The Simple Path To Contentment (with JL Collins)

Summary

The Stacking Benjamins Show
Episode: The Simple Path To Contentment (with JL Collins)
Release Date: May 21, 2025
Hosts: Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, and Neighbor Doug
Guest: J.L. Collins, Author of Simple Path to Wealth

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Introduction to J.L. Collins and Simple Path to Wealth

The episode kicks off with the enthusiastic introduction of J.L. Collins, the acclaimed author of Simple Path to Wealth. Celebrating the book’s 10th anniversary, the hosts express their admiration for Collins' work, highlighting its impact on the financial independence (FI) community.

Doug:
“J.L. Collins is here. He wrote Simple Path to Wealth. It's one of our favorite books. You're going to love it.”
[01:58]

The Essence of Financial Independence

Collins delves into the foundational principles of his book, emphasizing that financial independence is more about mindset and managing needs than merely accumulating wealth. He shares a poignant parable from his book about a monk and a minister, illustrating the true essence of freedom.

J.L. Collins:
“Reaching financial independence isn't just about having a certain amount of money. It's however much money you have against your needs or what you perceive your needs are. It's that balance.”
[10:18]

Collins’ Personal Journey to FI

J.L. Collins recounts his journey toward financial independence, which began unintentionally. In the mid-1970s, during a period of economic stagnation, Collins saved half of his $10,000 annual income. This disciplined approach allowed him to accumulate enough savings to travel Europe for six weeks, demonstrating the power of FU money—a concept that provides financial security and autonomy.

J.L. Collins:
“It's the power of FU money. You save aggressively, live below your means, and give yourself the freedom to make life choices without financial constraints.”
[24:06]

Key Principles for Building Wealth

Collins outlines three main pillars that contributed to his financial success:

1. Unwavering 50% Savings Rate:
   Saving half of his income allowed him to amass significant wealth over time.

2. Avoiding Debt:
   Collins stresses the importance of eliminating debt to ensure financial freedom.

3. Embracing Index Investing:
   Following the principles perfected by Jack Bogle, Collins advocates for low-cost index fund investing as a reliable path to wealth.

J.L. Collins:
“If you follow these three things, not only will you be rich financially, but you'll have a much richer life.”
[25:09]

Debunking Common Financial Myths

The conversation highlights misconceptions about spending and happiness. Collins argues that true contentment doesn't stem from excessive spending but from aligning expenditures with genuine needs and values.

J.L. Collins:
“Anybody who thinks that spending money is going to make them happy, by definition is going to be severely disappointed.”
[47:34]

Navigating Market Volatility and Tariffs

Amid discussions about recent tariff announcements and their potential impact on the market, Collins emphasizes the importance of maintaining a long-term investment perspective. He reassures listeners that market downturns are typically temporary and that staying the course is essential for building wealth.

J.L. Collins:
“The market will recover and it will go on to greater heights. You just have to stay the course and keep investing.”
[34:35]
Joe Saul-Sehy:
“It is not different at all. The market will recover and it will go on to greater heights.”
[34:35]

Effective Withdrawal Strategies for FI

Addressing listeners in the withdrawal phase, Collins shares his straightforward strategy:

1. Dividends and Interest:
   Utilize dividends from bond and stock funds as a primary income source.

2. Selling Shares as Needed:
   Sell a minimal number of shares to cover any additional required funds, ensuring that withdrawals align with market conditions without causing undue stress.

J.L. Collins:
“It's very simple for me. Take your dividends and interest first, then sell shares as needed to reach your withdrawal target.”
[36:27]

Listener Q&A: Portfolio Allocation

A listener named Mike poses a question about portfolio allocation, specifically regarding a 30% allocation to small-cap value stocks. Both hosts and Collins provide insights:

Joe Saul-Sehy:
“You have to protect against horizon risk by capping individual asset classes to ensure enough diversification.”
[66:11]

OG:
“Any singular idea, like small-cap value or tech-focused investments, can lead to significant volatility. Diversification is key.”
[60:15]

Collins reinforces the importance of diversifying across multiple asset classes to balance risk and return effectively.

J.L. Collins:
“If you follow these strategies, you are likely to be fine. Don't overcomplicate your portfolio with arbitrary constraints.”
[62:50]

Practical Advice for New Investors and Graduates

The hosts share valuable tips for recent graduates and individuals new to investing:

• Start Early:
  Begin contributing to retirement accounts like 401(k)s from day one.

• Save Aggressively:
  Allocate a significant portion of your income to savings and investments.

• Track Your Net Worth:
  Regularly monitor your financial progress to stay motivated and informed.

OG:
“Focus on cash flow and a high savings percentage. Don’t get bogged down by tracking net worth too frequently early on.”
[78:09]

Joe Saul-Sehy:
“Start your 401(k) on the first day, increase your contributions annually, and build your emergency fund early.”
[76:33]

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

As the episode wraps up, the hosts reiterate the simplicity and effectiveness of Collins' principles. They emphasize the importance of living below one's means, investing wisely, and maintaining a disciplined approach to achieve financial independence and contentment.

Doug:
“Keeping it simple is the best beginning you can have in any portfolio. Spend your time learning to be happy on less money so you can enjoy whatever you want to spend.”
[82:30]

Joe Saul-Sehy:
“Don't overthink your approach to managing money. Follow the simple path and stay focused on your goals.”
[82:30]

---

Notable Quotes:

• J.L. Collins on Financial Independence:
  “Reaching financial independence isn't just about having a certain amount of money. It's however much money you have against your needs or what you perceive your needs are. It's that balance.”
  [10:18]

• J.L. Collins on Spending and Happiness:
  “Anybody who thinks that spending money is going to make them happy, by definition is going to be severely disappointed.”
  [47:34]

• Joe Saul-Sehy on Portfolio Management:
  “Start your 401(k) on the first day, increase your contributions annually, and build your emergency fund early.”
  [76:33]

• Doug on Simplicity in Investing:
  “Keeping it simple is the best beginning you can have in any portfolio. Spend your time learning to be happy on less money so you can enjoy whatever you want to spend.”
  [82:30]

---

Key Takeaways:

1. Mindset Over Money:
   Financial independence hinges more on managing needs and maintaining the right mindset than on sheer wealth accumulation.

2. Save Aggressively and Avoid Debt:
   High savings rates and debt avoidance are critical pillars for achieving financial freedom.

3. Index Investing:
   Embracing low-cost index funds is a reliable strategy for long-term wealth building.

4. Diversification and Risk Management:
   A diversified portfolio across multiple asset classes helps balance risk and return, safeguarding against market volatility.

5. Practical Withdrawal Strategies:
   Utilize dividends and thoughtfully sell shares to ensure a steady income stream during retirement without succumbing to panic selling.

6. Start Early and Stay Disciplined:
   Begin saving and investing as early as possible, maintain disciplined contributions, and avoid overcomplicating investment strategies.

---

This episode of The Stacking Benjamins Show offers a comprehensive exploration of J.L. Collins' approach to financial independence, blending practical advice with philosophical insights to guide listeners toward a balanced and contented financial life.

Transcript

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

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[J.L. Collins]

And now we're pleased to bring you our feature presentation.

[Doug]

Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug and mom set out to find China. Joe and OG are in their Sunday best and everyone's all smiles because we welcome the author behind one of our favorite books about money. And yes, it's Neighbor Doug's Guide to Facebook Marketplace. I'm just kidding.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It's J.L.

[Doug]

Collins, everybody. J.L. collins is here. He wrote Simple Path to Wealth. It's one of our favorite books. You're going to love it. Plus, you know my thing about Facebook Marketplace. Anyway, we'll also answer questions from Mike, who's wondering about the efficient frontier. We'll talk modern portfolio theory and good money management in the second half of today's show. Of course, halfway through this extravaganza, I'll be sure and carefully apply the icing on this podcast goodness with my well reasoned and informative trivia. Joe's shaking his head when I say well reasoned.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Like what? And finally.

[Doug]

And now, two guys we trust with money talk, but who still can't be trusted around the frosted cookies. Upstairs, it's Joe and. Oh, jj. JJ.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I think, Doug, we've made a pact, haven't we? You take the cookie, I take the frosting. Is that the pact?

[OG]

No.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

You don't want the cookie.

[Doug]

Well, yeah, but I'm not. We're not sharing like that? No.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, no.

[Doug]

I mean, look, I'm gonna scrape the frosting off and throw it to the side. What you do with it, I don't care.

[OG]

But I'm not like, we were just having this discussion, my wife and I. Cause she made a cake for Alex's birthday, and it had so much frosting on it. I was like, why do you. Why is there so much frosting on this? And she's like, everybody loves frosting. Like, you don't say, hey, what kind of frosting do you want for your birthday? You say, what kind of cake do you want? The main event is cake, and it's okay to not even have.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I think cake is an excuse to eat frosting.

[OG]

Frosting is so flipping.

