This is not a book.
This is a six-day investment management plan. First, I will attempt to change the way you think. Then I will help you create a new plan. Finally you will begin to execute your plan. If all goes well your life will turn out better than had you not read Dollarlogic. That would make me immeasurably happy.
However, we need to do this in order. We need to create a firm philosophical foundation about investing, then build upward. But, again, great news: You are done in six days. My recommendation is that you read one chapter a day. You may rest on the seventh!
Let’s get started.
Which would you rather have: $2,794,204 or $116,120? That’s what $10,000 would have grown to in the stock market or returned in savings accounts respectively—a 24-fold difference in 50 years, roughly your investing lifetime.1 Despite this, there is almost $3 trillion in low-yielding savings accounts2; 52 percent of American households have saved $25,000 or less for retirement3; 31 percent have zero or negative financial wealth4; and 40 percent of households with annual incomes of $35,000 or less believe that winning a lottery or sweepstakes is the “best chance to obtain a half-million dollars or more.”5
Social Security, our nation’s retirement plan, is in trouble, too. Though stocks have consistently outperformed bonds since 1935 when Social Security was introduced, a U.S. Congressman actually said the “stock market is a risky business.… Social Security benefits must not be jeopardized by stock market ups and downs.”6 He said this despite the fact that stocks have grown 100 times more than Treasury bills since 1935.
How could there be so much confusion about investing and wealth accumulation?
From 1982 to 2007 (my first 25 years in the investment business), the U.S. stock market achieved what U.S. News & World Reports called “America’s Bull Run… a financial and economic boom that was as powerful as it was unexpected. During that generational span, the economy more than doubled in size—rising from $5.2 trillion to $11.7 trillion, adjusted for inflation—as the stock market generated an incredible 2,300 percent total return.”7 Was that the best 25 years in the stock market? Not by a long shot.
After 25-plus years the best ideas I’ve learned about investing have come not from research firms, or specialized training, but from watching my wealthiest clients manage and grow their estates. This is what sets this book apart: My lessons come straight from successful investors over a career completely devoted to helping clients manage money.
In other words, this is real.