In this episode we celebrate some milestones and answer emails from Amy and John. We discuss the 10-year anniversary of Portfolio Charts, our one millionth download and Mary's good news about her CASA work. Then we talk about the parable of the Starfish Thrower, go on requested rant about personal finance hoarding cultures and financially privileged people looking for pats on the head and their willing AUM facilitators, and talk about how real happiness and legacies are created.
And THEN we our go through our weekly and monthly portfolio reviews of the eight sample portfolios you can find at Portfolios | Risk Parity Radio.
Additional Links:
Father McKenna Center Donation Page: Donate - Father McKenna Center
Portfolio Charts 10-year Anniversary Post: Celebrating 10 Years of Portfolio Charts – Portfolio Charts
Narrative Psychology: How to tell stories that give you meaning | Jane Goodall, Terry Crews & Dan McAdams
Parable of the Starfish Thrower: Starfish Story (aka The Star Thrower)
ChooseFI Pod #508: 508 | 5% SWR, Revealed Preferences, and the 3 Stories | Frank Vasquez
Bringing Up The Baileys: Melissa Bailey (@bringingupthebaileys_) • Instagram photos and videos
Come And Get It: Comeandgetit | Facebook
Breathless AI-Bot Summary:
What does it mean to create a meaningful legacy? Is it the money you leave behind, or something far more valuable that transcends financial wealth?
As we celebrate our millionth podcast download and the 10th anniversary of Portfolio Charts—a revolutionary tool that transformed how DIY investors analyze diverse assets—we're reflecting on what truly matters in personal finance and beyond. The real highlight comes from Mary's work as a Court Appointed Special Advocate, where after three years of dedicated advocacy for five children in foster care, four were adopted into the same loving home. This embodiment of the "Starfish Thrower" parable reminds us that while we can't save everyone, making a difference for even one person creates ripples of meaningful change.
We take a hard look at the wealth inequality permeating financial media, where those with millions often dominate conversations while seeking validation for their already-secure positions. This echo chamber creates distorted priorities and revealed preferences toward death-focused wealth accumulation rather than life-focused enjoyment. In contrast, we share the story of Melissa—a woman who overcome tremendous hardships including foster care and the loss of a child, yet leads a joy-filled life despite financial constraints. Her legacy isn't measured in money but in traditions passed between generations while everyone is still alive.
Our portfolio reviews show mostly positive performance across various investment strategies, but the numbers pale in comparison to the real message: wealth isn't just what you have, but what you do with it. Whether you're struggling financially or blessed with abundance, your impact on others will always be your most valuable asset.
Join us as we explore what it means to live richly—not just by accumulating wealth, but by creating meaning. How will you throw your starfish today?
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Voices (00:01):
A foolish consistency, is the hobgoblin of little minds
, adored by little statesmen andphilosophers and divines.
If a man does not keep pacewith his companions, perhaps it
is because he hears a differentdrummer, a different drummer.
Mostly Mary (00:19):
And now, coming to you from dead center on your
dial, welcome to Risk ParityRadio, where we explore
alternatives and assetallocations for the
do-it-yourself investorBroadcasting to you now from the
comfort of his easy chair.
Here is your host, frankVasquez.
Mostly Uncle Frank (00:37):
Thank you, Mary, and welcome to Risk Parity
Radio.
If you have just stumbled inhere, you will find that this
podcast is kind of like a divebar of personal finance and
do-it-yourself investing.
Voices (00:53):
Expect the unexpected.
Mostly Uncle Frank (00:55):
It's a relatively small place.
It's just me and Mary in hereand we only have a few
mismatched bar stools and someeasy chairs.
Voices (01:10):
We have no sponsors, we have no guests and we have no
expansion plans.
I don't think I'd like anotherjob.
Mostly Uncle Frank (01:14):
What we do have is a little free library of
updated and unconflictedinformation for do-it-yourself
investors.
Now who's up for a trip to thelibrary tomorrow.