[Doug]

OG And I are on the same page in this. I don't like a lot of frosting.

[OG]

I don't like any frosting. I will scoop it off of everything.

[Doug]

I will usually scrape off the thick parts, and it's enough for me to have whatever the residual is when you take it off. And that middle layer of frosting, that just adds so it's not super dry. But that's all the frosting I want.

[OG]

Like, what kind of cake do you want for your. I just want a cupcake with no frosting.

[Doug]

That's called a muffin. No, it's a cake, and those are healthy. So you should be like, get the frosting off of a cupcake. It's a muffin, and we all know.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

You got to do.

[Doug]

Those are healthy.

[OG]

Take the frosting off. This is special frosting. It's got blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, fondant. And this took me forever to make. And, like, okay, great.

[J.L. Collins]

Wow.

[OG]

Still tastes like crap.

[Doug]

It's going in the garbage disposal, sweetheart.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Welcome to the frosting trauma podcast, everybody.

[OG]

Have you seen the bit from Parks and Rec where he's at the grocery store and the guy goes, would you like some vegan bacon? He's like, yes, please. And he takes it, just immediately throws it in the trash.

[Doug]

Right? So good.

[OG]

And then he keeps doing it. Like, that's what I do with frosting. Like, oh, oh, oh. It's a double. It's a double decker fondant frosting. Oh, right in the trash.

[Doug]

I'd like more, please.

[OG]

Yes, yes. How much more is there?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I don't know if you guys want to keep going or not, but believe it or not, Jail Collins is upstairs. Is that amazing? The J.L. collins from the Simple Path to Wealth. This gentleman wrote a book initially for his daughter. He didn't think that there was going to be. He didn't really think about the audience. They had an audience of one. And this book has been read by, I think, money geeks the world over talking about really reframing your life. This is a great time to talk about the simple path to wealth because of the fact that, you know, with all the graduations going on right now, it's a great way to start out. All this talk about, you know, starting out with a target date fund OG or starting out with a robo advisor, start out with very simple vtsax, shovel money in. And that's not all he talks about. We're gonna deep dive with JL Collins here in just a few minutes. But before we get to JL Collins, we have a couple of sponsors that make sure that we can keep on talking about frosting and you don't have to pay for any of that goodness or JL Collins. So we're going to hear from them. And then finally on the Stacky Benjamin show. I can't believe it took us this long to have J.L. collins on jail. Collins coming down to mom's basement. A sentence I've been wanting to say for a long, long time. Today's show is sponsored by Strawberry Me Stackers. All right, everybody, let's talk careers. You know, you work hard, you bring in a paycheck, maybe even contribute to your 401k, like a responsible adult gold star for you. But here's the thing. Making money is great, but making the right moves to actually grow your career and earn more. Are you doing that because, let's be honest, hoping your boss finally notices you and hands you a raise. That is not a plan. That is a gamble. And unless you're the type of person who gets excited about betting their retirement on meme stocks, you probably want a better strategy. I certainly do. I have a coach, Mary Lou, that I meet with every Monday morning, and Mary Lou and I lay out my week. We talk about doing the things that are important to my family, that are important for my health, and the things that are important for financial literacy and stacking Benjamins and the intersection of all those things. And that's where Strawberry me career coaching can help you. They'll match you with a certified career coach, somebody who knows how to help you get ahead. Like my coach helps me negotiate better pay and actually make smart money moves. So you're not leaving money on the table. You've heard me talk about this before. The key is to have people around you, smart people around you who hold you accountable to getting those things you say that you want for yourself. If you're anything like me, you've been meaning to quote, update your resume for like the last five years. I remember what Mary Lou said. Are we going to keep talking about this book or you finally going to write it? And I'm very proud of Stacked. But without Murray Lu, I would have never had Stacked. Your career is your biggest financial asset. It's time to start treating in that way. When I started treating it that way, things change. It can be the same for you. So here's the deal. Go to strawberry me. It's strawberry me stacking and you'll claim your 50 credit that strawberry Me Stacking. Because maximizing your earnings is just as important as maximizing your investments. Strawberry Me does not facilitate or provide healthcare services. Please consult with a healthcare professional. But guys, let's get smart people around us, shall we? Small business owners. State Farms there with small business insurance to fit your specific needs. Whether you're starting a new venture or growing an existing one. State Farm helps you choose the right coverage to protect what matters most. Working with a local State Farm agent helps you understand your coverage options. Offering local support to help you achieve your goals. Focus on turning your passion into a thriving business. Knowing your insurance can change as your business grows. State Farm here to help you succeed with your business. Like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. And I'm super happy we've got this. It's about damn time we got him here. JL Collins coming down the stairs to mom's basement.

[J.L. Collins]

It's about damn time I got to see this basement I've been hearing about.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah. And it's wonderful, isn't it? It's just gorgeous.

[J.L. Collins]

It is everything I hoped it would be. Before we started recording, you mentioned that we had met years ago at. @ Fincon and I was giving you a hard time that, oh, I guess I didn't impress you enough back then that you had me to the basement. But I'm glad I've. I'm glad I've made it.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

We saved the best for later.

[J.L. Collins]

I could save the best.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

We. We have to wait to get the audience for the J.L. collins experience, right?

[J.L. Collins]

There you go.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

But it is strange. I mean the reason why we're. We're finally meeting JL is that 10 year anniversary. Like, can you. Can you believe 10 years since simple Path to Wealth came out.

[J.L. Collins]

I'm stunned. Time flies. And I would kill to be that age again, by the way.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

But me too.

[J.L. Collins]

Yeah, but I'm Also stunned at how well it's done, how well it's been received. You know, I wrote this book for one person, my daughter. And I'm grateful to say that she finally got it and embraced it and it's made a difference in her life. But I've always been kind of amazed that it's resonated with so many other people around the world. I'm gratified, but I just never expected it.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, I was telling you, I go on stages, and I was just at UC Santa Barbara, and every time I talk to a college student. Don't start with the target, Avon. Start here. Start. Start with this. But you know what's funny about the book, though, JL Is that you know people that haven't read it. Of course, you're known as Mr. You can get by on One Fund. But that's not really what Simple Path is about. I mean, you don't start there. You start with a parable about these two guys about the monk and the minister. And I think that's kind of the tone of the entire book.

[J.L. Collins]

Well, that's the reason the book starts with that parable. And just for those who haven't read the book, the parable goes, they're these two boyhood friends, and they grow up and go in their separate directions. And one becomes a very prominent, wealthy minister to the king, and the other becomes a humble monk who wanders around with his begging bowl. And at one point, they run into each other as adults, and they're catching up a little bit. And the king's minister sort of takes pity on his shabby monk friend, and he says to him, you know, if you could learn to cater to the king, you wouldn't have to live on rice and beans. To which the monk replies, if you could learn to live on rice and beans, you wouldn't have to cater to the king. And to me, that's sort of the essence of freedom. I mean, money helps, but your mindset helps even more. And reaching financial independence isn't just about having a certain amount of money. It's however much money you have against your needs or what you perceive your needs are. It's that balance. So the lower your needs, the less money you need.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Just revisiting this book, I also look at second layers and third layers, and I think there's even a deeper layer, JL that resonates not just here, but throughout a lot of your work, which is this idea of because the monk can live on very little. I feel like every single thing that happens then in the monk's life, you've gratitude for, like, this idea of being grateful for the little things. And appreciating the little things is much easier to do when you can subsist on very little than if you need to be at the Ritz Carlton to make you happy.

[J.L. Collins]

You know, I think that's a great point. And one of the things that I've noticed in the FI community in recent years is there is kind of this drumbeat that once you achieve financial independence or even when you're on the way to achieving financial independence, stop being frugal. Spend the money. Spend the money. You know, I have an issue with that. I mean, my first issue is the idea that you can't be happy. You can't enjoy life without spending money, and that spending money leads to happiness because it simply doesn't. Now, to be clear, if I'm looking at somebody or talking to somebody who is financially independent and there are things that they would like to have that they would like to buy that would make their lives better, and they are not spending the money out of fear or old habits, then absolutely, I think that's a problem. Spend the money. My wife and I do that. I fly first class, for instance, because flying first class makes flying slightly less awful. Okay, only slightly.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

But it does make it warm, nuts, change the game.

[J.L. Collins]

It makes it slightly less awful. And I can easily afford to do that at this stage of my life. But on the other hand, I don't drive a luxury car, which I could also easily afford. Why don't I drive a luxury car? Because luxury cars today is a matter of having lots and lots of gadgets. You know, in the old days, it was a matter of better engineering, better materials, better finishes, better quality. But that's not true today. It's all gadgets. And I have an aversion to gadgets. So when I buy a car, I buy a very modest model. Well, I drive a Subaru Forester, and I buy the cheapest, lowest spec in the range simply because it has less of the crap on it that I don't want.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Is that funny? It isn't about the money at all. No, it's about buying what you want, which is, I want less technology in this vehicle.

