Mindful Money Blog

Your financial road, like the rest of your life, is multi-dimensional. The path must traverse the many switchbacks of a steep and relentless climb. In financial terms, the difficulty of the climb is all about debt.

As we all know, life comes with a fair amount of challenges. Your car breaks down. A tree falls on your house. You lose your job. The proverbial s#!t happens. But none of it has to get in your way – not when you have an emergency fund.

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There is NO secret to building wealth. Contrary to popular opinion, the steps to growing wealth are not sexy or tricky or speculative. Nor do they require personal brilliance or constant hands-on management. What it takes to build wealth is within your power right now.

Financial security is not a commodity; it can’t be found in a product. It isn’t available for sale in any way. Financial security is a journey. It is a path of trade-offs, acceptance, self-reflection, and hope. Getting there will require some effort and no small amount of luck.

If you look hard enough, you can find stories that tell a contrasting and enduring narrative for what we truly need for a successful and meaningful life. Your story can do the same - but first, you have to know your heart. You must define what is worth seeking for you.

As I wrote this in the run-up to the holiday season, markets seemed to be on the mend from the bear that started January 3rd, the air was coming out of the inflation balloon, and talk of recession probabilities was the new crisis du jour (it ALWAYS has to be something). The biggest surprise to me is always that anyone is surprised by these things...

Doc G of the Earn & Invest Podcasts talks with Jonathan DeYoe of Mindful Money about how to be thoughtful about what our financial framework is meant to support. Jonathan takes us through his pillars of happiness and how to use them to create a financial plan that serves our unique goals in life.

To borrow from Churchill, “The balanced (stock/bond) portfolio is the worst form of investing known to man, except for all the other forms.” Those people who are suggesting – based on its immediate past 1-year performance – that the 60/40 portfolio is dead are probably trying to sell something that isn’t a balanced stock/bond portfolio.

For me, worrying isn’t just a sense of anxiety. It is a push to learn more. After I did some research and learned a little bit about how earthquakes work, I wasn’t worried about them anymore (or, at least, I worried less). Earthquakes and the fear of earthquakes are a pretty good stand-in for “market volatility.”

Stock selection is hard because leaders change hands. 25 years ago Apple was nearly bankrupt – and if it wasn’t for Microsoft’s last-minute investment, it would have gone under. Now it is the largest company in the world (by market cap). This is one reason that academics (and evidence-focused advisors like me) suggest that owning a broadly-diversified index of stocks in a low-cost vehicle like at ETF makes an enormous amount of sense.

In real estate investing, lack of financial literacy is deadly. Investors who don’t have a fundamental understanding of basic financial concepts like risk tolerance and return expectations are destined to make costly mistakes... or worse, to go bankrupt! But it's not all doom and gloom — financial literacy is something that can be learned.

Mindful Money - broadly sharing basic financial education and presenting the simple actions that enable and inspire wealth-building - is my "Second Mountain." This is the purpose of this reading list. These are the core books that have helped me establish my own set of financial beliefs and behaviors that can work for anyone who is climbing their own mountains.

When they were little, we paid for things for them, but they got used to hearing “No.” Kate was far better at this than I was. I always wanted to give them everything they wanted. So, I needed tools.

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Lots of things I write about have been subjects of academic study, so I can draw on formal, sometimes peer-reviewed research on the topic. This isn’t that kind of topic – the “research” is minimal to non-existent. That being said, I am happy to share three reasons I have seen it make sense to have a joint bank account between a parent and a teenage/young adult child.

You’ve heard me say it over and over… and over and over… and over and over again. Creating a retirement income that rises to match your rising cost of living and lasts the rest of your life, while at the same time creating a legacy that potentially lasts across generations, is possible – even for those who begin with very modest incomes. It requires three things: savings, equity ownership, and time.

We know – vividly – what has already happened. We can never know what will come next. The humble recognition of this truth should be the foundation of any long-term investment philosophy. The question is, “Given that we cannot know what comes next, how should we invest?”

I have been in financial services for over 2 decades, and there are 5 things I see (over and over) that take people away from their financial success. They are: Spend > Earn; Retire too early; Panic sell; Excited buy; No planning. We have designed two offerings to solve for these 5 mistakes.

These issues of “account minimums” and who has access to advice have been on my mind for years. They are the main drivers for both the book and the education courses. It was a conversation, about 6 months ago, with a business coach that helped the rest of my platform take shape.