Increase Your Spending Power

“Thank you for all that you’ve done throughout your career.  I appreciate your integrity and have made countless referrals. Best to you and the great team you’ve assembled.” – Pete S. In This Edition Double Your Lifetime Purchasing Power in 20 Minutes How To Prepare for Post-Work Life 10 Life Changing Lessons Getting Long-Term Bullish […]

The post Increase Your Spending Power appeared first on Paul Merriman.

“Thank you for all that you’ve done
throughout your career.  I appreciate your integrity and have made
countless referrals. Best to you and the great team you’ve assembled.” – Pete S. 

In This Edition

Double Your Lifetime Purchasing Power in 20 Minutes
How To Prepare for Post-Work Life
10 Life Changing Lessons
Getting Long-Term Bullish
Personal Story

Dear Friends,

Please join us in congratulating Chris Pedersen, our Director of Research, creator of the 2-Fund strategies and author of Two Funds for Life— A quest for simple & effective investing strategies, for his cover article in this month’s AAII Journal, linked below. We also thank Craig Appl, creator of our Lifetime Investment Calculator, for sharing his thoughts on the deeper considerations of financial independence with our Communications Director, Aysha Griffin. As always, we strive to offer valuable information to help you stay the course through ever-changing times.

Anniversaries pose a great opportunity for looking at both the past and to the future, and my team and I have been busy doing that in honor of the 10th Anniversary of our Foundation.

Looking back, we are searching our archives — over 500 podcasts, 700 MarketWatch articles and newsletters, hundreds of videos, charts and Q&A’s, dozens of annually-updated mutual fund and ETF Portfolio recommendations, calculators, and resources like our Truth Tellers and five books — to share with you the highlights of what you, our sound and savvy investors, have found most useful.

Looking ahead, we see much work yet to be done, such as giving you more information about choosing a glide path, accumulations and distributions, building intergenerational wealth and helping you find reliable, ethical hourly advisors.

We know, from the many dedicated subscribers and emails we receive, that our work, as academic-based financial educators, is touching and changing many lives. If you have a personal story of how our work has benefitted you, your family or others, we’d love to hear about it! Thank you in advance for continuing to share and support our work as we plan for the next 10 years. More on all this in upcoming newsletters.

Meanwhile, please mark your calendar for Saturday, Nov. 5 at 9 a.m. Pacific Time, when Tom Cock and I present, “Battling The Bear: Managing Your Money in Turbulent Times”, an in-person (small fee) or free virtual event. Get more information and sign-up now: https://www.talkingrealmoney.com/classes

Double Your Lifetime Purchasing Power in 20 Minutes

by Chris Pedersen

Taking advantage of your workplace retirement plan can make a big difference in your end balance and spending capacity.

Between now and January, millions of Americans will make pivotal financial decisions as they enroll in or adjust their retirement plans. Among other things, they’ll decide how to save, invest and automate. How impactful are these choices? More than you might think. Even the “20-minute” solution of accepting the most common employer defaults could double an investor’s lifetime spending power.

Those defaults typically start with small automatic paycheck deductions invested in a target-date fund. Then, they are scaled up over time until total savings rates, including company matches, are 10% or more of the employee’s salary. Slightly more complex approaches that shift 10% to 20% of the retirement savings to a small-cap value fund have historically done even better. And these approaches aren’t just relevant to the young; they can also improve portfolio safe-withdrawal rates in retirement. [To Continue Reading, click here and then enter your email on the AAII page to gain full access to this excellent article…]

How To Prepare for Post-Work Life

by Aysha Griffin

Whether investing for early financial independence or traditional retirement, planning for your future is about investing in the broadest sense of the word: Where will you invest your precious time and energy? How will you make meaning and find joy in the years when work is no longer required? How can you prepare for this time in life?

For Craig Appl, the creator of The Merriman Financial Education Foundation Lifetime Calculator, recently attending a special Financial Independence Chautauqua near Bogota, Colombia, raised these questions and more.

Hosted by JL Collins, author of The Simple Path to Wealth, the purpose of the week-long event, which takes place every-other year in different places around the globe, is to bring together 30 people for meaningful conversations and to build sustainable relationships among those on the path of financial independence. Speakers at this event included Alan and Katie Donegan from Rebel Business School and Millennial Revolution’s Kirsty Shen and Bryce Leung.

Craig, a 38-year-old Virginia-born tech program manager living in Seattle since 2015, found this conference challenged him with profound questions about his future and a sense of community he hopes to nurture and maintain. He first became aware of the writings of JL Collins and the FIRE movement (Financial Independence Retire Early) when seeking practical advice on how to live a value-oriented life.