[J.L. Collins]

Exactly. And I frequently thought, you know, I'm at an age where I'm not collecting Social Security, which turns out to be surprisingly generous. Much, much more generous than I thought it would be. My wife and I stripped out the travel that we do, and we don't do so much of it anymore. Simply because it doesn't intrigue us. But if we stripped out that and a couple of other things and we wound up at the finish line with the paid off house that we do have and just Social Security, we'd be fine. I mean, we'd have a few less things, but would make us unhappy. So there you go.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I think that for a lot of people, when they hear about you, if they've never heard you before, if they've never read the Simple Path or any of your other works, that they don't realize that this finish line of financial independence that we saw in the early days of the hardcore financial independence jail people that were rice and beans until they, quote, got there. And then to your point, there's going to be unicorns and rainbows and sadly, I still show up and I'm the same miserable person. So nothing changes when I get there. But what they don't realize is this is not about retirement at all. And that literally is how you start the book. This is not about retirement for you. You write that you were intrigued by. I don't. Was it a book? Was it. It was a book or a movie? I don't remember.

[J.L. Collins]

Well, would you be thinking of how I found freedom in an unfree world?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It was a book called Noble House.

[J.L. Collins]

Oh, Noble. Well, that's where I first came across the term FU money.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yes, yes, you were inspired. Because truly, FU money is several milestones below financial freedom forever. It's just enough financial freedom for tomorrow, for today, for.

[J.L. Collins]

Well, to be clear, different people define it differently. The way you just defined it is the way I define it. But I have heard lots of people define FU money as exactly the same as being financially independent. But in my view, and evidently in yours, FU money is the transition period, if you will. Right? So from the moment you start saving and investing, you have a little bit of FU money. And of course, the more you have, the more power you create. And then when you get to that point where your investments are throwing off enough to supply all of your needs and then maybe a little more, well, that's at the point you're financially independent. But when I started this journey, I had no concept of financial independence. You know, there was no Internet. I didn't hear about financial independence actually until after I started writing my own blog in 2011. So the idea of retiring early, frankly, never occurred to me. I, when I first realized that I had enough money that was paying all of my expenses was throughout my career, I was taking a sabbatical away from work. It was Like a five year period, the longest I ever did, and I was in the middle of it. My wife also had stopped working for a variety of reasons. And at the end of every year, and this is when I was still doing things by hand, you know, before computers, at least before computers for me, I totaled things up at the end of, I think it was the third year and I noticed something remarkable. And that was that we were living in the same house, eating the same food, spending the same amount of money. And at the end of the year, I had more money than I started with. And I knew something remarkable had happened. Right. And then I got curious and I went back and I looked at the year before and I hadn't noticed, but that was true the year before and the year before that. And I thought sort of, this is a little embarrassing to admit. I thought briefly, well, this is kind of remarkable. And then I went on with my life without thinking about it again. It never occurred to me that this meant you never have to work again. I mean, I, you know, and sometimes I wonder what I would have done if it had occurred to me if I would have done things differently. But I always enjoyed working and so I don't know that I would have.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I love that. I love the. Oh my goodness, I'm financially independent jail, but, but I love that for our younger stackers out there, I love. So you've your first job and the way you write it is you had made 10,000 and you say $5,000 of that, which is kick ass. And you go to your boss and you tell them, yeah, I want to take a couple months off. I could just imagine one of my interns here, like coming up to me and going, yeah, I want to take, I want to take a couple months off. Like this, to me, shows me that Even if you're 25, a little bit of money can be fu. Money.

[J.L. Collins]

Oh yeah.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Do you mind telling the rest of that story about first job?

[J.L. Collins]

Sure. So first of all, because it's relevant, you have to realize this was 1975. The idea of taking sabbaticals or taking any extra time off beyond the normal two weeks was just unheard of, not happening. Nobody even broached the question, as far, at least as far as I know. And when I got out of College, which was 1972, it was bad economic time. I mean, most people probably don't, listening to us, don't realize that was the year of stagflation, which lasted for a decade.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Were we at lines at the gas pump yet?

[J.L. Collins]

That was 74 later. Yeah, yeah, that was the Arab oil embargo. Yeah, yeah. So that was yet to come.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah. It didn't get any better, the 70s, right?

[J.L. Collins]

Well, yeah, it got. Eventually it got better. But when I graduated, was sort of ugly, getting uglier. But it took me two years to get my first professional job. I was doing landscape work to keep body and soul together. So I liked this. It was in publishing, which is where I spent my career, and I really liked the job. And they paid me $10,000 a year, which, adjusted for inflation is, I don't know, maybe 50,000 equivalent today. And I looked around and I thought, well, you know, I wanted to have the security that having extra money would provide. I didn't know the term FU money at the time. So I kind of arbitrarily said, you know what? I'm going to save half of my income because I knew I could live on $5,000 a year. In fact, $5,000 was a whole lot more than I'd been living on doing landscaping, a whole lot more than I've been living on in college. So that was a big lifestyle improvement for me. So that's what I did. And then after a couple of years, I. I was well established in the job. They like me, I like them. And I had accumulated this $5,000 you mentioned. And in those days, that was enough to go to Europe for a year. And so I was thinking, do I want to quit this job that was hard to get that I really like and go bum around Europe for a year, or do I want to just state what I'm doing? And at one point I came across a special airfare from. I forget which airline it was, but it was a four month period. If you left on a certain date and came back on a certain date in four months, it was like a really cheap airfare. Well, that's kind of a compromise. So I went to my boss and I said, I'd like to disappear for four months. Do you mind if I do that? And then I'll come back to work. His name was Carl. He's a very nice older gentleman. And he looked at me like I had two heads.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I was saying, carl's thinking, the balls on this kid.

[J.L. Collins]

Well, or the lack of sense or something. I didn't realize we hired somebody who was sort of mentally deficient. I mean, he was kind of stunned, you know, and so he said no. And in those days, I had no idea things could be negotiated. So I said, okay. And I went back to my office and I Said, well, now I have a decision to make. Do I quit or go to Europe or do I stay? And I wrestled with that for about a week, and I finally decided, you know what? I really want to go to Europe. So a week later, I went into Carl's office and I resigned. Again, no animosity here. And this was not a negotiating tactic on my part because I didn't even think that way. He said, well, why are you resigning? And I said, well, you know, I really want to go to Europe, and I think I'm going to do that for a year. And he said, well, wait a second. He said, don't do anything hasty. He said, this was a very small company, by the way. He said, let me. Let me talk to the owner. And Carl was the president of the company. So I. Now I. It's my turn to be stunned, right? And I said, well, of course, sure. And I go back to my office, and a couple days later, Clark, Carl calls me into his and he says, if you can promise us you'll be back after four months, you know, we'll go ahead and do that, but what we'd really like to do is, is offer you a month and, and make that every year. And I said, well, how about six weeks for the first year? Because now I'm learning that these things could be negotiated, right. I'm slow, but I'm not entirely stupid. And he said, sure, absolutely. This was only from his point of view, instead of four months is only six weeks. And so then, you know, I got a month off going forward. And the six weeks I spent riding my bicycle around Ireland and Wales last week in London and, and the following year, I bummed around Greece for a month. So, yeah, it was a nice compromise. Power of FU Money.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

We're headed to Greece this summer.

[J.L. Collins]

Ah, it's wonderful.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I can't wait to go. Never been. But I love that point, though, because I think people are looking at this finish line. And, you know, people fight me on emergency funds, on cash reserves. OG and I, they're always like, well, I got credit cards. I don't need an emergency fund. I'm like, oh, my goodness. If you just have this money in the bank, like the leverage you had already, you can not only leverage that, you can leverage your insurance policies by raising your deductibles if you choose. Obviously, that's money that's going to come out of your pocket, but you could start insuring yourself. You can bet on yourself more. You can take sabbaticals. You can do so many Things, it's incredible. You, you write that there were three big linchpins to your success. You write you made a ton of mistakes, but because you've never wavered on these three, you were fine. Which also gives us confidence because we all make mistakes. But number one is are unwavering 50% savings rate. Second, avoiding debt, never had a car payment ever. And finally, embracing the indexing lessons Jack Bogle perfected decades ago. Those three things, it's not rocket science. Jail.

[J.L. Collins]

That's it. And if you follow those three things, not only will you be rich financially, but you'll have a much richer life, as you just alluded to. Because when you have these financial resources, when you have the fu. Money and ultimately financial independence, just so many more avenues are open to you, so many more choices are open. Your life just has so many more opportunities available when you have that kind of freedom and it just makes it for a richer life. Which of course is the subtitle of the book.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I'm focusing on some of these things because of the fact that everybody, I think, that knows you knows the investing part of the book. Which is funny because you don't even begin with investing, you began with debt. You're writing this to your daughter. Why do you begin the book really hammering and talking about debt first before you get into investing or lifestyle stuff?

