questions like:

What is my current financial situation?
How much money do I “need” to save for the future?
What is my version of “enough”? And, what is my current status in relation to this?
What does my current investment portfolio look like and what does that mean for me?
What is an investment plan that aligns with my version of being a “responsible” investor?
How can I holistically use my resources to support a Just Transition?

These courses are intended to be taken sequentially over approximately 6 months: #1 Financial Foundations (3 months) and #2 Investment Management (3 months). But, since they are self-paced courses, you can take them over whatever time period is best for you.

Each course is comprised of monthly on-demand videos along with activities for you to complete. The activities guide you through building dynamic tools ("course deliverables") that you can use and adjust in the future as your financial situation evolves.

The monthly time investment for these courses ranges from 2-4 hours per month with approximately 1 hour of video content and 1-3 hours of course activities per month. Depending on your subscription level, you may also have access to group or 1:1 office hours with me each month.

Course #1 - Financial Foundations

Course Goals: Clarify your current financial situation, forecast your financial future, understand your current investments

Course Deliverables: Completed dynamic tool that holistically reflects your current financial situation including how you are currently invested (Google Sheets format).

Course Timing: This course consists of 3 units that I released monthly from Jan - Mar, 2024. Since it is a self-paced course, you can start anytime and take as long as you'd like to complete it. Expect 2-4 hours of course time per month to complete the course in 3 months.

Course #2 - Investment Management

Course Goals: Understand the investing landscape, build knowledge to manage your own investments, create your investment strategy

Course Deliverables: Completed personal investment policy statement that includes your investment management plan and holistic target portfolio (Google Docs format).

Course Timing: This course consists of 3 units that I released monthly from Apr - Jun, 2024. Since it is a self-paced course, you can start anytime and take as long as you'd like to complete it. Expect 2-4 hours of course time per month to complete the course in 3 months.

More about the Both/And Finance approach

I call these Both/And Finance courses because my starting assumption is that you care about both personal and collective thriving as you navigate your financial life.

This simple idea, that people may choose to manage their finances with consideration of both personal and collective wellbeing, is fundamentally at odds with the underlying assumptions of most of finance, including most personal finance education.

By design, my course content focuses more on tools to help you navigate our financial system personally, rather than broader ideas about how we can rethink and change that system collectively (I will continue to discuss that sort of thing in my newsletter essays). Still, I believe these courses are unique in the world of personal finance education because I am transparent about my Both/And starting point and I give you resources to apply Both/And thinking to your own finances if you choose.

For each topic we cover, I'll explain what the recommendations would be from a traditional finance view, AND I'll also point out where I think these recommendations are constrained by assumptions that uphold values that you may not share.

My intention is never to tell you what to do. Instead, I share resources for how you can think about various topics in your financial life so that you can make your own well-informed decisions.

Ways to access (and support!) Both/And Finance courses

To make it as accessible as I can, I've made my Financial Foundations course available completely for free. You heard that right. No paywalls! No sign-ups required!

For the Investment Management course, you'll need to become a paid subscriber ($10/month) in order to gain access. You can cancel at any time.

For both my courses, here's my heartfelt request...

...if you find you are getting value out of my course content, I ask that you opt-in to being a paid supporter during the period you are taking the courses.

Thank you for supporting this work if you can!

Sign up as Both/And Finance supporter here.

Launch the Financial Foundations Course here.

Curriculum Details

Here's a more detailed look at the content planned for these courses.

Course #1) Financial Foundations:

Month 1 - Grounding

Exploring your actual and relative financial wealth.

Topics of the month:
- Money stories
- Wealth distribution facts (and stories)
- Your guiding principles
- Reviewing your financial balance sheet

Activities for the month:
- Money and wealth distribution stories reflections
- Create your personal financial responsibility statement
- Build and/or review your financial balance sheet

Month 2 - Forecasting

Understanding what your money math looks like and reflecting on "enough."

Topics of the month:
- Looking ahead: goals, dreams, and what-ifs
- Forecasting your financial future
- Reviewing your cash flows

Activities for the month:
- Documenting your top goals, dreams, and what-ifs
- Enter your info and explore scenarios using your financial forecast model
- Cash flow review and forecast
- Reflections on "enough"

Month 3 - Investment Portfolios

Understanding our current investments and considering our holistic portfolios.

Topics of the month:
- Holistic portfolio thinking
- Investing Part 1 - asset classes, diversification, risk & return, retirement accounts
- Understanding key info about your current investments

Activities for the month:
- Gather info about your current investments and populate it into a tracking tool
- Draw your version of your ideal holistic portfolio model

Course #2) Investment Management:

Unit 1 - Frameworks

Building your tools and knowledge to manage your investments in alignment with your values.

Topics of the month:
- Financial and non-financial risk and return
- Investing Part 2 - Other important investment management concepts
- The Investment Impact Spectrum

Activities for the month:
- Begin drafting your personal Investment Policy Statement (IPS)
- Document and prioritize your investment objectives
- Identify what types of non-financial risk/return matter most to you
- Update the Investment Impact categories of your current investment portfolio

Unit 2 - Planning

Clarifying your constraints and considering your target portfolio allocations.

Topics of the month:
- Time Horizon and Liquidity
- Risk Tolerance and Asset Allocation
- Diversification and Correlation
- Including "impact" considerations in our portfolio planning

Activities for the month:
- Document personal parameters for your investment planning: time horizon, risk tolerance, liquidity needs
- Create your asset class allocation plan
- Create your impact category allocation plan

Unit 3 - Implementing

Determining your investment management policies and making your action plan.

Topics of the month:
- Determining and documenting your investment philosophy
- Management considerations for community investments
- Sourcing and evaluating investments
- Revisiting your current portfolio

Activities for the month:
- Determine your investment management preferences...
... for your market-rate (conventional) investments
... for your community (positive impact) investments
- Document your rebalancing and due diligence commitments
- Create your action plan

Questions? Comments?

Email me at contact@bothandfinance.com

I look forward to connecting with you!

Important legal note: This course is not financial advice or recommendation for any investment. The content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any course information or other material as legal, tax, financial, or other advice.

In other words, I will provide educational information that empowers you to make your own informed decisions for yourself, but I will not give specific investment advice. If you have questions about this, feel free to reach out to me for a chat.