Review: ‘Millionaire Teacher, The Nine Rules of Wealth You Should have Learned in School’ by Andrew Hallam

Not everything I read is for pure pleasure, though personal development books do tend to fall under that category for me most times since they’re actually a lot of fun. When Cryptocurrency began to gain traction this year and was being talked about all over the place, I decided to look into old school stocks. I’m not always patient, but when it comes to money I’m a fan of slowly putting some away over time until you look back 20 years later and see what has amassed. This book, Millionaire Teacher, looks at something called Index Funds that you can invest in to do just that. Index funds are little bits of all sorts of publicly traded stock. Instead of buying into just one company (that might fail) you buy small bits and pieces of many companies. Some fail, some do well. It boats a 10% return each year, so depending on what you invest, you could gain a fair amount. It takes time, but you don’t have to be a stock market wizard.

The book was great at explaining the ins and outs of this method of making money to me – but the author also spent a whole lot of time talking about things that could have been summed up faster, or just left out all together. I did like the way they explained how to think about money, the information they had about fancy cars, and little useful tidbits here and there.

Do I think it will make me a millionaire? Probably not. I think people who read this book and assume they will get the exact same results need to step back and take a little bit of caution. Sure, if you’ve been investing since you were a child, you can certainly amass a good amount of money over the years – but most of us are well into our 30s or even 40s before we start to suddenly realize that ‘saving money’ each pay is a good thing. I don’t know about everyone else, but in school I didn’t learn anything useful about budgeting, or how to actually function in the real world when it comes to money. It’s something that could have really helped me out.

Overall? I don’t regret spending any time reading this, I learned a lot, and I feel like less of a dunce when it comes to money and investment.

4/5 stars

Graphic Novel Review: Sunstone, Vol.1

I’m not really a huge fan of graphic novels, to be honest, but every once in a while I attempt to give them another go and see if they’ll stick. This one was recommended to me by a friend, and then I noticed that a bunch of other friends on GoodReads had also read it. It happened that the author was releasing the series for free since it started out as a web comic and that’s how I found myself picking up the first seven volumes. Purchasing the physical copies came next, because the artwork and the story is just that great.

The author is Stjepan Šejić, who is known for all sorts of things that I had never heard of (thank you GoodReads author blip). The novel is about Lisa and Ally, and their less-than-vanilla relationship. If you’ve ever read 50 shades of Grey and thought that was what actual BDSM was about, I implore you to give this novel a read instead. It’s about how their relationship developed, what insecurities they each had, and how they ultimately were able to be themselves very naturally thanks to open communication. That, folks, is the key to a good relationship, whether it is vanilla or otherwise.

The book is steamy, let’s not try to cover that up – but it presents the reader with a realistic view into a BDSM relationship and I absolutely love that. If you’re uncomfortable with nudity, or BDSM just isn’t your thing (it’s not for everyone, no shame in that) you may want to give it a pass. However, if you’re hoping to read about two people who might potentially be falling in love with each other, because of the intense and often times overwhelming sensations that are experienced while exploring BDSM – then give it a read. I was pleasantly surprised.

5/5 Stars

Oh Look, I’m Back

It has been over three years since I’ve done any writing on this blog, and yet I’ve kept it active and kept the domain name thinking that one year I might actually get back to it, and do some writing. Kids and life in general have kept me pretty busy without a lot of extra spoons kicking around. I haven’t given up reading by any means, but I rarely spoke about what I was making my way through, let alone wrote about it.

A friend recently started writing about their book adventures over on Dragons and Whimsy, and it inspired me to brush off the dust on my own, and start writing about the adventures I have in other peoples’ worlds. I’m hoping for one post a week, for now. Maybe that will keep me motivated enough to post more frequently. Not everything will be a review (this post is a good example of that) but it should all be book-ish.

With a 3 year old and a 5 year old under foot, a new puppy, and the pandemic still lingering, I have cut down my GoodReads Challenge quite significantly this year. I used to aim for anywhere between 30 and 50 books a year, and now I’m quite pleased if I manage 20. To me a book is a book is a book and it doesn’t matter if you’re reading graphic novels, novellas, or 1,000 paged books – at least you’re reading. I count everything on my challenge list for this very reason.

So far I’m at 12/20 books for the year and I’ve read some fascinating (and some not so fascinating). I’m trying to add variety to my reading, whether it be from Canadian authors (I try, but I just don’t seem to connect) POC, or a unique genre. Branching out of my comfort zones through books is really important to me. I’ll do a more in-depth look at each book that I’ve read this year, and hopefully toss out a few fluffier posts in between. In any case, it’s just nice to be talking about books again.