So please enjoy our mostly coldbeer served in cans and our
(01:34):
coffee served in old chipped andcracked mugs, along with what
our little free library has tooffer.
Voices (01:43):
Welcome.
Mostly Uncle Frank (01:51):
By now onward to episode 441.
Today on Risk Parity Radio,it's time for our weekly
portfolio reviews.
Of the eight sample portfoliosyou can find at
wwwriskparradiocom on theportfolios page.
Voices (02:06):
Boring.
Mostly Uncle Frank (02:08):
And we'll have a couple of emails, at
least a couple of emails.
Voices (02:12):
I'm intrigued by this, how you say emails.
Mostly Uncle Frank (02:18):
But before we get to that, we've got some
milestones to talk about.
Surely you can't be serious.
I am serious and don't call meShirley.
First off, it is the 10thanniversary of the founding of
Portfolio Charts and Tyler haswritten a nice little walk down
memory lane article I will linkto in the show notes.
(02:38):
But this was a very importantmilestone in do-it-yourself
investing and in the developmentof the things that I talk about
here, because prior to thatpublication it was very
difficult for amateur investorsto get good information in a
good chart form about a varietyof assets.
(03:01):
The kinds of things that wereavailable prior to that were the
basically like the Seafire Simtype calculators and databases
where you really only had stocks, bonds and cash to analyze.
Mostly Mary (03:15):
That's not an improvement.
Mostly Uncle Frank (03:18):
And while that may have been interesting
for the 1990s or the early 2000s, by the time we got into the
2010s we were really looking ator at least I was trying to
figure out well whichcombination of assets is going
to have the highest safewithdrawal rates, and those
kinds of calculators were justinadequate for the job, and so I
(03:39):
was kind of flailing aroundthere for a couple of years
looking at various ideas andscratching my head at them.
But when Tyler put outportfolio charts, all of a
sudden we had a pretty robusttool for analyzing all kinds of
different assets in portfolios.
Mostly Mary (03:57):
I think I've improved on your methods a bit
too.
Mostly Uncle Frank (04:00):
And having a good way to compare a lot of
then popular portfolios to seewhich ones were actually the
best for particular purposes.
Mostly Mary (04:10):
I employed some Chiara Sciuro shading.
Mostly Uncle Frank (04:13):
So a lot of what I've been able to develop
is due in large part to whatTyler put together in 2015.
And we should all thank him forthat effort.
Yay, 2015.
And we should all thank him forthat effort, because that was
the first one, and then we hadPortfolio Visualizer come out
with a robust set of data thefollowing year.
(04:36):
But I feel like Tylerrepresents kind of an old school
way of presenting this kind ofinformation.
A lot of this has seemed tobecome commercialized over the
past 10 years that people arerepackaging personal
finance-related stuff and tryingto have clubs and courses and
all manner of things.
Voices (04:55):
Act now.
Mostly Uncle Frank (04:57):
Act now and receive as our gift, our gift to
you.
They come in all colors, onesize fits all, and that really
was not the way we did thingsback in the day.
The way we did things back inthe day was we recognized that
there was probably not thatgreat a market for what we were
doing at the time, but therewere a number of people who were
(05:19):
significantly interested indifferent ideas and being able
to put them together interestedin different ideas and being
able to put them together, andso it was more of a kind of
sharing of information economy,if you can call it an economy.
So it had a more of an academicfeel to it.
Voices (05:35):
And that's the way it was, and we liked it, we loved
it.
Mostly Uncle Frank (05:39):
And I've tried to keep that kind of
zeitgeist alive in this podcast,with our business model, of
course.
Voices (05:47):
I got this inkling.
I got this idea for a businessmodel.
I just want to run it past you.
Here's how it would work.
You get a bunch of peoplearound the world who are doing
highly skilled work, but they'rewilling to do it for free and
volunteer their time 20,sometimes 30 hours a week oh,
but I'm not done.
And then what they create?
(06:09):
They give it away rather thansell it.