[J.L. Collins]

I guess basically because you will never be financially independent if you carry debt. Debt is. My friend, Mr. Money Mustache says it's like having your hair on fire. And I think that's not strong enough. I mean, debt is a ball and shame that you drag around with you. And what really disturbs me is that in our country, in our culture, the vast majority of Americans accept carrying debt is normal. This is just the way things are. Of course I've got credit card debt, of course I've got car payments. You can't live without doing these things. And that's just utter nonsense. It's like being covered with leeches and saying, well, I'm okay with being covered with these blood sucking leeches. And I say, no, that's not, you shouldn't be. You should take your sharpest knife out and start scraping the little blood suckers off. It's insane. Now the only debt I've personally ever had is a mortgage. And even that I'm a little, you know, there's this concept of good debt and mortgages fall into that. And I'm sort of okay with that until it becomes, well, you go to the bank or you go to the real estate agent and oh, we've run the numbers, we've looked at your income and you can afford to borrow this much and that means you can buy this much house. And people go out and do that and suddenly they're a slave to their mortgage and they're what's called house poor. You shouldn't be buying the most house that you can possibly afford. According to the real estate agent bank, you should be buying the least house that meets your needs if you're going to buy a house at all. But carrying debt, you know, car payments, I just, I remember my dad was the one who taught me this. He bought a new car every five years. Moment he bought that new car, he started making car payments to himself, to his bank account.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

He flipped it, he flipped it.

[J.L. Collins]

So while he was still making those car payments, he was being paid the interest rather than paying out the interest. And then at the end of five years, he would buy the next car for that with that cash. Now of course the obvious question becomes, well, how do I buy the first one? You know, and the answer to that is you buy. You buy a junker for as little money as possible and then you begin making payments for five years if you even care about a new car. A lot of people are more comfortable buying junkers because you know what, there's less to worry about. You don't care if they get dense and what have you. But if you want to buy a new car, that's the way to do it. So yeah, the idea that you have to go into debt to do these things is nonsense.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Some of the chains that you talk about, I think that people don't much like the fu. Money advantage begins early on. The downsides of debt, I think also begin early on. You write that number one, your lifestyle's diminished because you're paying for yesterday's fun. Second, you're enslaved to your income streams. You got to go to work the next day. You can't negotiate to take six weeks off or a month off every year or four months or anything else. Yeah, the stress because you owe somebody else. You get these same emotions as an addict. Shame, guilt, loneliness, self destructive pattern. Start, you start drinking or I mean it can be, it can be absolutely horrible. I think jail. This is a great time to have this conversation because as you and I record this a few before it goes live, tariffs were just introduced across the board no matter what you're purchasing. You and I have been around long enough to know the price of everything is going to go through the roof. Being able to understand your Expenses. To control your expenses. You talk about buying a new car. A new car. I saw a thing yesterday, that new Dodge Ram you're looking at could be, you know, $4,500 more money tomorrow than it was yesterday, even a US car. But let's talk about tariffs. Not. And the budget and debt, but tariffs and investing. This is certainly a time when a lot of our stackers are going, do I want to invest into this? Are we going to see companies make the money that they've made before? Because people are going to buy less stuff, so company stock is going to go lower. We need some framing here, Godfather. We need some. We need some help on the investing side. How do we think about this in our head so we have the courage to keep doing what we know is right.

[J.L. Collins]

Okay, so as we sit here recording today, looking at what the market was about to do as it opened, the tariffs were announced last night, and the market is set to take a major, major drop. What it does throughout the day, we don't know yet. Personally, I am very uncomfortable with the idea of tariffs. I'm very uncomfortable with them working out well for the economy, for the country in general. I could be wrong. I mean, there have been times in history where they have, but famously, they were one of the things that drove us into the Great depression in the 1930s. So it's kind of a scary thing. But one of my basic principles is that I have no idea what the short term future holds. I'm reminded of COVID When Covid happened, of course, the entire economy shut down for a period of time. There was a crash that took the market down about 33%, as I recall. And I was flooded with people saying, jl, we get it. That we should tie ourselves to the mast and that, you know, stock market plunges are a matter of course, they're part of the process, which is true. But this time is surely different, because this time it's a pandemic. This time people are dying. And my response to that is, everything that triggers a market collapse is something different, something unique. So, yes, every time is different. And it's certainly tragic that in this time people are dying. But in terms of the long term effect, it's not different at all. The market will recover and it will go on to greater heights. I had no idea, by the way, that the market would do that as quickly as it did very fast.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, and you saw some of the pros, JL I'm sure you read about this. Some of the pros got caught up in it. And lost not just their money, but lost money for clients that believed in them.

[J.L. Collins]

Oh, absolutely. It was stunning how quickly it turned around, and I certainly didn't anticipate that. In fact, I was anticipating it going lower. And I had planned to move all of my bonds into the stock market to take advantage of those lower prices. And I had arbitrarily set, I don't, I want to say, maybe a 40% decline to do that. And it just didn't get there. So I missed the opportunity. So back to today. You know, I wrote a blog post between the election and the inauguration saying that, you know, should you change anything with the Trump presidency, love him or loathe them, you know, and it seems to be it's one or the other these days. Trump is going to be a disruptive force. So should you go to cash? Should you do something like that? My answer in that blog post, which I stick by as we sit here today, is no, it doesn't change the way I invest. Now, I don't know where the market goes from here. It may very well get very ugly. And by the time this is released and people are listening, they'll have a better idea, I suppose. But I don't care, because it might not get ugly, but even if it gets ugly, it's going to recover. And that's the key thing. Whether the market makes you wealthy or leaves you bleeding at the side of the road depends not on what you do when it's going up, because that's easy, and that that makes you wealthier. It's what you do when it goes down. And if you panic and sell when it's down, it's very difficult to pull the trigger to get back in. Ask me how I know that's one of the many mistakes you alluded to that I've made in my past. So the best thing to do is stay the course, keep investing. If you're building your wealth, keep investing. You're now buying those shares on sale, and eventually, when it turns, you will be richly rewarded. And if someday, by the way, I'm wrong about that, things will have gone so bad that where your money is invested will no longer be an issue at all.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

That, I think for me, is the magic of investing in the total stock market, too, because all you're betting is that the economy is going to continue. That's the only bet. The only bet. And that's not a tough bet.

[J.L. Collins]

Yeah.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And to your point, if the economy goes FUBAR around the world, well, then your money didn't matter. Right, yeah. Better to find your cave.

[J.L. Collins]

You're basically betting on the future of the United States and frankly, the world. And frankly, the world because. Yes, because it is tied together, but specifically the United States. And there are people, by the way, who think that the country is going to hell in a handbasket and the end is here. And if you think that I don't agree with that and for lots of reasons we can discuss, but if you think that, obviously you don't want to follow my approach, because my approach is betting that the country is going to continue to do well and prosperity. And even if the country is not in as dominant a position as it's enjoyed for the last hundred years, that still doesn't mean we can't prosper and do well, especially as investors.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It's just calming hearing you talk about it. Even as a guy who's been there as long as I've been there. It's, it's, it's very calming. Maybe it's your vocal tenor jail. I don't know. Just talk us to sleep when everybody's nervous.

[J.L. Collins]

Yeah.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I want to focus. One more thing. You worry about a lot that people don't necessarily know you for, but I know that, you know, is important. Let's talk to some of our stackers that are in the withdrawal years. Right. They're withdrawing their money. How do you think about. You know, there's a lot of attention given to accumulating. There's a lot of attention given to where to stuff money away. But when you flip that switch and now you want to live on this, this mountain of cash that you've created, what's the J.L. collins strategy? What's the simple path to using your wealth mechanically?

[J.L. Collins]

It's very simple for me, at least. I made the shift index funds fairly late in life. That's, again, part of the mistakes that you were alluding to earlier. And so when I retired from my corporate job, which would have been 2011, and started living on the portfolio, then I simply looked at the various individual stocks that I still had, the cats, what I thought of as the cats and dogs, and I began selling them off. I mean, the first thing I did is if I had a gain in them, I sold them, and then I took the equivalent number that had losses in them and sold them to offset that gain. So it's not a taxable event if.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It was tax efficiency.

