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> You could replace the AI with a piece of paper […] This is actually the 'schtick' of a book that was written ten years ago: > Emails and comments on his blo

> You could replace the AI with a piece of paper […] This is actually the 'schtick' of a book that was written ten years ago: > Emails and comments on his blog asked for a real index card with financial advice, so Pollack jotted down nine rules in two minutes, took a picture of it, and posted it online.[1][4] The image went viral, and was covered on many internet news sites.[4][5][6] Pollack and Olen wrote The Index Card three years later, which Pollack compares with the original index card as commentary to the Ten Commandments.[1][7] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Index_Card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Index_Card """ The original index card, pictured above, has:[9] 1. Max your 401(k) or equivalent employee contribution. 2. Buy inexpensive, well-diversified mutual funds such as Vanguard Target 20xx funds. 3. Never buy or sell an individual security. The person on the other side of the table knows more than you do about this stuff. 4. Save 20% of your money. 5. Pay your credit card balance in full every month. 6. Maximize tax-advantaged savings vehicles like Roth, SEP, and 529 accounts. 7. Pay attention to fees. Avoid actively managed funds. 8. Make financial advisors commit to the fiduciary standard. 9. Promote social insurance programs to help people when things go wrong. """ All-in-all, not terribly bad advice; one could do a lot worse.

