JLCollinsnh

The Simple Path to Wealth

Disclaimers & Policies

About the content:

The ideas, concepts and everything else on this blog, excepting of course comments made by others, are simply my opinion based on what has worked for me and what has kicked me in the ass. It may not continue to work for me and it may not work for you.

While I am happy to answer your questions, these answers are based on what I would do based on the limited information you will have provided. I am not a professional investment advisor, nor do I aspire to be one.  Further, I cannot possibly know the full details of any reader’s personal situation or needs.

jlcollinsnh.com makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.

You are solely responsible for your own choices. There are absolutely no guarantees here.

The investment ideas of others:

Occasionally I am asked to read some book, article and/or blog and dispute the ideas in them. I simply don’t have the time or inclination to do this. I’m not the least bit interested in trying to persuade anybody of anything.

If you read my blog you’ll soon have a very clear idea of my views. You can then read other sources, compare and decide for yourself what resonates.

About the ads and affiliate links:

After 2.5 years I have finally decided to accept ads on this blog. It is important for you the reader to understand most of these are automatically generated. They do not necessarily reflect my opinion or carry my recommendation.

If you want to know what I think about any particular company or product, please use the search function. If I have written about it, you’ll find my unvarnished opinion in one of the posts.

Note that some of the products mentioned on the blog and some of the links are affiliate links, meaning that if you click on them and make a purchase jlcollinsnh.com may receive compensation.

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You are solely responsible for any comment/content you leave on this blog.  By leaving a comment on this blog it becomes a part of the public domain and you hereby grant the owner of this blog the unlimited right and license to use, copy, display, save, reproduce, distribute, or publish (including, without limitation, in another blog post, article or book) your content or comment free of charge.

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Important Resources

  • 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.
  • Personal Capital 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.
  • 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.
  • 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
  • Republic Wireless is my $20 a month phone plan. My wife is also on the $20 plan and our daughter who uses more data is on the $25 plan. Monthly total for three phones and plans: $65. We all travel widely and we can talk to each other from wherever we are and for however long we please. My RW Review tells you how.
  • Vanguard.com

These are companies I have personally vetted and recommend.

YNAB and Tuft & Needle both support this site with paid ads. If you click on those ads it shows them the ads are working for them and that support will continue.

Personal Capital, Betterment and Republic Wireless are affiliate partners of this site. Should you click though to their site from this one and chose to do business with them, this blog will earn a small commission.

Vanguard is not an advertiser or affiliate but, Vanguard if you are listening, we’d love to have you!

Comments

  1. Love to read here.

    Just a thought . . . not that I’m a lawyer…

    Looking at the following text “…By leaving a comment on this blog it becomes the property of jlcollinsnh.com and it may be used in another post, article or book. …”

    I wonder if you might be better served by adjusting a portion of that from “…becomes the property of jlcollinsnh.com…” to something along the lines of “…becomes licensed to jlcollinsnh.com in an ulimited fashion, though the material itself is solely the product and property of the posting entity…”

    My thought may be obvious, though if not, I suspect it’s a better liability to have an unlimited license to use the product rather than becoming the owner of the product, with whatever liability the ownership may carry.

    If you happen to read this comment and find it way off base, I look forward to finding out how/why.

    Cheers
    Farmboy

    Often willing to “pay it forward” & encourage others to do the same . . .

    Reply

    • Thanks Farmboy…

      Glad you like it!

      Thanks, too, for your suggested phrasing. It may well be better than what I’m using, or not. Thanks for giving me a chance to reconsider it.

      I’m not a lawyer either and am just trying to let people know what to expect when they post comments and questions and I respond.

      I know we have lawyers out there reading. Any thoughts?

      Reply

  2. Hi Josh

    Thank you so much for all of your work. It has really helped me and my family.

    Do you have any suggestions for my 21 year old son? He has about $1200 in the vanguard star fund. It was in the target retirement fund, but was losing money. We know this is long term. Any other fund suggestions? He makes about minimum wage & is putting in about $10/mo.
    Thank you,

    Carrie

    Reply

    • Hi Carrie…

      I’m not sure who Josh is, but this is my take…

      The important thing at this point is that he is saving and investing. That is a huge positive step. Kudos to you both.

      I would have left the money in the Target fund. All funds are going to drop periodically. The Star fund will too. This is a natural part of the process and the key to successful investing is to ignore it.

      Now that it is in the Star fund I would leave it there until he has the $3000 minimum to invest in the Total Stock Market Index Fund VTSMX.

      Once that grows to $10,000 it can move to VTSAX, the same portfolio with lower costs. Vanguard does this automatically I think, but pay attention and remind them if needed. This move will be tax free.

      Have him read http://jlcollinsnh268650683.wpcomstaging.com/stock-series/ and/or my book for the reasons why.

      Remember, both VTSAX and VTSMX will also drop in value periodically and well. The Series and the book will explain why this doesn’t matter.

      Reply

  3. Hey man,

    thank you so much for the book SPTW. It made it so much easier for me to explain investing to my kids. Has anyone contacted you for publishing a German version? Maybe with some additional notes for German users? If not let me know as I would love to see a localised version!

    Best,
    El

    Reply

    • Thanks El…

      ..glad you liked it.

      We just inked a deal to publish the book in Korean, but nothing in German as yet.

      If you are a German publisher and have an interest, please let me know and I’ll put you in touch with my agent.

