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No matter how good the sale, you always walk out the store with less money.
FATHERHOOD WASN’T one of my life goals. I didn’t feel like I had a wonderful childhood, so I didn’t think I had much to offer my offspring that would help them to lead a wonderful life. If children happened, okay, but it was never a goal.
My first marriage ended because I placed money over fatherhood. I thought not having kids would speed my path to wealth. My wife disagreed—and walked out.
When I met my current wife,
AN ANCIENT FINANCIAL concept is gaining newfound popularity.
In his book Politics, Aristotle related a story about a fellow philosopher named Thales, who lived about 2,600 years ago. One winter, Thales made a prediction about the coming olive harvest. He felt that it was going to be a strong year. But because recent harvests had been weak, most people disagreed with him. To Thales, this meant opportunity. He approached the owners of olive presses in his town with a proposition.
I’VE BEEN HAVING DOUBTS about some of the financial decisions I’ve made. I don’t know if it has to do with age. They say you tend to lose confidence as you grow older. Life-altering events, such as the death of loved ones, health issues and retirement, can weigh heavily and sow doubt.
For instance, I’ve been thinking about whether I should have sold my condo in 2020, during the pandemic. If I’d kept it, it would be worth quite a bit today.
THOMAS JEFFERSON once said that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and the philosopher Socrates opined that the unexamined life isn’t worth living.
Although they were talking about political freedom and personal philosophy, respectively, Jefferson and Socrates could well have been discussing personal finance. One of the best ways to engage in financial vigilance and self-examination is to keep a daily financial journal.
I’ve kept a personal journal since I was 14 years old,
IT’S IMPORTANT TO BE familiar with what happens with Social Security benefits when someone dies. Otherwise, you may find yourself in a long, painstaking battle to get the payment to which your loved one was entitled. I found this out the hard way.
My father-in-law Bernard died in September 2015. My wife was his executor and the agent under his power of attorney (POA). But I’d earlier served as POA and executor for my mother,
I RECENTLY MENTIONED to my wife’s cousin that I’m taking required minimum distributions from my IRA. He won’t have to—because he doesn’t have an IRA. Instead, he keeps his car trunk full of cash.
He’s in the car business. He buys and fixes cars, all out of his mother’s two-car garage. He keeps cash to buy used cars at rock-bottom prices. People are willing to sell a car cheaper if they can get the cash immediately.
LAND VS. DWELLING. As you ponder real-estate returns, it helps to distinguish the dwelling from the land underneath. You can be fairly confident the land will appreciate over time. By contrast, the dwelling will deteriorate, requiring maintenance and occasional upgrades. But the dwelling also provides shelter—the key reason to own a home.
CHECK YOUR LIFE insurance coverage. Do you need more because you recently got married, had children or took out a mortgage? Could you ditch coverage because the kids have left home, the mortgage is paid off or you now have substantial savings? Many folks need heaps of coverage in their 30s but none in their 60s—a reason to favor term insurance.
NO. 53: BIG LOSSES devastate investment compounding. To grow wealthy over time, we should diversify broadly, including owning uncorrelated assets, so we earn healthy gains most years—and avoid big losses. The math of investment losses is brutal: Lose 25% and we need a 33% rebound to get back to even. Lose 50%? Now, we need a 100% gain to recover.
NO. 70: AS WE decide how much debt to take on and how much money to save, we should ask ourselves a key question: Will our future self be happy with the choices we make today?
ON THE SURFACE, Social Security seems straightforward: During our working years, we pay into the system. Then, when we’re older, the government sends a check every month for life.
But scratch the surface and you’ll find that Social Security offers a number of additional benefits. Among them: a benefit for spouses. This can be highly valuable, but the rules around it are complex and very specific. Consider, for example, the late talk show host Johnny Carson.
WE PUT OUR TWO KIDS through college using 529 plans—and I estimate the accounts easily added 10% to the value of our college savings, compared to what we would have accumulated if we’d invested through a regular taxable account. Yet only 37% of families use 529s to help pay for college, according to a 2021 survey by Sallie Mae.