It's going to be huge.
Mostly Uncle Frank (06:15):
Anyway, here's to Tyler and OG fire
concepts.
Second milestone, and, kind ofcoincidentally, this podcast is
about to go over 1 milliondownloads, which should occur
right after I release thisepisode.
Voices (06:31):
Well, la-dee-freaking-da .
Mostly Uncle Frank (06:35):
And that's pretty amazing, considering we
don't have any staff or do anypublicity or anything really
other than kind of putting itout there and making myself
available to talk to peopleabout it whenever they'd like to
.
But I do really have all of youlisteners to thank for that,
and you are the ones that havesat down and taken the time to
(06:55):
listen to all this stuffintegrated into what you're
doing, and then pass the word byword of mouth to others who may
be interested in the material,and some of you have been with
me for a very long time.
Probably about half thedownloads, I think, are due to
Alexi the Dude, so that's whatyou call me.
You know that, or?
Voices (07:17):
his dudeness or duder or , you know, Bruce Dickinson.
Mostly Uncle Frank (07:22):
if you're not into the whole brevity thing
, my contact info, or BruceDickinson, if you're not into
the whole brevity thing.
Voices (07:27):
My contact info Ha ha, ha ha.
Trogdor strikes again.
Mostly Uncle Frank (07:31):
And about 15 guys named Kyle Kyle, but we
love you, kyle All the Kyles outthere.
Voices (07:40):
I want to hold you every morning and love you every
night.
Kyle, I promise you nothing butlove and happiness.
Mostly Uncle Frank (07:47):
And I do really mean it when I say we
have the finest podcast audienceavailable, not only the most
informed, but also the mostgenerous.
Mostly Mary (07:56):
Top drawer, really top drawer.
Mostly Uncle Frank (08:02):
Third, off and most importantly and on a
more personal note, I have totell you about Mary's milestone.
As some of you know, mary is acourt-appointed special advocate
, which is kind of aprofessional volunteer position
where you get appointed by acourt when children have been
removed from a home and need togo into foster care.
(08:25):
Now the main job of the CASA isto write reports to the judge
who is in charge of the case,basically about what everybody
else is doing in the case, sothat the judge can make
decisions in the best interestof the children.
But the CASA often ends upacting like an uber-advoc
advocate for the best interestsof the children that are not
(08:46):
necessarily covered by theirfoster parents or the other
people involved in the case.
And Mary's been working on avery complicated case for about
three years now.
That involved five children, oneof whom aged out and is now in
fostering futures.
But the other four were veryyoung when the case began and
(09:06):
they're still young and theywere formally adopted this past
week and they're all going to beliving in the same home with
the same new parents and theirlives have been immeasurably
changed for the better.
Mary got a nice note from thenew parents.
That made her cry and made mecry too.
(09:26):
They reminded her of all thethings that she's done with
those children over the past fewyears, because they were in
several different foster homesand they had a lot of other
issues to deal with.
So Mary was constantly going tofoster homes in a couple of
different counties, going tomedical appointments of various
shapes and sizes, going to IEPmeetings and all manner of
(09:49):
advocacy for these children,kind of like Eowyn in Lord of
the Rings.
Voices (09:56):
Women of this country learned long ago those without
swords can still die upon them.
I fear neither death nor pain.
I fear neither death nor pain.
Mostly Uncle Frank (10:05):
Mary's really an expert in this kind of
advocacy, which involvesdealing with bureaucracies, and
the way she does it is bylearning the rules of the
bureaucracy better than thepeople that she's dealing with,
so that when they tell her anapplication is denied or delayed
, she will come back at themwith what's on page six, section
(10:27):
6b, about a right ofreapplication or another way of
doing it, and she will firmlyremind the person that she will
be calling her next week todiscuss the progress in the
application.
And she has a way of speakingand of looking at you that makes
you feel like you've probablydone something wrong or there's
(10:48):
something you should feel guiltyabout.
In any event, she's veryeffective.
