A little over two years ago, I published Just Keep Buying: Proven ways to save money and build your wealth. Back then, it looked like my timing couldn't have been worse. The S&P 500 was 8% off its highs and sentiment was deteriorating by the day. When the market reached its lows in October 2022, U.S. stocks were down nearly 25% and all of my haters made sure to remind me of it. They said things like: "I've just kept buying and gotten poorer following this book's advice." "Of course he published a book called 'Just Keep Buying' after a 10 year bull market." "Now do Japan." The last comment ..read more

One of the biggest problems people have when it comes to money is figuring out what to do with it and when. Should you save up an emergency fund or pay off your debt first? Should you max out your 401(k) or invest more into your taxable brokerage account? Is it better to pay off your home early or invest your excess savings in stocks? While there is no right answer to these questions, having a financial philosophy to rely upon when thinking about them is essential. This is what we will discuss in this post—where you should put your money, or what some have called the "financial order of o ..read more

Let me tell you a story about two of my friends, Adam and Benjamin (not their real names).  Adam grew up under some difficult circumstances. His parents filed for bankruptcy when he was just five years old and divorced shortly thereafter. In the years that followed, Adam's life was a bit turbulent. He would bounce around between different schools and different condominiums where he lived with his mother, sister, and whoever his mother was dating at the time. Though his living situation at home wasn't unbearable, there wasn't much money to go around. His lowest point was living in a cockro ..read more

Buying a home is often considered the biggest financial decision people make in their lives. As a result, it makes sense as to ask yourself whether buying is the right choice when compared with renting. Unfortunately, this decision can easily get bogged down with the many assumptions and costs that go into renting vs. buying a home. This post aims to fix this by simplifying the decision process to focus on the few key variables that will make a difference in the long run. By the end of this article, you'll have a clearer understanding of which factors to consider when answering the question ..read more

In today's fast-paced environment, it can feel like there's never enough time to accomplish all of our goals. Between career obligations, socializing with friends and family, and our own personal development, optimizing how we use our time seems to be the challenge of the 21st century. I am no productivity guru, but I've spent a considerable amount of time studying how people get things done and how people manage their time. Unfortunately, I haven't found a silver bullet. There is no single way that will allow you to get more done overnight. However, there are a few frameworks I've found that ..read more

Bitcoin hit a new all-time high last week and I felt nothing. No FOMO. No regrets. Nada. I still own more than half a Bitcoin, but my thinking on crypto has changed quite a bit since Bitcoin was last at $69,000. Back in November 2021, I was skeptical yet enthralled by what crypto had to offer. Though I didn't think crypto would overthrow the legacy financial system, I did believe that it would overturn something in the world of finance. As I stated: Cryptoland won’t solve all of our problems, but it will solve some of them. Figuring out which ones is the next step in the journey. Unfortunately ..read more

How many times have you heard something like this: If you start saving $300 a month at age 25, by the time you're 60 you'll be a millionaire. While not technically false (assuming you could earn a 9.5% return each and every year), such statements make it seem as if it's easy to become a millionaire. They imply that anyone can do it. Unfortunately, these thought experiments rely on two big assumptions: (1) what you save over time doesn't change, and (2) your rate of return is high and consistent every year. However, we know that both of these are empirically false. Incomes (on average) tend to ..read more

One of the most common questions I get asked when it comes to which kinds of stock ETFs/mutual funds to invest in is: What do you think about dividend paying ETFs? After all, if dividends are just profits paid from a company to its shareholders, then those companies that pay more in dividends should be better than those that pay less (or none at all), right? Unfortunately, it's not that simple. While it might seem straightforward to assume that companies paying higher dividends are better investments, this view overlooks some key changes in corporate strategy and market composition that have o ..read more

I recently read this New York Magazine article written by Reeves Wiedman (his name will be relevant in a moment) on hedge fund manager Bill Ackman. The article discusses Ackman's life and his recent criticisms of Harvard University, but what caught my eye was the following passage about Ackman: Ackman believes that our lives are often fated from birth. “I have a view that people become their names,” he told me. “Like, I’ve met people named Hamburger that own McDonald’s franchises.” We’d been talking for nearly an hour and a half when Ackman asked me what my name was, hoping to offer a dia ..read more

I've always liked Tony Robbins, so when I heard he had a new financial book coming out, I was intrigued. Robbins' doesn't have a traditional financial background, but he did write Money: Master the Game, which I enjoyed, and also has access to some of the brightest financial minds in the world. He admits that this access is what has made him so successful financially in the opening chapter of his latest book, The Holy Grail of Investing, which comes out today. The good news is that I was able to get my hands on an early copy of The Holy Grail of Investing. The bad news is that this is where th ..read more