[J.L. Collins]

Yeah, right. And then if I had remaining stocks that had gains, I sold them a little bit at a time, and that's what I lived on. Initially, and then after that, mechanically. My daughter is a good example of this because she just turned 33 and she left her corporate job last fall and is now living on her portfolio. That means that she went from all VTSAX to adding VBTLX bonds. If I remember correctly, she got about 25% in bonds. She wants to pull 4% of that classic 4% rule thing. So the first thing you do is you say, okay, she's with Vanguard. But you can do this with any brokerage. You tell them, usually with a couple of clicks on your computer screen, I now want my dividends rather than reinvested, which they had been. I want my dividends and interest from the bond fund and from VTSax. I want you to send that now to my bank account. That's a certain amount of that 4%, depending on. Because bonds have more of an interest rate than the stocks do. And then you look at, okay, what is the shortfall between that and getting up to the 4%. And you are going to be selling shares probably of your vtsax, but sometimes your bonds, depending on what the market does, and keeping. Keeping that balance rate. And you just reach out to Vanguard either whenever you need the money and say, sell this many shares, or you can set it up to automatically sell a certain number of shares every month or every quarter, whatever you want to do. So that mechanically, it's really pretty simple. You just decide how much money you want to withdraw, take your dividends and interest first and then figure out how many shares you have to sell. I prefer just selling them when. When you need to, because your expenses are probably going to vary.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I like that, too, because I tend to think that we prognosticate too much on where the market's going to go and trying to time it out. We're always freaking wrong.

[J.L. Collins]

Yeah, well, right. Somebody once said, you know, the market will do whatever it needs to do to embarrass the most people, but especially Joe Salsi.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Hi.

[J.L. Collins]

Well, yeah, but you come in second to me, pal.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, let's talk about psychologically, though, because you know as well as anybody that second half of your strategy, selling off shares, is always the part that gives people a little bit of consternation. Right. Is my money going to last?

[J.L. Collins]

Yeah, we kind of talked about this a little bit already, but. But, you know, Vanguard and some of the other big brokerages have done some interesting research, and what they found is. And we, of course, are talking to a group of people who, like my daughter, may be early retired, but traditionally, of course, it's older people. And the brokerage firms found that older people actually tend not to spend their assets. They don't actually spend it down. So they continue. If they've accumulated large numbers of assets, they've been fairly frugal and they continue that lifestyle. As I alluded to earlier, in my mind, there's nothing wrong with that. If you are happy in living that lifestyle, you shouldn't feel compelled to go out and spend more money for the sake of spending more money. But if you've accumulated a fair amount of money and there are things that you would like to do, you would like to go to Greece, you would like to buy a new car, you would like to go on a cruise, you would like to pay for your grandchildren's college, whatever it might be, if there are those things and you are not doing those things because you are afraid, then I think you're making a mistake and you should loosen up. One of my favorite parts about the new edition of the book is I've included a case study about, and I was asked in an interview if Tom's a real guy. And he is a real guy.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, and Tom's a Detroit guy, so he's a buddy of mine.

[J.L. Collins]

Yeah, he's a Michigan guy, a Detroit guy, born and bred. Tom is a couple years older than I am, but he arrived at the age of 62. Multiple divorces, bankrupt, house foreclosed. Tom lost everything. The only thing he managed to hang on to is he had an anti gun collection and he managed to convince the court to let him keep that. But he, at an old age where he was essentially unemployed and he'd been an advertising agency guy, unemployable in that field, you know, he's unemployed, bankrupt, homeless. He rebuilt because like the monk in our story that we began with, it really doesn't take very much to hold body and soul together. So Tom started drawing his Social Security a little bit early. He had a small pension from one of the companies that he had worked for. And then he went and found himself a job on the. Was the Henry Ford Museum.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, nice.

[J.L. Collins]

Yeah, yeah. They have a farm attached to it.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah. The whole part of Greenfield Village.

[J.L. Collins]

Yeah, Greenfield Village. That's what I was trying to think of. And so Tom is now a. He works in the farm part of that. And you know, these are people who dress up in period clothes, they do actual farm work, but then they tell visitors how things were done in the old days. So Tom has a physical job, he's out in the fresh air, he's active, he's healthy. Tom's probably the single happiest human being I know. And Tom has had the worst financial experience of anybody I personally know, especially to have arrived at that age. I love that story because I think a lot of Americans should be worried, a whole lot more worried about their financial situation than they are. But the kind of people who are listening to us today are not those people. If you're listening to this podcast, if you're reading my book, then you already have the awareness that is gonna. Is gonna see you through to the end. You are gonna be fine. I mean, unless things completely collapse, in which case nobody's gonna be fine. You are going to be fine. So I would say kind of lighten up. You know, I. I listen to these conversations about, is 4% too much to withdraw? You know, maybe it should be 3.92%.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

People don't know this. If you're not watching this, I almost just spit up my. I did spit up my coffee. Happy when you said that. Oh, my God, you're about to do the rant. I don't want to stop you, but you're about to do the rant. That's a Jose LC High rant. So keep going, brother. Come on.

[J.L. Collins]

Okay, well, yeah, I mean, I. If your. Your audience has already heard it, I'll do the.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I don't know if they've heard it from me or not, but I love this rant. I think. I think I know where you're going, but let's go.

[J.L. Collins]

Well, here's my extra spin on it. So I. I don't know if this is true, but it should be true, right? Evidently, according to the story about four or five hundred years ago, theologians were having serious discussions, serious discussions, Deep discussions about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. That's kind of how I see. That's kind of how I see this debate as to whether it should be 2.98 or 3.62. You know, just stop. First of all, you're not going to set it and forget it. At any given withdrawal rate, you're going to pay attention because, yes, occasionally, 4% of the time, actually, statistics indicate 4% will not. Will not work. You'll run out of money. So you don't want that to happen. But the thing that people forget if you look at the Trinity study, is that a huge amount of the time, not only does your money last, it grows to enormous proportions. Right? Your million dollars that you started with is Suddenly, after spending 4% a year for 30 years is worth $15 million. So that's why I say never set it and forget it for two reasons you don't want. In the unlikely event that things really turn against you, you don't want to run out of money. You're going to want to adjust some things along the way. But also in the much more likely event that your money grows and grows, you're going to want to enjoy that money or at least have the potential to enjoy that money. So you need to pay attention and other than that, don't worry about it. Same thing I say, by the way, I'll have people who come to me and say, you know, JL, I'm in this soul crushing job. I've got a million dollars set aside, But I need $50,000 a year to live on. And so I'm grinding it out to add to the portfolio. So can I get up to that 50,000 at 4% because you know that's 5% on my millionaire. If you're in a soul crushing job, you know what, according to The Trinity study, 5%, it works about 87% of the time. I'm going to take those odds to get out of that soul crushing job every day of the week. And then the second question I say is, do you think that you could figure out a way as smart as you are and you got to be pretty smart and pretty well organized and have your act together to get to this point? Do you think you can figure out a way to accumulate, earn an extra 10 grand during the course of a year? I have yet to have anybody say no, I don't think I could do that, you know. So again, lighten up. You're probably almost certainly going to going to be fine if you're following this path. If you're listening to Stacking Benjamins, I.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Want to just put this on pause, come across the card table and give you a big giant hug. Man. I had this rant on afford anything. People were asking about withdrawal rates. I'm like, I hate that we start there in this commute. Why do we start there? Why do we start with what's going to make us happy, what's going to give us more life and then see if I can afford that. And to your point, the soul crushing job, why don't I get out of there? That's job. I feel like we over discuss money and we under appreciate the finite resource which is time. We don't appreciate the finite amount of time we have. And so we do this Stupidity to have more money.

[J.L. Collins]

Sorry, yeah, no, I 100% agree. And the only copyright caveat I put to that is sometimes when people shift the conversation to time, it becomes, we'll spend more money. Spend more money, because that's how you make yourself happy, right? And I, I object to that.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It's a lie. It's a lie.

[J.L. Collins]

Anybody who thinks that spending money is going to make them happy, by definition is going to be severely disappointed.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I heard a guy tell me once, J.L. he told me, he goes, you would see a lot more happy multimillionaires. And whenever you see these multimillionaires in the media, three quarters of them are still miserable. They got tons of money and they're still miserable.

[J.L. Collins]

Yeah. There is not an equivalent. Now, to be clear, there are times when buying things can make your life better. I alluded to, you know, I fly first class, not actually to make my life better, not flying at all would make my life better, but just to make the flying slightly less painful, not worse. But that does make it a little bit better. So, yeah, by all means, spend money to make your life better. But don't spend money for the sake of spending money thinking somehow it's going to make you happier just because some guru suggests that you should.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

The book is, of course, the Simple Path to Wealth. All new, updated. You heard about the case studies, the numbers have all been updated in the book. The links to resources have been everything. You worked on this project with your daughter jail, which I thought was pretty kick ass.

[J.L. Collins]

That was probably the best part about this project for me is. And by virtue of working on it with her, I mean, I knew that she was following the path, but I didn't realize how deeply she understood the work. And that was extraordinarily gratifying to come across. And it was, you know, it was a fun thing for my daughter and I have always had a close relationship and this was just one more great fun thing to do together. The other thing that's in the book that's new is an FAQ. Since the book came out originally 10 years ago, there of course, have been a lot of questions. And sure, this has given me an opportunity to address some of those. And some of the questions can at least simply refer back to sections of the book, but some of them are topics that are not covered in the narrative in the book. And that gives me an opportunity to do that.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, congratulations on the staying power of this work. Obviously, it's well deserved. We recommend it all the time and it's available Everywhere yesterday. Thank you so much for mentoring our Stackers today, jl. I super appreciate you and everything you do.