      Reply

  4. Thank you, Mr. Collins, from the bottom of my heart for your book and blog. You have changed the trajectory of my future, as well as the future of my husband and my two (very) young children. You are my hero, as much as Jack Bogle is yours, and I am so grateful to you for sharing all of your knowledge and sass! Please keep it comin 🙂

    Reply

  5. Just wanted to say thank you for your simple book! I have previously rolled over an IRA to a high fee firm without really understanding it. Probably have lost quite a bit of $$ in the process but thankful to be figuring this out in my 30’s. Plan to move all to Vanguard soon with advice from your book. Also, coincidentally, I am losing Vanguard as a employer retirement account manager to fidelity this year. Your book is helping me navigate the waters on what to do with that change. Thanks again for making the stock market simple to understand to a healthcare minded (and not at all a stock market minded) girl.

    Reply

  6. I loved listening to your book and am having my 3 kids (ages 5,9,13) listen to it during the drives to school and back. I have been following your strategy – for the most part – since about 2004 as my Finance professor during my MBA also advised the same, after he had all 40 of us do a “beat the market” project. He demonstrated that even those that came “ahead”, had taken a higher risk and ^so^ hadn’t in fact beat the market. That project was eye opening for me and your book was a much needed refresher as it had been 14 years since this learning. The only thing that was different is my professor advised VGSPX (now VFIAX) and not the VTSAX. Can you please explain why you recommend the total market and not just the S&P 500?
    Thanks,
    Rochelle

    Reply

    • Hi Rochelle…

      First, I’m not sure making your kids listen to my book isn’t a form of child abuse. 😉

      But from my point of view, the first part of your comment would make a wonderful 5-star review on Amazon 🙂

      Kudos to your professor. Hope you sent him a copy of my book?

      As for your question, I address this in Addendum 1 in this post: https://jlcollinsnh268650683.wpcomstaging.com/2013/05/02/stocks-part-xvii-what-if-you-cant-buy-vtsax-or-even-vanguard/

      In short, VTSAX adds small and mid-cap stocks to the S&P 500 for broader coverage. But the S&P 500 makes up 80% of VTSAX so the difference is slight, as is my preference for it.

      If you have VFIAX, it will serve your needs just fine. 🙂

      Reply

  7. I recently finished your book–which introduced me to your blog. What a helpful resource! I’ve been stumped by how to get started investing but your book really helped give me a simple place to start–and potentially stay!

    In the first part of your book, you describe your father’s advice about “if it’s too good to be true…” In all honesty, I found myself wondering what were the downsides to Index Fund investing. I was sure there had to be some. Whenever I learn something new, I like to weigh the pro’s and cons–to make an informed decision. I asked myself, what if everyone followed this advice? What impact would it have on the market? On society?

    In my research, I came across this article referring to Jack Bogle’s concern of the growing dominance of Index Funds: http://time.com/money/5468239/jack-bogle-index-funds-problem/

    It is a fairly recent article and I was wondering if you had any thoughts on his concern.

    Thank you!

    Reply

  8. Hi Mr. Collins, I just finished reading your book and wanted to pass along a big thank you! This is the first financial book I have read that breaks things down clearly and provides specifics. I wish I would have had access to it 20 years ago, but it has completely motivated me to make some changes surrounding our current savings/investments and I’m thrilled to use it as a tool as my children get older. We often talk to them about the importance of saving, not spending money you don’t actually have, etc. but your book is a true road map! I am passing it on to my family and friends.

    I had a couple follow up questions that I hope you don’t mind me asking. I know you mentioned to keep the cash for your regular expenses in a bank account, but just to clarify, the f-u money or potentially any other money you feel you need fairly liquid – that should sit in a non-IRA VTSAX, correct? This way you still have access to it without early retirement withdrawals but it earns interest.

    Also, what are your thoughts on 529 Savings plans for college? We currently have them set up for our kids who are still 8-10 years out in the aggressive age based allocations with total annual asset based fees of .16%. Should we continue contributing here or would setting up an index fund for them make more sense?

    Thank you again and warm regards,
    Maja

    Reply

    • Hi Maja,

      Thanks for your comment!

      Mr. Collins is currently traveling and unable to respond just now.

      We find for most questions, he has already covered the topic. Using the Search button might very well provide your answer.

      Reply

  9. Hi, Jim.

    I appreciate your book and blog. Heard about you while listening to the Choose FI podcast, so I decided to check out your book and reach out.

    So I get setting up Vanguard account, but I don’t know what to do next. I am a part of a state retirement system and last May, I became vested. (Woo hoo!!) The state takes 6.25% of my salary and they match 14 percent. It was 6 percent until about a year ago.

    1. So do I call the retirement system and tell them to switch to Vanguard? What do I do? How do I switch to Vanguard?

    2. Am I supposed to set up a Vanguard account on my own? I don’t have that $10K just lying around to just start it.

    I need your help. These are good steps provided in your book and blog, but I’m still like, “What do I do?” I’m 34 and really want to do the right things.

    Thank you for helping me.

    Reply

  10. Hi，

    I’m Lila, the copyright assistant of Beijing Zito Books, we’re a Chinese publisher.
    We’re interested in your book,
    The Simple Path to Wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life Paperback – June 18, 2016
    by J L Collins (Author), Mr. Money Mustache (Foreword), 978-1533667922.
    We would like to know whether the Simplified Chinese right of this title is sold or not.
    Sorry to contact you on comment, because I didn’t find your e-mail address. It’s okay to reply me on email. Many thanks and look forward to hearing from you soon.

    Best wishes,
    Lila

    Reply

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