wojciii 2mo ago
10. Teach the next generation to be responsible with money and their use thereof. This means all this akward conversations about why I don't spend money on stuff that I don't need just because some YouTubers want me to.
- blitzar 2mo ago
  Teach the difference between need and want.
- throw0101a 2mo ago
  > This means all this akward conversations about why I don't spend money on stuff that I don't need just because some YouTubers want me to. There's nothing awkward about the following advice in conversations: > 1. There are two ways to use money. One is as a tool to live a better life. The other is as a yardstick of status to measure yourself against others. Many people aspire for the former but spend their life chasing the latter. […] > 3. Spending money can buy happiness, but it’s often an indirect path. Money itself doesn’t buy happiness, but it can help you find independence and purpose – both key ingredients for a happier life if you cultivate them. A big, nice house might make you happier, but mostly because it makes it easier to have friends and family over, and the friends and family are actually what are making you happy. […] > 6. Everyone can spend money in a way that will make them happier. But there is no universal formula on how to do it. The nice stuff that makes me happy might seem crazy to you, and vice versa. Debates over what kind of lifestyle you should live are often just people with different personalities talking over each other. Author Luke Burgis puts it another way: “After meeting our basic needs as creatures, we enter into the human universe of desire. And knowing what to want is much harder than knowing what to need.” * https://collabfund.com/blog/my-new-book-the-art-of-spending-money/ https://collabfund.com/blog/my-new-book-the-art-of-spending-... * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/231148075-the-art-of-spending-money https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/231148075-the-art-of-spe...
dr_dshiv 2mo ago
Elon told the economist in his interview last week that money won’t matter in 10 years. That is not financial advice. More people now “know” that than this list.
- robocat 2mo ago
  Musk tried to argue that: AI and robots will break economics by creating an era of "incredible abundance". He argued that if we can produce more necessities (goods and services) than we could consume, then the practical need for a medium of exchange simply disappears. Not a great argument, since developed countries already have an abundance of say food and entertainment, yet the marginal price hasn't gone to $0 (except maybe iPhone games?). We don't have a good way to value our time, or our status, or many other economic intangibles. Instead we tend to hyperfocus on money, which isn't necessarily worthwhile. We will fight for those things and money is just one way to measure that.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
dingaling 2mo ago
Sadly, also hyper-unrealistic. Very few people can afford to save 20% of their income whilst maxing pension contributions, let alone maximising other accounts. Points 1, 3 and 5 are probably the key ones and would still stretch most people.
- jandrewrogers 2mo ago
  The median US household is statistically within the ballpark of being able to achieve this per the data. Americans have extremely high incomes and anomalously low taxes on the middle-class. They can easily afford it. Whether they save or not is another matter. Something like 30% of Americans don’t save a significant fraction of their income even though the data clearly indicates it is easy to do so.
- noduerme 2mo ago
  I was saving 20% a year when I was making $36k a year and spending $800/mo on an apartment in the tenderloin. In 1997. It's called beans and rice. I'm still saving 20% a year, making $200k a year and owning a house. Yes, you can do it. Stop buying shoes, clothes, rims, and video games and you've probably got 20% right there. Oh, and don't get married.
  - camillomiller 2mo ago
    What an exciting life you got there! Enjoy your sad and lonely retirement
    - noduerme 2mo ago
      Not sure what that means. I own a couple classic cars and a house, work 60 hours a month, travel for fun most of the time. Lived in 12 countries in the last 20 years. Have a great girlfriend and a great ex who I get along with. But I don't waste money on rims, shoes or clothes. And tonight I made rice and lentils, because my credit card bill this month was $8k and I only made $15k. It's actually more exciting if you limit yourself and enjoy the struggle of trying to hit a high target. For example, moving to Mexico and trying to live on $3k a month. I did that a few years ago, it was awesome and I saved a lot of money.
jjav 2mo ago
> Never buy or sell an individual security. This is controversial but very bad advice. No index funds, by their nature, will ever match the return of high-flying company stocks. If you have very little investment capital available, then yes, allocate it all to index funds because you can't afford to narrow it down yet. But as soon as you have some room to invest in individual stocks, do it. After about three decades investing, I can say that more than 95% of my returns are from just a small handful of individual stocks. The index funds are in the noise. More than 60% of my net worth is just from two stocks.
- baq 2mo ago
  You’re correct in that people with good returns usually hit a few home runs over the decades and the rest is just beta. That isn’t the point, though. The point is you have to be able to let the home run ride or cut when it obviously isn’t and that is hard - it’s literally the whole ‘running money’ business and unless you’re in it, you are at a disadvantage.
- rcxdude 2mo ago
  >more than 95% of my returns are from just a small handful of individual stocks Yeah, but did you know which ones from the start? The whole point of index funds or diversification in general is that you don't.
  - ghaff 2mo ago
    If it's in a sector you know/have intuitions about--including an employer--some individual stocks (not all in) may not be terrible bets. I've been pretty lucky especially over the past 15 years or so and I cleaned out stocks not going anywhere and farmed out at least of some of the big winners to somewhere that made sense from both an investment and tax perspective.
  - jjav 2mo ago
    > Yeah, but did you know which ones from the start? You don't, you can't. You pick the best ones, many won't give you much return or even a loss, but sometimes you get a 100x. My best return was over 3000x, those are the ones that make up for all the losses.
blitzar 2mo ago
1-7 lay the case for why a financial advisor is not required and not beneficial. 8 is simply a contradiction of the prior at best.
tdrz 2mo ago
> 2. Buy inexpensive, well-diversified mutual funds such as Vanguard Target 20xx funds. I wouldn't recommend this after seeing how SpaceX was literally shoved down lots of people's throats.
- throw0101a 2mo ago
  > I wouldn't recommend this after seeing how SpaceX was literally shoved down lots of people's throats. If you're going to buy a "total market" fund, then SpaceX is part of the market. There were strange financial things with GE, Enron, etc, and they were part of index(es): you have to take the good with the bad when it comes to human (economic) behaviour. Most stocks suck: * https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3710251 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3710251 * https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2900447 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2900447 * https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4541122 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4541122 but you don't know ahead of time which will go from not-sucking to sucking (LSE: RR is up 10x in the last five years), or vice versa. Predicting the future is hard: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Random_Walk_Down_Wall_Street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Random_Walk_Down_Wall_Street so it's not worth the effort for the vast majority of people.
  - tdrz 2mo ago
    To me, investing is NOT just getting the best outcome possible. I simply don't agree with some companies practices and therefore I don't want to invest in them. I believe I am better off if I live in a better society overall than if I have more money in a worse overall society.
    - throw0101a 2mo ago
      > I simply don't agree with some companies practices and therefore I don't want to invest in them. Understandable, but unless you buy the stock from them at IPO, you're not giving them money. I agree with Cullen Roche's four points on ESG investing; second one: > 2) The secondary market is a bad place to enact change. The intelligent defense of ESG is “by reducing the demand for a stock we can increase its cost of capital and impact its operating performance.” This is true to some degree, but I think this is dramatically overstated. For instance, the firms in the S&P 500 are all large established firms that have more than enough capital to finance their operations. They aren’t using the secondary equity markets to fund their operations. In fact, most firms have so much capital that they’ve been net buyers of stock in the last 50 years. So, this puts the cart before the horse. The better way to think of public companies is to think of them like horse betting. We can bet on the horses, but secondary market purchases are just private exchanges, not cash issuance to firms. As a result, betting on the horses doesn’t change the outcome of the race. Similarly, our secondary market purchases and sales have a far smaller impact on the firm’s operations than we might think.¹ * https://www.pragcap.com/my-view-on-esg-investing/ https://www.pragcap.com/my-view-on-esg-investing/ Roche's point in 'doing good' with investing is to make as much money as you can and then fund the movements and organizations that you wish to succeed (worked for the Koch brothers and others of their ilk).

