Reddit reviews Why Bother With Bonds: A Guide To Build All-Weather Portfolio Including CDs, Bonds, and Bond Funds--Even During Low Interest Rates (How To Achieve Financial Independence)

Even though bonds are more mathematical in nature, it's still easy to misinterpret how they function as investment products. It would probably not be a bad idea to pick one up before investing too far into a specific plan.

A good example is the idea of duration. Most online material simply refers to duration as the amount of risk and potential loss/gain due to rate shifts. This isn't necessarily wrong; but I prefer thinking of it more as the amount of time it would take to recover from the shift. When a bond goes down in value, its effective yield also increases; that also means that as I receive coupon payments, I can reinvest them at this higher yield as well. After a period of time, the increased coupon payments catch up with your losses and you are "whole" again, but you are now receiving payments at the higher rate. So, duration can also represent the length of recovery time.

In the case where I would be looking at a ~5 year plan with intention to still hold bonds after that period, I would not be too terribly concerned about holding a bond fund with a 2 year duration. My total outlook is certainly farther than that (some expenses spread between 0-5y and then some remaining for "perpetual" investment) and I have time to recover.

I read this book over the course of a couple days and felt it served well as a good enough education for my needs. Nothing terribly shocking, but understanding enough that eventually got me over my personal concerns with low interest rates. At the same time, I'm sure there are plenty similar ones you can find free in a library.

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Bother-Bonds-All-Weather-Independence-ebook/dp/B00PL7WS16/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1524769112&sr=8-7&keywords=bonds