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.

Inequality Might Be Going Down Now | The Mindset That Brings Unlimited Willpower | Seven Ways To Make the Most Of Your Time | Two Lifestyles Table (from Huberman Article) | How Dividends Juice Your Returns in the Stock Market

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.

Six New Studies That Can Help You Rediscover Gratitude | Happy Talk | Partisans Agree: Time With Family and Friends is Meaningful and Fulfilling | The 5-Hour Rule: How To Turn a Wasted Day Into a Successful One | Three Reasons Why Indexing Works and Continues to Grow

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.

Expectations and Reality | Life is Too Short? Bereaved Managers and Investment Decisions | Daily Meditation May Work As Well As a Popular Drug to Calm Anxiety, Study Finds | Rupert Murdoch Knees Trump in The Balls While He’s Doubled Over Coughing Up Blood | Ballerina Music Box

SVP Jonathan DeYoe joined the Smart Money Circle podcast to discuss how wellness and spirituality tie into investing your money and happiness.

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.”

The Difference Between Amateurs & Professionals | Envy, the Happiness Killer | 5 Meditations to Calm Your Anxious Mind | How to Stop Overthinking Your Relationship | 12 Lessons on Money and More From Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger

How to Get Comfortable With Uncertainty and Change | There is No Timeline to Grief | Why Nancy Pelosi Sabotaged Wildly Popular Bipartisan Legislation | Retirement Can Mean a Loss of Identity — How to Bring Happiness to Your Next Act | Tailoring Your Portfolio When One Size Doesn’t Fit All

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.

Fast Unicorns Frequently Fade | An Epidemic of Delusions | The Right Way to Be Introspective (Yes, There’s a Wrong Way) | An End to Doomerism | Why Saving Is More Important Than Investing

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.

The World is Awful. The World is Much Better. The World Can Be Much Better. | Incentives: The Most Powerful Force In The World | A Short Story of Men | How Do Americans Spend Their Money, By Generation? | Gardeners and Diners

Historical Roots of Economic Disparities for African-Americans | Your Explanations Are Not True | Validea: Market Valuation | Financial Bloodletting: Don’t Let This Happen to You | Tiresome Debates

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.

The World Really Is Getting Better | Does Mindfulness Get in the of Making Amends? | 11 Ways to Encourage Mindfulness for Kids | Passive vs. Active Investing: Why Passive Wins | New Study Shows 20 Years of Failure for Active Managers | Mindful Investing: Better Investing Outcomes; Less Suffering

The great companies of the US and the World are on sale. That sale may (or may not) get better. If it does get better, it won’t get that much better. There will be some point in the not-too-distant future where we look back at today – the September retest of the June low – and say, “I wish I would have invested then.”