JLCollinsnh

The Simple Path to Wealth

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Season’s Greetings!!

by 68 Comments - Updated:

Before the day slips away I just wanted to take a moment to wish you and yours….

 

A very 

Merry Christmas 

and a 

Wonderful Holiday Season

 

Here’s to a 

Happy, Healthy(!) and Prosperous New Year!

 
 

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Important Resources

  • Talent Stacker is a resource that I learned about through my work with Jonathan and Brad at ChooseFI, and first heard about Salesforce as a career option in an episode where they featured Bradley Rice on the Podcast. In that episode, Bradley shared how he reached FI quickly thanks to his huge paychecks and discipline in keeping his expenses low. Jonathan teamed up with Bradley to build Talent Stacker, and they have helped more than 1,000 students from all walks of life complete the program and land jobs like clockwork, earning double or even triple their old salaries using a Salesforce certification to break into a no-code tech career.
  • Credit Cards are like chain saws. Incredibly useful. Incredibly dangerous. Resolve to pay in full each month and never carry a balance. Do that and they can be great tools. Here are some of the very best for travel hacking, cash back and small business rewards.
  • Empower is a free tool to manage and evaluate your investments. With great visuals you can track your net worth, asset allocation, and portfolio performance, including costs. At a glance you'll see what's working and what you might want to change. Here's my full review.
  • Betterment is my recommendation for hands-off investors who prefer a DIFM (Do It For Me) approach. It is also a great tool for reaching short-term savings goals. Here is my Betterment Review
  • NewRetirement offers cool tools to help guide you in answering the question: Do I have enough money to retire? And getting started is free. Sign up and you will be offered two paths into their retirement planner. I was also on their podcast and you can check that out here:Video version, Podcast version.
  • Tuft & Needle (T&N) helps me sleep at night. They are a very cool company with a great product. Here’s my review of what we are currently sleeping on: Our Walnut Frame and Mint Mattress.
  • Vanguard.com

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Comments

  4. Marry Christmas from Silverton, Oregon. Hey, we have had a Mint mattress for a couple of years, from your recommendation, and 2 or 3 of our friends have bought on ours. It’s a great product.

    Reply

  5. Jim, I hope you and your family have a Merry Christmas and a great 2021! Thanks for your work and inspiration!

    Reply

  10. JL, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family! Wishing you a healthy and happy 2021! Nice to see you post again and looking forward to many more next year!

    Reply

  12. Old Saint Nick comes but once a year.
    However you, Mr. Collins, are always around giving the gift of your wisdom and helping countless folks build better lives for themselves, their families, and friends. I know your ideas have helped me immeasurably for years.

    So let me offer my thanks to you and your family. I wish you a very Merry Christmas from Albuquerque and a good slide into the New Year.

    Reply

  13. Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo! Thank you for being so generous in sharing your knowledge on how to live a better life!

    Juan-Paulo

    Reply

  15. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you!
    I saw the recent headline:
    “ VTSAX passes $1 trillion in assets; “”Vanguard attributes success to J. l. Collins”

    Reply

  16. Thank you so much JL. Wishing Jane, Jessica and yourself a wonderful time together on Christmas and a very happy and healthy new year! Thank you always for doing what you do!

    Reply

  17. Let me express our sincere gratitude from Frisco, TX to you. We believe thousands of your readers like us are tremendously benefited from your knowledge and experience sharing. Wishing you and your family merry Christmas and a wonderful prosperous new year 2021!
    Thank you so much Jim.

    Regards
    Rana & Family

    Reply

  18. Merry Christmas to you as well! Just finished my Christmas shopping online by buying my buddy a pair of big boy pants disguised as a copy of “Simple Path to Wealth”. Thanks again for your efforts!

    Reply

  24. Merry Xmas and Happy Holidays to everyone.
    I made the classic mistake of selling assuming the market would drop, and now have no idea when to buy back in… doh!!
    guess I need to re-read that chapter…
    All the best for health and family for 2021 to all lucky enough to be imparted with Jim’s simple plan.

    Reply

  26. Dear Mr Collins,

    Health, wealth and happiness to you and yours.

    Here’s hoping that 2021 will mark a return to the freedom and joy that we know and love – and most definitely have not forgotten.

    “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” Or, if you prefer, “Don’t let the b**tards get you down!”

    Merry Christmas!

    Stay sane
    Stay sage
    Stay on plan
    Vorlic

    Reply

  32. Merry Christmas from Arkansas, its clear that your friends and readers appreciate you for who you are and for what you do!

    Reply

  34. Thanks to you all for your kind words and season’s greetings. I especially like hearing where everyone is from. 🙂

    Reply

  40. Heres to a happy and healthier 2021.
    Thank you for this blog. Its changed my perspective on investing!

    Wondering if you have an opinion on robo-advisors, specifically Charles Schwab intelligent portfolios. Im trying to determine if/how to convert my roboadvisor accounts to VTI and BND as I approach FI as early as next year!

    Reply

  42. Hi JLC, any changes coming for you in this unprecedented year coming? I have this little yellow light going off in the back of my head at least for the next six months. Do you? I would be interested in your take for the next 6-12 months? thanks and love your experience blogs.