Voices (10:56):
You fool.
No, man can kill me, die now.
Mostly Uncle Frank (11:26):
I am no man, so it's been an emotional week
in a good way.
Voices (11:34):
Emotions running high.
Mostly Uncle Frank (11:35):
yes, and I thought I might share it with
some of you, because I know someof you like to hear some of
those things and although Maryreally doesn't like me tooting
her horn, I feel like I amcompelled and obligated to do it
anyway.
Voices (11:49):
Yes.
Mostly Uncle Frank (11:51):
But now let's turn to your emails.
I think we've got time for acouple today, and so without
further ado, here I go onceagain with the email.
And First off.
First off, off, we have anemail from Starfish Amy, amy
(12:12):
what you wanna do.
And Starfish.
Amy writes.
Mostly Mary (12:19):
Hi Frank and Mary.
No question today, but I wantedto drop you a short note to let
you know I've made a donationto the Father McKenna Center on
their website for the Top of theT-Shirt campaign.
I mentioned the Risk ParityRadio Top of the T-Shirt
campaign in the tribute field toflag the donation for the
campaign.
I learned of your podcast in2021 from the ChooseFI community
(12:39):
and four years later it remainsmy number one favorite podcast.
I can't adequately express howmuch I value the education
you've provided me over theseyears.
I'm a better investor today andI'm better prepared for early
retirement in T-minus two yearsthanks to all I've learned.
Warmest regards Starfish Amy.
Voices (13:01):
I think I could stay with you for a while, maybe
longer if I do.
Mostly Uncle Frank (13:11):
Well, amy, it's very timely for you to send
an email in like this, since weare at that millionth download,
and you're one of the reasonsYou're all right.
I really do value the peoplewho have been here the longest,
especially ones such as yourself, who I know are associated with
the institution known as MIT,because if I'm good enough for
(13:33):
you, I'm probably good enoughfor anybody.
Voices (13:37):
Because I'm good enough.
I'm smart enough and doggone it.
People like me.
Mostly Uncle Frank (13:45):
I also want to thank you for your donation
to the Father McKenna Center,which has moved you to the front
of this email line.
As most of you know, we do nothave any sponsors on this
program.
We do have a charity we support.
It's called the Father McKennaCenter and it supports hungry
and homeless people inWashington DC.
Full disclosure.
I am on the board of thecharity and I'm the current
treasurer.
We are currently running amatching campaign called the Top
(14:08):
of the T-Shirt Campaign, whichwe first rolled out in episode
426.
We are about to conclude thecampaign this week and I will be
enlightening you with thetotals at the beginning of next
month.
I can tell you they are veryimpressive already, but you
still have time.
You can get your donation in byJuly 31st.
(14:30):
We can add it to this campaign.
That goes with our Walk forMcKenna that we hold every year
in September, and there aret-shirts handed out with the top
donors at the top of thet-shirt.
If you'd like to donate,there's two ways to do that.
You can go to the donation page, the Father McKenna Center,
which I'll link to in the shownotes.
That's the easiest way.
(14:50):
Or you can go to the supportpage at wwwriskpartyradarcom and
become one of our patrons onPatreon.
Either way it counts, and makesure you mention that when you
do email in so I know to moveyour email to the front of the
line.
Voices (15:07):
Show me the money.
I need to feel you, Jerry.
Show me the money.
Jerry, you better yell.
Show me the money.
Mostly Uncle Frank (15:15):
Now you refer to yourself as Starfish,
amy, and that does have specialmeaning both in the context of
Mary's Casa work and thispodcast and life in general.
There is a field of psychologycalled narrative psychology that
I've referred to before andI'll link to a nice YouTube
video about it in the show notesagain.
(15:36):
But the idea of narrativepsychology is that if you can
come up with a little story thatsort of encapsulates what your
purpose is in life, or yourcurrent purpose is in life, it
will help keep you motivated andenthusiastic about what you're
doing.