Living his values has meant, among other things, choosing to not own a car and therefore live in walkable and bike-able distance from work and his son’s pre-school, to rent a one-bedroom apartment, and to prepare most meals at home, budgeting eating out for special occasions. Even the recent purchase of an electric bike was considered in light of: “How will this add value to my life?”

However, like many people, despite university degrees and continually striving for higher professional positions, he had no financial education and believed the stock market was gambling. “Fortunately,” he says, “I came upon the work of The Merriman Financial Education Foundation and Paul’s defensive strategies made sense to me. The evidence presented gave me the confidence to become an “investor.“

Now, with his savings and investments on auto-pilot, good budgeting habits and a clear path to financial independence in five-to-seven years, Craig is examining the questions raised at the Chautauqua: What do I want to do after I reach financial independence and/or choose to retire? What do I want to get out of life when I have all this free time? What’s the impact on my relationships and community when I am no longer working fulltime? How do I build sustainable relationships? What can I change now to prepare for that transition and set myself up for a successful life beyond the identity of work? 

Having taken the time to acquire knowledge about investments and implementing them, Craig says he is satisfied and on track for financial independence. Taking into account financial projections, like possibly living to 95, (“which is almost 60 years away!”), Craig has turned his attention to considering the lifestyle choices that might give him an advantage for a great and healthy life journey, however long it may be.

Cultivating an internal awareness of what gives him joy, and having the time and energy to share that joy with his son and others, is at the top of his mind these days. And, as he points out, “Everyone who follows Paul’s work is trying to find answers, and in terms of sound investing they are there for you to understand and confidently choose a course you can stay on for life.  But, no matter what, purpose, community, health, and living your values are what give meaning to life.”

10 Life Changing Lessons

In this presentation to the Boston Bogleheads® Chapter (Sept. 12, 2022), I discuss the “10 most important new lessons learned by The Merriman Financial Education Foundation” in our 10 years of helping the DIY investor make sound investment decisions for a lifetime and become the best advisor to the most important investor on earth…you!  I also give an overview of the 12-million-dollar decisions from our book, We’re Talking Millions: 12 Simple Ways to Supercharge Your Retirement and answer a number of excellent audience questions.

Listen to the podcast.
Watch the video.
See and download the slideshow

Getting Long-Term Bullish and Back to Fundamentals

It’s difficult for investors who are focused on the short term. It appears there are many reasons to be afraid and to think it is prudent to step aside and eliminate the risk of loss. As Rich Buck and I wrote in a recent MarketWatch article, “Investors have been tested this year — do you have what it takes to succeed?”, the struggle with staying the course during declining markets is likely the most difficult of all for those who claim to be buy-and-hold investors.

One of our Truth Tellers recognizes the difficult nature of bear markets as investors focus on the short-term realities of loss. Ben Carlson makes a strong case for changing your focus to the long term.  We can’t buy the past but hopefully we will learn from it and the future will reward us for our discipline. Read “Getting Long-Term Bullish.”

Keeping with the theme of coping with today’s market conditions, another of our Truth Tellers, Jonathan Clements of “Humble Dollar,” looks at the differences in bear markets and offers the comfort of sound financial principles. Read “Back to Fundamentals.”

Personal Story

“Mr. Merriman and Mr. Pedersen, After listening to the latest podcast, I felt compelled to reach out to the two of you to thank you. I began following your work just a few months ago. I have truly enjoyed digging into the wealth of information available on your website, reading We’re Talking Millions and listening to many of your podcasts. I have begun to incorporate the information and strategies that I have learned into our investment portfolio, and I have established investment accounts for my children (elementary age) with the goal of helping them to establish Roth IRA’s when they are eligible.” — Todd G.

Helping you build a better financial future,
Paul

Call To Action!

Here are a few simple ways to support the financial education work of The Merriman Financial Education Foundation, a registered 501(c)3. In so doing you help better the lives of individuals, families and  communities, creating more opportunities for all.

Subscribe to our weekly “Sound Investing” podcast, available on your favorite listening platforms and leave a review. Tell us what you think!
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel, and hit the thumbs up, subscribe, leave a comment and share the link with your social media and friends. 
Use our M1 Finance affiliate link to set up a brokerage account and use our portfolio suggestions. If you fund your account with a minimum of $1,000, our foundation will receive a one-time affiliate fee —at no cost to you—which helps support our financial education projects.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
Buy our latest books, We’re Talking Millions! 12 Simple Ways To Supercharge Your Retirement and 2 Funds for Life: A quest for simple & effective investing strategies; all the profits help support our work.
Support our mission by making a tax-deductible donation to the Foundation. 

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