One of the prevailing theories on the sad state of affairs of the retirement statistics in this country is that our employers have failed us. The line of thinking goes like this: Employers used to provide the majority of workers with pension income for retirement as thanks for being a loyal employee.  Since pensions have…

“The question of whether we’re due a market correction next week or next month doesn’t matter because we have a plan that accounts for the possibility that it will happen someday.” – Carl Richards

“Reduce decision making. Think about the routine things that can be made automatic—from what you eat for lunch to where you live.” – Dr. Michael Joyner Personal finance people love to compare losing weight and getting your financial house in order. It’s the go-to personal finance analogy and I’ve heard it hundreds of times. It…

“You can’t control what markets can do, but you can control the costs you pay. The less you pay to the purveyors of investment services, the more there will be for you. The quintessential low-cost investment vehicles are index funds, which should comprise the core of every investment portfolio. The high fees charged for active…

“Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.” – Mark Twain I feel like every week I read another story about the terrible state of retirement savings by individuals. Here are some of the scary retirement stats I read about…

“Why does this matter to me so much? Isn’t it fundamentally stupid that this matters so much?” – Bill Simmons on being a sports fan I’ve spent a lot of time learning, thinking and writing about the inherent behavioral biases that we humans all seem to share. The greatest investors of all-time don’t do things…

“Timing the market is a fool’s game, whereas time in the market is your greatest natural advantage.” – Nick Murray An actual conversation I overheard this week: Guy #1: What do you think about the government shutdown and the debt ceiling? Time to get out of stocks? Guy#2: Stocks have already dropped since early last…

“I look to the future because that is where I’m going to spend the rest of my life.” – George Burns Morningstar’s John Rekenthaler had an interesting article recently that discusses what matters most when saving for retirement. He goes over a hypothetical situation where a 42-year old investor is looking at the options for…

“Most of us view the world as more benign than it really is, our own attributes as more favorable than they truly are, and the goals we adopt as more achievable than they are likely to be. We also tend to exaggerate our ability to forecast the future, which fosters overconfidence.” – Daniel Kahneman I…

“There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.” – Warren Buffett This notecard comes from Harold Pollack, a professor at the University of Chicago. It was posted on Twitter (via @m_sendhil) a few weeks ago. I love the idea of being able to distill as much financial knowledge…