[J.L. Collins]

Hey, it's an honor to be here. I really appreciate the invitation. I had a blast. And I hope the people listening enjoy it too.

[Doug]

Hey there, Stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and, well, I mean, this is a little embarrassing, you know, while she covered it up. Well, Joe's mom thought our guest was Jackie Collins, not J.L. collins. Jackie Collins. When I said off and great book, I mean, you can. You can see how an older person might just hear what she wants to hear. What's amazing is how she'll totally miss us asking for more cake, but she can hear us complaining about having to wash windows from a mile away. We weren't talking about you, Ma.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

God.

[Doug]

We were kind of talking about her. See what I mean? Incredible. Modern science has yet to figure out how that works. But since she thought we were welcoming Jackie Collins today, let's ask about her famous sister. Who is Jackie Collins's famous sister? I'll be back right after I go change over the laundry. Joe's mom hears that buzzer loud and clear every time. Gotta stay ahead of her.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

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[J.L. Collins]

You know that feeling when someone shows.

[Doug]

Up for you just when you need it most?

[J.L. Collins]

That's what Uber is all about. Not just a ride or dinner at your door.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It's how Uber helps you show up for the moments that matter. Because showing up can turn a tough.

[J.L. Collins]

Day around or make a good one even better. Whatever it is, big or small, Uber is on the way.

[OG]

So you can be on yours.

[J.L. Collins]

Uber on our way.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

At Capella University.

[Doug]

You can learn at your own pace. With our Flexpath learning format.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Take one or two courses at a.

[J.L. Collins]

Time and complete as many as you.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Can in a 12 week billing session. With Flexpath, you can even finish the bachelor's degree you started in 22 months for $20,000. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University.

[Doug]

Learn more at capella.edu.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Fastest 25% of students. Cost varies by pace. Transfer credits and other factors.

[J.L. Collins]

Fees apply.

[Doug]

Hey there, stackers. I'm the guy who is as smooth as a good fabric softener. Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. Jackie Collins wrote a total of 32 novels, all of which appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. They sold all of them. All of them.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Holy.

[Doug]

Batting a thousand. She is. They sold more than 500 million copies cumulatively and have been translated into 40 languages. But she also had a very famous sister who was named. Well, that was today's trivia question, wasn't it? What was her name? It was none other than the actress Joan Collins. And now two guys who emulate Jackie Collins by bringing the romance to Money Talk.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

That kind of gives me the ick.

[Doug]

Joe and OG.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

This isn't romantic. This isn't our. I mean, welcome to the Money Romance podcast, right?

[Doug]

Racing while you're talking.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

No, welcome to the smooth sounds.

[Doug]

I think, I think OG would punch you in the throat if you tried to hug him while you talked. Just hug him, period. Let alone talk about money.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

What's that old show called? Love Lines. Love lines with Dr. Drew. Dr. Drew. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We could have like money Money Lines. Money Love Lines. That sounds weird.

[Doug]

You get all the prostitutes calling us.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It's got, got, got to be a name there. Big thanks to J.L. collins for stopping by. And you know what, OG keep it simple, man. Keep it simple. I think that book, it was been so popular for a reason. So many people when they first start out down this path of life, freak out about the budget, keep it simple, freak out about the lifestyle and keeping up with their, you know, the Joneses. Keep that simple. Don't worry about the Joneses. And I love that parable. You know, you can learn early on to live on less. And then everything that you buy is a gift or you live on. Learn to live on a bunch growing up. And then when you don't have a bunch, you work harder, you feel left out. You're like, whoa, wait a minute.

[OG]

Everything in moderation. How's that?

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

It is a great place to start. And if you've got a graduate in your life, you know, after you buy them, stacked Super Serious Guide to Modern Money Management. Go by Simple Passion, Wealth.

[Doug]

Shameless.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Wow, it's weird. It was sitting right here. The book was sitting right here. That's so weird. All right, you know what? Let's help out one of our stackers who said, you know what? I better call Saul. See? Hi and Og. This is the segment of the show where you help a stacker. Indeed. If you're in need and would like Og and I and even Doug to dive into your question, head to stackybenjamins.com voicemail and you can be as cool as Mike is because we're going to answer Mike's question right now. Hey, Joe and Og, this is Mike. Loved meeting you fellows in New York, though you were hard to recognize in person given how ridiculously handsome you guys are in real life. My question is about portfolio allocation. I use the portfolio visualizer tool. Attended Joe's tutorial, but I'm still unsure about the right approach. Even with a 30% max weight allocation to any given asset class, the results tell me I should be 30% small cap value for my long term growth portfolio. Is that too high? I feel like I can handle the wild roller coaster ride. I've heard Joe mention before that he uses eight asset classes in his portfolio, but I'm not sure which and in what percentages. It would be helpful for me to get your thoughts on the right amount to allocate to each asset class for long term growth. This is money 20 plus years out. So maybe 30% small cap value works. Oh, and Doug, you would have had my vote in 2028 until I heard you comparing a little cold weather to war ptsd.

[J.L. Collins]

Grow up here, bro.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Come on.

[Doug]

You just made the list, pal.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And Mike, by the way, I love, love Doug's eye roll when you call this ridiculously handsome. Like, that was a monster eye roll.

[Doug]

It's a good thing I was on mute because I gagged a little bit too from Doug.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

All right, Mike, I'm going to take the beginning part of this because you're asking specific questions to the training that I did. We'll link to that training in our show notes. But the quick answer is, I may have said I use eight. I actually use nine different asset classes when I'm filling that tool with what asset classes I want to use. And you can change these because like Og has said in the past, and we'll get his take here in just a minute. But if you can't control the volatility, which it sounds like you can, you can also put bonds in there, but I don't use bonds at all at this stage of my life. I'm using stock. So it is large growth, large value, mid growth, mid value, small growth, small value, international emerging markets, and REITs. So there's the nine asset classes that I use in mine. Now for some people, when they get into retirement and they want less volatility, they'll put in bonds. So then I'll add Treasuries, I'll put in tips, I'll put in corporate bonds, high yield bonds, even, you know, international bonds. Kind of give me some eye roll. But, but I may put that in. Notice you didn't hear commodities, you didn't hear gold in the allocation. Now remember when I said 30%? 30% is an artificial cap that I put on that tool because what that tool wants to do because of recency bias is give you a ton of large cap growth. It's going to tell you to put in 70% large cap. I don't know, a CFP, ACP and OG might disagree with me here. Who'd say, yeah, just, you know, when you're managing money beyond the simple path and you're getting more technical, that 70% is a good idea. You'll also see because of the recency bias of that tool, that you'll also see, you know, an under allocation to international stocks. And so I keep international in my portfolio and that's served me very well. So there's some things that I will do personally to change up what the tool does. But my goal overall, my goal overall is to use a mix of assets that's going to best get me to the goal. And I think og, let's turn away from his question about my tutorial more toward this 30% of your money in small company value stocks. You think that's too heavy?

[OG]

I think this is illustrating the problem with any worksheet, whether it's Excel, an asset allocation tool, ChatGPT. I mean, whatever you want to use. When you put in constraints, it's going to give you the result based on whatever period of time you feel like looking at. If you say, well, consider the last quarter century and give me a good.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Asset allocation versus consider the past four.

[OG]

Years or consider the last hundred years, I mean, it's going to be different. But this is a problem that I think with all of these tools is no matter what you put in, I can find something that's better. No matter what I put in, you can find something that's better 100% because you can say like, well, hold on a second. Why would you only cap it at 30% small cap? Why didn't you do 37% small cap value? Like what the heck, I got a better return. If you look at just different asset classes, Joe uses mid cap. I don't think that's necessary. The correlation of mid and small is the same. So just I take that out, but conceptually we're on the same page. But if you look at the historical data of big companies and small companies, you find that small companies do better and they have to, like they logically have to. And I've said this in different examples over time, but think about your brother in law who's starting an ice cream shop in the vacation town, right? And he says, hey, I think we're going to sell a lot of ice cream. I think we should be partners. I think I can get you, you know, 8 to 10% a year return. I just need 100 grand to get started. You go 8 to 10. What are you talking about? My VTSax account does 8 to 10. My S&P 500 fund does 8 to 10. He goes, okay, all right, all right, all right, I see what you're saying. I'll get you 12, you go 12. My small cap value does 13 and a half. Why would I, you know, the risk and the return is commensurate. The greater amount of risk that you have, the greater amount of return that you need to have in order for it to be worthwhile. So when you have a bunch of companies that are brand new and just getting started, even though they're publicly traded, they're still small companies, the return expectation has to be higher. Just makes sense. And when you've got companies that have been around a long time and you say, well, what kind of great returns can Procter and Gamble get me? You go, I mean, it's still going to grow, but they're not developing new toilet paper anytime soon or new dish soap. It's just, you know, they've been doing this for 100 years. So you get a return commensurate with that. You say, well, how about if I want my money sitting in a guaranteed location that I can access immediately without any constraints whatsoever and it's always going to be the same amount of money every time that's a different level of return. Right? That's your checking account. You get no return for that, basically. So you can see how this makes sense. So whatever constraints you put on are self inflicted. If you said, hey, hold on, what is the absolute best portfolio for the next 25 years based on 100 years worth of data. 100% small cap value. That's the best portfolio.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

That's the best portfolio. That's where I was going.