Like an IRA, a 529 plan gives you a tax break for saving for a specific goal—but,
WE HEAR ABOUT highflying stocks and hotshot money managers, and it’s easy to imagine the streets of lower Manhattan are paved with gold. But the truth is a tad more mundane.
Want some reasonable assurance of investment success? We should shun the excitement of trying to pick winners and instead focus on more prosaic portfolio tweaks. The overriding goal: ensure the compounding of our investment dollars encounters as little friction as possible.
Minimizing this friction will,
THE FINANCIAL WORLD generates a lot of noise. As a financial planner, I see that every day. Being in my 20s, it’s fun to learn about new alternative investments or imagine getting rich quick thanks to one stock or following the advice of one social media post.
But I know that’s all it is—fun. Instead of imagining my way to wealth, I take control of my finances by creating rules to live by. Rules are driven by values.
SOCIALISM. IT’S A WORD that can make people on the far left swoon, as they imagine an egalitarian utopia, even while inciting those on the far right to mumble protective oaths like a medieval citizen seeing a sign of the devil. It’s also a word that Google Trends reports has had a surge in search-related interest since last December.
As competing visions of how to protect and enhance the American economic system vie for political popularity,
NO. 70: AS WE decide how much debt to take on and how much money to save, we should ask ourselves a key question: Will our future self be happy with the choices we make today?
LAND VS. DWELLING. As you ponder real-estate returns, it helps to distinguish the dwelling from the land underneath. You can be fairly confident the land will appreciate over time. By contrast, the dwelling will deteriorate, requiring maintenance and occasional upgrades. But the dwelling also provides shelter—the key reason to own a home.
CHECK YOUR LIFE insurance coverage. Do you need more because you recently got married, had children or took out a mortgage? Could you ditch coverage because the kids have left home, the mortgage is paid off or you now have substantial savings? Many folks need heaps of coverage in their 30s but none in their 60s—a reason to favor term insurance.
NO. 53: BIG LOSSES devastate investment compounding. To grow wealthy over time, we should diversify broadly, including owning uncorrelated assets, so we earn healthy gains most years—and avoid big losses. The math of investment losses is brutal: Lose 25% and we need a 33% rebound to get back to even. Lose 50%? Now, we need a 100% gain to recover.
ON THE SURFACE, Social Security seems straightforward: During our working years, we pay into the system. Then, when we’re older, the government sends a check every month for life.
But scratch the surface and you’ll find that Social Security offers a number of additional benefits. Among them: a benefit for spouses. This can be highly valuable, but the rules around it are complex and very specific. Consider, for example, the late talk show host Johnny Carson.
WE PUT OUR TWO KIDS through college using 529 plans—and I estimate the accounts easily added 10% to the value of our college savings, compared to what we would have accumulated if we’d invested through a regular taxable account. Yet only 37% of families use 529s to help pay for college, according to a 2021 survey by Sallie Mae.
Like an IRA, a 529 plan gives you a tax break for saving for a specific goal—but,
WE HEAR ABOUT highflying stocks and hotshot money managers, and it’s easy to imagine the streets of lower Manhattan are paved with gold. But the truth is a tad more mundane.
Want some reasonable assurance of investment success? We should shun the excitement of trying to pick winners and instead focus on more prosaic portfolio tweaks. The overriding goal: ensure the compounding of our investment dollars encounters as little friction as possible.
Minimizing this friction will,
THE FINANCIAL WORLD generates a lot of noise. As a financial planner, I see that every day. Being in my 20s, it’s fun to learn about new alternative investments or imagine getting rich quick thanks to one stock or following the advice of one social media post.
But I know that’s all it is—fun. Instead of imagining my way to wealth, I take control of my finances by creating rules to live by. Rules are driven by values.
SOCIALISM. IT’S A WORD that can make people on the far left swoon, as they imagine an egalitarian utopia, even while inciting those on the far right to mumble protective oaths like a medieval citizen seeing a sign of the devil. It’s also a word that Google Trends reports has had a surge in search-related interest since last December.
As competing visions of how to protect and enhance the American economic system vie for political popularity,
Paradox of choice. What to do, what to do?
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WSJ Article by Jonathan
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