    Reply

    • JL –
      I am fairly new to your blog. A neighbor in Massachusetts. After reading through your blog, I bought and read Simple Path to Wealth. I just want to 2nd David’s question. Although I have been committed to the buy and hold philosophy you teach, I am very leery of the next 6-12 months and being overexposed in equities. Watching all the bad news mongers, seems like a big one is coming…again. I watched your recent podcast on ChooseFI. I was thrilled to see something new from you but the questions did not get at a possible 2021 crash. Would love to know how you would advise.

      Reply

    • David & Ginny…

      There will always be yellow lights going off in our brains (and elsewhere!). There will always be “bad news mongers” predicting the next big crash.

      While there certainly is a big crash coming (https://jlcollinsnh.com/2012/04/15/stocks-part-1-theres-a-major-market-crash-coming-and-dr-lo-cant-save-you/), these almost never get it right. No one does.

      If anything, crashes tend to happen when all the predictions are for blue skies. There is an old saying, “the market climbs a wall of worry.”

      My advice for 2021 remains the same as in my book and here on the blog.

      Reply

      • JL-
        So great to hear from you! Thank you. Your book told me and my husband exactly what we needed to hear at exactly the right time we needed to hear it – although of course we would probably be in a stronger position if my younger self had been ready to hear it:) We’re planning to retire in 5-6 years in our late 50s, sell our house (sock that money away) and travel across the country for a couple of years to ride our motorcycle through the most beautiful parts of this country. I’m a 30 year fed so blessed to be getting a pension and health care for life. I know you are busy but I just wanted to share that – thanks to reading your book – we are gently trying to teach our kids, 20 and 22, about saving and investing. So far they are as interested as your daughter at that age. But we did make them open Roth IRAs in 2020 with Vanguard (of course). They did not have the $3K minimum for VTSAX so we did the ETF. I had some reservations and questions about that path and your recent ChooseFI podcast answered them all! You were reading my mind. We’re thrilled they are getting an early start on the simple path. Hope you have time in 2021 to blog more and do more podcasts. We’re continuing to learn and your a great teacher. Wishing you and your family health and happiness in 2021.

        Reply

      • JL-
        Watched a 2020 interview with you today and you referenced the book Factfulness. I immediately got it from the library (a new practice rather than buying). It’s a GREAT read. Thanks for the recommendation!
        – Ginny

        Reply

        • Glad you enjoyed Factfulness, Ginny. It is a great antidote to the daily onslaught of pessimism.

          Turns out, this is nothing new. I am just finishing “The idea of decline in Western History”

          Seems folks have been predicting the end since the beginning. 🙂

          Reply

  44. Hello Mr. Collins,

    Happy Holidays to you and your family.

    First of all, thank you very much for all that you do to educate us on the simple path to wealth. I have listened to all of your podcast interviews, Youtube videos, and have read your wonderful book. I feel like I finally “Got It” after 50 some odd years. I have been on your blog searching for the answer to one of my questions, but have not been able to find it. I don’t know how to reach out to you and thought to try through this comment.

    I am not able to find a strategy on how to draw down from a Target Date Retirement Fund (TDRF) or my Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) while in retirement. When making withdraws from the TDRF fund or TSP, stocks, bonds, cash are sold at equal percentages to provide the amount that is requested. I am not able to choose where I would like the money to be withdrawn from individually (stocks, bonds or cash) In an upward market I would not be able to only sell from only the fund’s stocks side or in a downward market to withdraw only from the bond side in the fund, or even request a withdrawal from my cash portion.

    I don’t expect you to respond, as I know this is not the proper way to reach out to you and you are a very busy person. I hope you will be able to read it and possibly talk about it on an upcoming podcast interview, I won’t miss it if you put it out that way, I have listened to all your podcast interviews a few times, each time catching a detail I missed on the first go around.

    V/r,

    Ken

    Reply

  47. Happy Holidays and a wonderful New Year to you and your family from Taumarunia, New Zealand.

    We will be returning back to the Keweenaw Peninsula in northern Michigan’s Upper Peninsula this May.

    Thank you for the many years of sound, no-nonsense advice. We have all benefited from your wisdom.

    Reply

  49. Happy holidays from Bucaramanga, Colombia! I hope you had an amazing holiday. Thank you for being such a great inspiration!

    Reply

  50. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! I gifted a copy of your book to my sister and brother in law for Christmas. I hope they enjoy it as much as I did!

    Reply

  57. Happy new Year.

    I hope you continue to offer us your wit and wisdom in 2021.

    I gave a copy of your book to each of my two nephews. I wish someone had provided me with such information when I was in my twenties. Will they read it? You can lead a horse to water,…….

    You may have answered this already, but I would be interested in how well Index Funds serve as a hedge against inflation in a future article. You have expressed that buying index funds is like buying a portion of the US economy (maybe world economy) and this idea lends a great deal of security. I’ve been hearing about the money supply being pumped up like a balloon and other experts whom I respect offer that inflation will be paying us a visit soon. Old Milton Freedman won a Nobel prize for his ideas about the money supply a few years back so I figure he couldn’t be totally wrong.

    Thanks for helping the rest of us.

    Reply

  59. Joyeux Noël from Ontario Canada Jim. I’ve been reading your stuff for several years now and always appreciate your insight. Thanks for all you do to keep us grounded.

    Cheers!

    Reply

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