[OG]

100%. Buying your own company and running your own thing, that's probably better because you hire return potential 100%, create your own Amazon, 100% more risk, say. Well, hold on. All right, so why don't we all put our money in small cap value because every so often it goes down 2/3. So you put in a million bucks and you expect it to grow at 13% a year because that's what it's done for the last hundred years on average. But on occasion it's going to lose two thirds of its value. So you put in a million, it goes down to 300,000 and you stay in small cap value. This is what people miss on this whole piece about asset allocation and staying the course and all that sort of stuff. Just look at history. When you look at a single asset class or a single idea, like recently, technology as an example, AI all the rage. Is it up and coming? Yes. Is it providing growth? Absolutely. But it can also flatline for a long, long, long time. NASDAQ is a perfect example of this. In my career, in Joe's career, in Doug's career as a working man, the freaking NASDAQ went up to 5,000, lost 78% of its value and took 13 years to get back to even money. There is not a soul on this planet that, that put in a million bucks, watched it go down, watched it go down to 200,000.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Can you imagine that?

[OG]

And went, yeah, I'm just going to stay the course. And for 13 effing years said, I'm just going to stay the course. I'm just going to stay the course. I'm just going to stay the course. I'm just going to stay the course. While everything else, every other thing in the entire universe went up at 10% a year and your account went down 78% and then took 13 years to get back to even money. So that now you can have a good, you know, seven, eight year time period since whatever. I guess it's been 10 years now. But my point is, is that any singular idea whether it's small cap value, large cap tech inflation, bonds from two years ago, they're paying 9% inflation but dump all your money in I bonds. That's great. Yeah, it was great for six months. You're right. You know, then it stopped being great. I talk to people every week. I Look, and I go, do you still have your I bonds? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I still got my I bonds. Like, well they're paying 2 and money market, what are you doing? Paying 5. You know, keep up, keep up. We're on to the next thing. So anytime you put a constraint in, you're self identifying where your limitation is going to be. If you said, well, and I'm sure Joe, I didn't go to your training but I'm sure you didn't say allow 0 to 100% in every single asset class because it will go 50% small cap value, 50% emerging market value. Yeah, those are the biggest return opportunities.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Honestly, if you go far enough right on the efficient frontier, it just, it does what it, it is meant to do. How do you make more money? Diversify less. That's how you make more money. But what goes up as you get that higher return, the standard deviation goes up, meaning you start getting these incredible swings. This is the reason by the way, that I put constraints on it not because it's more efficient but because of two risks that we talked about a few weeks ago on the show. We had a great roundtable discussion about all the different types of risk. And one is the risk that your horizon, your time horizon changes. If we go all small cap value and that market's down 70, let's say that the small cap market goes down 70.

[OG]

I mean small cap value has been so underperforming for so long. It's one of those things that you just go, well I don't, it's like international at this point. It's like, yeah, just have it, it's never going to do good again. And then it does in very short bursts of time, does incredibly well.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

But if the horizon changes and all of a sudden I need the money now while it's through the floor OG well then I've got a problem. So to protect for me against horizon risk is why I cap an individual asset class at 30% so I get enough diversification that if for some reason the worst happens and I need some of that money, I'm now I'm only going stocks, I'm not putting any bonds because I think the risk of my horizon changing with my long term money is so low because I have an emergency fund, I have separate buckets of money for the projects and the trips that I want to take. I have a good plan for that and other places I can take money but I still just don't want to go over 30 for that reason. And international, to your point, OG has underperformed for so long, that is just a belief of mine, reversion to the mean. So this, the science of the efficient frontier in this tool. When I look at the last 20 years, it says, nah, no, but the problem is what Jason Zwig talked about on Monday's show. Go back and listen to Monday's show and what we know. And that's that time period before 20 years from now when you change that time frame, it was all international. International kick the US's butt. So for me, then I put in, I want at least 15, I'm gonna put in 15, even though it tells me, tells me no. Now, the cool thing and the reason why I like this, the reason I like this is I know what my constraints are. Because the biggest thing that I'm protecting against by knowing a little bit about the efficient frontier and about how this works, I am affecting my behavior. I know why I did it. I know exactly why I'm there. I know, I know why I capped it at 30%. And just, you don't have to know everything about everything. But when you know a little bit about this stuff and it's not that hard to learn, your money gets stickier than it is. If you throw it in a target date fund and then you start doing what you and I report on all the time, og, you start day trading your target date fund, like, why the hell am I going to move out of this target date fund?

[OG]

Well, and that's why when you work from a financial planning standpoint first and you find out, okay, I've saved some money, what does it have to do? What do I have to save? I talked about this on Monday too. It's just this fun exercise of going, well, if I save a thousand a month for the next 10 years, how much do I have? If I save it for 20 years, if I save it for 50 years, if it grows at 8%, if it grows at 9, if it grows at 10, the difference between 8, 9 and 10 in a year from now is nothing. Over 50 years, huge is tens of millions of dollars different. That helps. But when you are building your asset allocation from the standpoint of what kind of rate of return do I need, you can start adding the little bit of flavors to the VTIs of the world to see how that affects. And I think this is where a tool like Portfolio Visualizer helps. It's not picking the right asset allocation. You can't put it into ChatGPT or Claude or Perplexity or Portfolio Visualizer. Give me the best Asset allocation because it's always going to have a constraint either in the program by the designer or you're going to say, yeah, I want, but give me the best, but cap it at 15% international. Why 15 and not 17? Beats the hell out of me. I just pick 15, right? That's just the number you picked. There's no science behind your picking of that.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Right.

[OG]

But when you start putting that in, you can see the effect of what happens when you add different asset classes to your mix. You know, I start with all S and P. What happens if I add. Paul Merriman has this in his ten fund portfolio report. You know, so then I did this.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And I accidentally made more money. Then I did this and I accidentally made more.

[OG]

So I, I copied it into a, into an Apple note on my phone once because I was like, oh, I want to reference this, but I can never find the actual article anymore. So if somebody can find it, it's great. But anyways, oh yeah, I'll send it.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

To you because I've got it.

[OG]

Is it updated? I've got, I feel like he updates it every year. But anyways, nevertheless, my point is, is that you can see the impact of adding those things. How it affects your return, but also how it affects the variability of your return. If you took a stats class in college, you get the idea of standard deviation and kind of, you know, you go out to 2, you know, that's a 95ish percent of the returns should be somewhere in that range. And then to your point, I think it helps you be a little bit more comfortable in the, in the ups and downs of what's happening. It gives you a sense of what's normal. Because I think, you know, you look at that portfolio and you say, all right, this portfolio is going to average or should average 8% a year with 8% standard deviation. So what does that tell me? That tells me 0 to 16 is 2 out of every 3 years, minus 8 to plus 24 is 95% of the time, minus 16 to plus 30 is 99 or 97%, whatever the number is. So when you see a minus 15 on your statement, you go, okay, then.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

We'Re still, I'm hanging in there.

[OG]

It's in the range of expectations. And like I've said before, people make mistakes with their money when their expectations are not aligned with what's actually likely to happen.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

That is why I love knowing that we just got finished with our 10 session training. We do at the start of every year. People can, can we'll talk about it late in the year, but we call them the success sessions, 1090 minute sessions. And in that class, OG we really dive deep into this and the mistake I found that people in my class were making before the class, and I think this is the mistake people in our community make is where they want to start. They want to start building their portfolio from what's best. And what's best. To your point, this whole discussion is so subjective and you chase your tail so damn much and you second guess yourself so damn much. It is much better to start this whole process, including the efficient frontier. Like if you go into the efficient frontier asking what's best to your point, it's gonna be a mess.

[OG]

It's just there's there. I mean, again, whatever you say, I can find something better. It is a thousand percent.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

If you go to the efficient frontier, though, with this is my goal and this is when I need the money. And then you look at the different asset classes it gives you and you go, that fits the timeframe. That fits the timeframe. This doesn't fit the timeframe. This doesn't fit. This doesn't fit. Then you feed it in there and then you go, you know what? I don't want it. Now you say that, you know, 15% not based on any science. It is based on the fact that I baked a cake before. You know what I mean? So I'm like, 15 is a number that's in the, that's in the notice.