wojciii 2mo ago

10. Teach the next generation to be responsible with money and their use thereof. This means all this akward conversations about why I don't spend money on stuff that I don't need just because some YouTubers want me to.

blitzar 2mo ago
Teach the difference between need and want.
throw0101a 2mo ago
> This means all this akward conversations about why I don't spend money on stuff that I don't need just because some YouTubers want me to. There's nothing awkward about the following advice in conversations: > 1. There are two ways to use money. One is as a tool to live a better life. The other is as a yardstick of status to measure yourself against others. Many people aspire for the former but spend their life chasing the latter. […] > 3. Spending money can buy happiness, but it’s often an indirect path. Money itself doesn’t buy happiness, but it can help you find independence and purpose – both key ingredients for a happier life if you cultivate them. A big, nice house might make you happier, but mostly because it makes it easier to have friends and family over, and the friends and family are actually what are making you happy. […] > 6. Everyone can spend money in a way that will make them happier. But there is no universal formula on how to do it. The nice stuff that makes me happy might seem crazy to you, and vice versa. Debates over what kind of lifestyle you should live are often just people with different personalities talking over each other. Author Luke Burgis puts it another way: “After meeting our basic needs as creatures, we enter into the human universe of desire. And knowing what to want is much harder than knowing what to need.” * https://collabfund.com/blog/my-new-book-the-art-of-spending-money/ https://collabfund.com/blog/my-new-book-the-art-of-spending-... * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/231148075-the-art-of-spending-money https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/231148075-the-art-of-spe...

dr_dshiv 2mo ago

Elon told the economist in his interview last week that money won’t matter in 10 years. That is not financial advice. More people now “know” that than this list.

robocat 2mo ago
Musk tried to argue that: AI and robots will break economics by creating an era of "incredible abundance". He argued that if we can produce more necessities (goods and services) than we could consume, then the practical need for a medium of exchange simply disappears. Not a great argument, since developed countries already have an abundance of say food and entertainment, yet the marginal price hasn't gone to $0 (except maybe iPhone games?). We don't have a good way to value our time, or our status, or many other economic intangibles. Instead we tend to hyperfocus on money, which isn't necessarily worthwhile. We will fight for those things and money is just one way to measure that.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

dingaling 2mo ago

Sadly, also hyper-unrealistic. Very few people can afford to save 20% of their income whilst maxing pension contributions, let alone maximising other accounts. Points 1, 3 and 5 are probably the key ones and would still stretch most people.

jandrewrogers 2mo ago
The median US household is statistically within the ballpark of being able to achieve this per the data. Americans have extremely high incomes and anomalously low taxes on the middle-class. They can easily afford it. Whether they save or not is another matter. Something like 30% of Americans don’t save a significant fraction of their income even though the data clearly indicates it is easy to do so.
noduerme 2mo ago
I was saving 20% a year when I was making $36k a year and spending $800/mo on an apartment in the tenderloin. In 1997. It's called beans and rice. I'm still saving 20% a year, making $200k a year and owning a house. Yes, you can do it. Stop buying shoes, clothes, rims, and video games and you've probably got 20% right there. Oh, and don't get married.
- camillomiller 2mo ago
  What an exciting life you got there! Enjoy your sad and lonely retirement
  - noduerme 2mo ago
    Not sure what that means. I own a couple classic cars and a house, work 60 hours a month, travel for fun most of the time. Lived in 12 countries in the last 20 years. Have a great girlfriend and a great ex who I get along with. But I don't waste money on rims, shoes or clothes. And tonight I made rice and lentils, because my credit card bill this month was $8k and I only made $15k. It's actually more exciting if you limit yourself and enjoy the struggle of trying to hit a high target. For example, moving to Mexico and trying to live on $3k a month. I did that a few years ago, it was awesome and I saved a lot of money.