Now, the most common story thatwe use in Western society is
that of the hero's journey,which kind of goes with our
(15:59):
careers in life, and that's agood story for early in life,
the first part of your life, butit may not be the best story
for later in life, and so I'vepicked three different stories
to sustain me through, hopefully, the remainder of my life.
One is that of the CuriousChild, one is called the parable
(16:20):
of the Mexican fisherman,although it's a Belizean
fisherman, and the third one isthe parable of the starfish
thrower.
I talked about all three ofthose in episode 508 of the
Choose FI podcast, which I'lllink to again in the show notes.
But we're going to talk aboutthe parable of the starfish
thrower right now, because thatis one that Mary and I actually
(16:41):
share as a value and somethingwe aspire to be.
And in fact the Parable of theStarfish Thrower is the theme
story of the CASA organization.
The Court Appointed SpecialAdvocates and they all get a
little starfish to put on theirkeychains.
I will link to a version of itin the show notes.
You can find it anywhere on theinternet.
(17:03):
But in the starfish throwerstory there's a girl walking on
a beach who sees a whole bunchof starfish that have been
washed in by the tide and arestuck on the beach.
And as she's walking along shestarts picking them up and
throwing them back into theocean to save them, one at a
time.
And there's a grumpy old manhanging out there who looks at
(17:27):
her and says, hmm, why are youwasting your time doing that?
You can't possibly save allthose starfish.
What does it matter?
And she picks up a starfish,throws it back in, looks at him
and smiles and says well, itmatters to that one.
And there are a couple ofdifferent lessons from the story
(17:48):
.
One is that just because youcan't save the whole world
doesn't mean you can't saveindividuals in the world and do
some good and it's going to bevery important for those
individuals.
So it's not like this all ornothing thing, but there's a
deeper one, that this is howrelationships are formed,
(18:08):
because in my mind, most of thetime the girl goes down there,
there is no grumpy old mantalking to her.
It's just her and the starfishand she's walking along saving a
few of them, but also seeingthe ones that she saved.
They're still there, they'rejust in the ocean and she has
conversations with them.
(18:29):
They say thank you for savingme.
And that's really how a lot ofmeaningful relationships in life
are formed.
Voices (18:38):
I haven't taken leave of my senses, bob.
I've come to them.
From now on, I want to try tohelp you to raise that family of
yours.
Mostly Uncle Frank (18:48):
If you'll let me, Go find people you can
save and save them, and maybesaving them is just a little
toss, a little help.
Oftentimes it's not that big adeal.
Voices (19:00):
Forget it.
Five grand, no problem, we'llhave it for you in the morning.
Let's go, elwood.
Mostly Uncle Frank (19:05):
But both Mary and I believe that being a
starfish thrower is one of thebest things you can be and one
of the most meaningful thingsyou can do to live a fulfilled
life.
So it was very serendipitous ofyou to remind us of that story
this week.
Thank you for being a loyallistener for so long, thank you
(19:26):
for your donation to the FatherMcKenna Center and thank you for
your email.
Voices (20:00):
Last off.
Mostly Uncle Frank (20:02):
Last off, we have an email from John.
Mostly Mary (20:05):
How about John?
That's nice and simple.
Voices (20:08):
What are you serious?
Mostly Mary (20:10):
Well, yeah.
Voices (20:11):
John, you want to do that to the kid.
Mostly Mary (20:14):
And John writes hey , frank, long-time listener,
first-time emailer, I'd like topropose a rant here.
Frank, longtime listener, firsttime emailer, I'd like to
propose a rant here.
Can we please talk about thekind of people who keep emailing
financial podcasters out thereonly to stroke their own egos
about money?
Voices (20:29):
I don't care about the children, I just care about
their parents' money.
Mostly Mary (20:33):
I'm talking about the ones who already have
millions in investments.
Their homes are paid off.
They're debating whether to usea 3% or 2.5% safe withdrawal
rate and they act like they'rein some kind of financial crisis
.