[OG]

How he said he baked a cake and that he didn't bake frosting.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

See, Doug, I baked a cake so I could slather frosting on it. But because I've done it before, that's why I have constraints of 15 and 30. It is nothing more than experience, which goes back to Jason's week because you also got to watch out for what you think your experience teaches you. But that's a whole different discussion. I take that experience then and I go, okay, these historically have been asset classes that help me. How do I put these into something more scientific than just vtsax? That's going to get me much closer to my goal. And if I start from that point, I'm not disappointed with and I'm not searching for the perfect solution. It was really cool to watch the students in this class get the aha. Go. Oh. Oh, yeah. I, I truly have to begin with my goal, begin with my goal and build the portfolio based on the goal. Any other way of doing it's going to just drive you crazy. Mike. Thanks. So much for the question. If you've got a question for us, head to stackingbenjamins.com voicemail and you can be as cool as Mike. And maybe Doug. Maybe Doug. You can win Mike's vote back.

[Doug]

Yeah, I feel like I need to stand up for the pride of Northern Michigan. That was. That was a pretty big swipe he just took at us.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

At us. All of Northern Michigan.

[Doug]

Yeah, all of Northern Michigan. No, we won't let you in despite you wearing your little tourist shirt. Grow up. Yeah, I mean, okay, fine, I could go on and on. A little cold weather. It wasn't even the temperature that was the problem. It wasn't even cold.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

We have meandered out onto the back porch, which is where we finish every show talking about this. Decky Benjamin's community. And Doug, on Monday, you promised us that you had a review that you wanted to read from Spider Man.

[Doug]

How big are we? How popular are we? We got Spider man to review us. And here's what I also figured out. Spider man, his birthday is either March 14th or he's from St. Louis. Because this review comes from Spidey 31 4. And Spiderman says Joe brings the positive side of personal finance. OG punches you in the face with logic so you stop making stupid mistakes. And he didn't even smile. He's like, yeah. And. And Doug is the captain, steering the ship with his hilarious trivia. If you want a personal finance show that keeps people engaged with their zany antics, but also brings real, actionable finance education, give them a listen, don't sleep on the roundtable discussions that give a well rounded perspective on the topic of the day all around. Great podcast. Thanks, Spider Man.

[J.L. Collins]

Wow. Wow.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Mom's got that one on the fridge.

[Doug]

That's a good one. Doug steering the ship.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

We also had a great discussion because during our greatest hits week a couple weeks ago, we played an episode, man, that still rocks Today, about advice for people new to investing or for recent graduates. So I asked people in the basement, Doug, what. What their best advice would be. Their best advice would be either money or career for a graduate. And we got some great ones, which a lot of people rift on this. Jennifer said, start your 401k, 403b, whatever your plan is on the first day of your job. She said that increase it by 1% every year until you get to the company match. And actually that was supersized by Mike. Mike actually said, if it's your first full job, just put 15% away immediately.

[Doug]

Yeah, yeah, I'm with. I Mean, I appreciate Jennifer jumping in, but I'm kind of with Mike because you don't know any different at that point. So why not start out a little more aggressive? And that becomes the norm really fast.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And to your point there as well, Doug, which is if you get paid every two weeks, John says, take those 26 pays a year, but budget your life on 24. Oh, yeah, budget your life as if you're getting 24 paycheck and save the other two right away. And pretty quickly you've got your emergency fund, which is phenomenal to build from the beginning. Josh says to track your net worth regularly. If it's small or even negative, that helped him, he said, more than I would have ever known. I would think, oh, gee, tracking your net worth from the beginning, the way it helps is you just start seeing the fact that no matter what you do, it seems like you go quicker without Even, you know, 10 years from now, you're going to run at the same speed. But the effect is getting bigger and bigger and more magnified over time.

[OG]

I wouldn't necessarily track net worth right away because it will feel like that snowball is taking forever to go. I might want to track that on an annual basis. And maybe that's what he means here, is tracking it something like that. I think anything more frequently than that, especially early on, is probably kind of a waste. I would be much more focused on cash flow and much more focused on getting to that savings percentage, a high savings percentage, whatever that needs to be. 15, 20, 25% out the gate to like what Doug said, you don't know any better. You don't have any expectation or what, what life really costs or what you're, you know, you're just used to living on 200 bucks a month, you know, as a college kid or whatever.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Yeah.

[OG]

So don't buy the thing quite yet. Just wait. Don't buy the thing quite yet.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And speaking of that intentionality, a couple of our Stackers had great advice for graduates on intentionality. Stephanie, who was. Who's here locally in Texarkana, Stacker Stephanie.

[Doug]

She.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

She was my favorite person because she was my dental hygienist. She left that with her husband to still be my favorite person because she runs the cool local liquor store now.

[J.L. Collins]

She.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

She owned that place. Fantastic. Stephanie says, be intentional with how you spend your money and more importantly, how you spend your time, which John echoes. He says, don't enter the workforce thinking about how you can retire someday, figure out what you want to do, and learn to enjoy work as an end to itself. I like that one.

[OG]

Yeah, but when you're 22, you don't know anything about anything. Right? You don't know what you like or don't like.

[Doug]

Well, you know, you like not working well.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

And I think the piece that I like about what John's saying so I get where you're maybe going OG but what I hate is when a 24 year old tells me how they're part of the fire movement. You barely contributed and I'm gonna, I'm gonna fire by the time I'm 27. Like it? I don't know.

[OG]

You stay to Four Seasons once.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

I love Kimberly's note about being nicer to yourself. Just do the best you can. Remember, we're all trying to figure things out. You're gonna walk your own path, so don't compare yourself with others. That kind of echoes what J.L. collins said earlier and last Teresa read be curious. Education doesn't always come with a degree. Some of best life lessons did not. Can't afford a book. Check out your local library or the Libby app. One of my favorite books. And I know you, you echo this one OG the richest man in Babylon.

[Doug]

I like some of those.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Kind of old.

[Doug]

Yeah Doug, I like some of those. But it's when you give young people really broad advice, it feels good in the moment to hear that when you're a young person. But sometimes they need some of those specifics. Here's an example. Back to the very first advice you talked about from Jennifer.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Put 15 in or increase it 1% every year. One of those.

[Doug]

And even more than that, I'm going to tell a story about Finturn because we, my kids in my house, we grew up talking pretty specifically I thought about personal finance. They got excited about the notion of how little money they had to put in as like a high schooler, an 18 year old to you know, get a massive just by the compounding interest to get a massive return. By the time they were, you know, 35 or 40, they were pretty excited about that. So I thought we were good. Fast forward. Finturn gets out of college, the best college, Purdue and, and he gets a good job and he signs up for the like I think it was probably 12 to 15%. I can't remember his percentage, but a pretty good solid percentage. Didn't realize he had to specify which funds he wanted to put. He just said yeah, I'm contributing into the 401k at my work. Didn't realize that for like 6 or 8 months all that money was Just going into a cash account.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

They didn't default him into the target day fund.

[Doug]

They didn't. If I had chimed in on that thread, that would have been mine. Which is make sure you take that second step and say how you want your stuff invested it.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Well, get in on there, Doug. Get in there.

[Doug]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Thanks to everybody in the basement. It's another great robust discussion if you want to join in on those. Stacky Benjamins.com Basement is the direct link that gets you in. Gertrude, the room mom will ask you a few questions and then we'll let you in. And, and by the way, I had this. I talked about the spider, Cheryl and the spider and about how there was the spider walking across our kitchen floor and Cheryl said to take it out instead of killing it. So I took it out. So we went out, we had a couple beers. Turns out he's a really nice guy. He's a web designer. And so I put that as a post in the basement and our intern Debony said that should have stayed in your draft folder. Our intern was ragged on me.

[Doug]

I know, I'm like getting bolder.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

These kids when the intern is like.

[Doug]

Yeah, been on the job for like 10 days, she's taking shots at her boss. I like it. I'm a fan.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Our interns are pretty amazing. All right, Doug, take it from here, man. What's on our to do list today as we wrap this up?

[Doug]

Well, Joe, first take some advice from J.L. collins. Keeping it simple is the best beginning you can have in any portfolio. No need to overthink your approach to managing money. Spend your time learning to be happy on less money so you can enjoy whatever you want to spend. That's a great, great place to focus. Second, using a more scientific approach to money management doesn't have to be difficult. By using just a few different investments, you can diversify your money and achieve better results. But the big lesson, I guess Joe's mom got over that whole Jackie JL mix up. She invited JL to stay for dinner because in her words, JL's an absolutely kick ass. Yeah, I'm just quoting her. At some point we gotta remind Joe's mom about the time she threatened to wash our mouths out with soap. Thanks to JL Collins for joining us today. It's about time I gotta say those words. For the updated version of the Simple Path to Wealth, we'll include links in our show notes. This show is the property of SB Podcasts, LLC. Copy Write 2025 and is created by Joe Saul Sehive Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. You'll find out about our awesome [e-mail] along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello.

[Joe Saul-Sehy]

Oh, yeah.

[Doug]

And before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people. You don't. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin show.