jjav 2mo ago

> Never buy or sell an individual security. This is controversial but very bad advice. No index funds, by their nature, will ever match the return of high-flying company stocks. If you have very little investment capital available, then yes, allocate it all to index funds because you can't afford to narrow it down yet. But as soon as you have some room to invest in individual stocks, do it. After about three decades investing, I can say that more than 95% of my returns are from just a small handful of individual stocks. The index funds are in the noise. More than 60% of my net worth is just from two stocks.

baq 2mo ago
You’re correct in that people with good returns usually hit a few home runs over the decades and the rest is just beta. That isn’t the point, though. The point is you have to be able to let the home run ride or cut when it obviously isn’t and that is hard - it’s literally the whole ‘running money’ business and unless you’re in it, you are at a disadvantage.
rcxdude 2mo ago
>more than 95% of my returns are from just a small handful of individual stocks Yeah, but did you know which ones from the start? The whole point of index funds or diversification in general is that you don't.
- ghaff 2mo ago
  If it's in a sector you know/have intuitions about--including an employer--some individual stocks (not all in) may not be terrible bets. I've been pretty lucky especially over the past 15 years or so and I cleaned out stocks not going anywhere and farmed out at least of some of the big winners to somewhere that made sense from both an investment and tax perspective.
- jjav 2mo ago
  > Yeah, but did you know which ones from the start? You don't, you can't. You pick the best ones, many won't give you much return or even a loss, but sometimes you get a 100x. My best return was over 3000x, those are the ones that make up for all the losses.

blitzar 2mo ago

1-7 lay the case for why a financial advisor is not required and not beneficial. 8 is simply a contradiction of the prior at best.

tdrz 2mo ago

> 2. Buy inexpensive, well-diversified mutual funds such as Vanguard Target 20xx funds. I wouldn't recommend this after seeing how SpaceX was literally shoved down lots of people's throats.

throw0101a 2mo ago
> I wouldn't recommend this after seeing how SpaceX was literally shoved down lots of people's throats. If you're going to buy a "total market" fund, then SpaceX is part of the market. There were strange financial things with GE, Enron, etc, and they were part of index(es): you have to take the good with the bad when it comes to human (economic) behaviour. Most stocks suck: * https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3710251 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3710251 * https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2900447 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2900447 * https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4541122 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4541122 but you don't know ahead of time which will go from not-sucking to sucking (LSE: RR is up 10x in the last five years), or vice versa. Predicting the future is hard: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Random_Walk_Down_Wall_Street https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Random_Walk_Down_Wall_Street so it's not worth the effort for the vast majority of people.
- tdrz 2mo ago
  To me, investing is NOT just getting the best outcome possible. I simply don't agree with some companies practices and therefore I don't want to invest in them. I believe I am better off if I live in a better society overall than if I have more money in a worse overall society.
  - throw0101a 2mo ago
    > I simply don't agree with some companies practices and therefore I don't want to invest in them. Understandable, but unless you buy the stock from them at IPO, you're not giving them money. I agree with Cullen Roche's four points on ESG investing; second one: > 2) The secondary market is a bad place to enact change. The intelligent defense of ESG is “by reducing the demand for a stock we can increase its cost of capital and impact its operating performance.” This is true to some degree, but I think this is dramatically overstated. For instance, the firms in the S&P 500 are all large established firms that have more than enough capital to finance their operations. They aren’t using the secondary equity markets to fund their operations. In fact, most firms have so much capital that they’ve been net buyers of stock in the last 50 years. So, this puts the cart before the horse. The better way to think of public companies is to think of them like horse betting. We can bet on the horses, but secondary market purchases are just private exchanges, not cash issuance to firms. As a result, betting on the horses doesn’t change the outcome of the race. Similarly, our secondary market purchases and sales have a far smaller impact on the firm’s operations than we might think.¹ * https://www.pragcap.com/my-view-on-esg-investing/ https://www.pragcap.com/my-view-on-esg-investing/ Roche's point in 'doing good' with investing is to make as much money as you can and then fund the movements and organizations that you wish to succeed (worked for the Koch brothers and others of their ilk).