MDC 2022: Money is Undefined: Design Patterns to Refactor Your Financial Life (June 22, 2022)

Abstract

Growing up as the son of an immigrant, my family never discussed money openly. We never sat around the family computer and rebalanced our asset allocation on Christmas Eve. If you understood that sentence then this talk isn’t for you. It’s for everyone else. Even though I absorbed some frugal tendencies from my grandparents through osmosis, my perception of wealth remained skewed until my 30s when I finally stumbled on a financial framework that shifted my mindset.

In software, you use design patterns to solve repeatable problems and refactor for long-term maintainability and quality. Similarly, financial design patterns can help you refactor your finances for long-term happiness. These patterns and practices have enabled me to work less, take summers off, slow travel, and spend time with family, without sacrificing our financial future. Since you can’t just git clone my life (it only runs on my machine), I developed this talk as a boilerplate. It contains everything you need to know to begin refactoring your finances and building the life you deserve–on your own terms.

Feedback from attendees

Comments from the post-talk survey:

Excellent talk

Fun, inspiring, and entertaining!

Great combo of personal finance and a touch of programming thrown in

Great life skill presentation. Loved having a non-tech topic.

More of this!

Polished content, great slides.

Very good public speaker! A good topic that a bit of devs don't know, even though it's not a strictly technical talk.

Very prepared & polished - good story-based presentation.

Well-presented, practiced, engaging and good info.

Some good advice, some not as relevant. Interesting trade-offs. Great slides and well-prepared presentation.