Voices (20:46):
You can't handle the dogs and cats living together.
Mostly Mary (20:50):
Meanwhile, the rest of us are out here making
$37,000 a year with three kidsand a sick wife like in my case
budgeting down to the dollar,choosing between paying rent and
buying groceries case budgetingdown to the dollar, choosing
between paying rent and buyinggroceries.
We're the ones who actuallyneed real help and advice here.
It feels like they're justcalling in to flex.
Voices (21:08):
Do not be alarmed by our stunning musculature.
Yeah, we know, your tinychildren brains can't possibly
comprehend the muscles, so largean arm, so strong a body, so
firm.
Mostly Mary (21:20):
Oh, should I pay cash for my third rental
property or take out a loan?
Are you serious?
What am I supposed to do withthat info?
How does that help anyone who'sworking minimum wage or dealing
with medical debt or trying tosupport a family on scraps?
We tune in because we're hopingfor guidance, real answers for
real problems, but instead weget rich people looking for a
(21:42):
gold star.
If they want validation, theycan go talk to their financial
advisor or just look in themirror and smile.
Stop wasting airtime.
Mostly Uncle Frank (21:51):
Do you think anybody wants a roundhouse kick
to the face while I'm wearingthese bad boys?
Voices (21:55):
Forget about it.
Mostly Mary (21:57):
The other day I was listening to the Afford
Anything podcast and a ladycalled in asking if she's saving
too much for college.
It was like $1,800 a month.
What world are these peopleliving in?
Or in your podcast.
The other day, an emailerliving on $300,000 a year and
wanting to figure out what to dowith the pension she won't need
.
It makes me nauseated.
(22:18):
I literally pressed skip onthat episode out of shame for my
condition.
It seems it's just me who can'tget out of the situation I'm in
, and everybody else in thiscountry is doing great.
Please, I'd like to hear moreon the people who need this show
to actually come up with ascrap of a retirement plan that
doesn't involve living in a vandown by the river and eating a
(22:39):
steady dine of government cheesewhich will happen to me most
probably and not so much on theones who use it to show off.
Thanks, john.
Mostly Uncle Frank (22:49):
So John wants a little rant.
Voices (22:52):
I want you to be nice until it's time to not be nice.
Mostly Uncle Frank (23:00):
Well, let's see what I can do.
Voices (23:03):
Right to get my butcher in tools.
I'm going to de-board him likea shank.
Mostly Uncle Frank (23:07):
Just need to find this button here and away
we go.
I think it's quite true thatpersonal finance creates these
kind of weirdo rich people,communities that don't recognize
(23:31):
how very strange they are,especially from a sociological
point of view.
Voices (23:36):
The peasants feel you have no regard for them.
What.
I have no regard for thepeasants.
They are my people, I am theirsovereign.
I love them oh, drifting to theleft now for framing purposes.
Mostly Uncle Frank (23:56):
nick majuli has a new book out called the
wealth ladder, where he dividesup people by levels of wealth
and notes that 80% of the peoplein the US are on levels one,
two and three and they'rebasically worth less than a
million dollars.
So only about 20% of the totalis worth more than that, and
probably 18% of those people areworth between one and $10
(24:17):
million, and probably 18% ofthose people are worth between
$1 and $10 million.
And really that, I think, isthe group of people we're
talking about here, of which Iam one.
Mostly Mary (24:28):
Don't be saucy with me, Bernays.
Mostly Uncle Frank (24:30):
But this is the group that overwhelmingly
populates and consumes popularpersonal finance media,
particularly that involvinginvesting, and what some of them
don't seem to realize is themore time they spend in a group
only with these types of peopletalking about only this type of
subject matter, the weirder andweirder they actually become and
(24:53):
the odder they sound to peoplewho are not in the group.
Voices (24:56):
We are the keepers of the sacred words.
Mostly Uncle Frank (25:04):
There's a lot of group think in this group
.
Voices (25:06):
Well, what is it you want?
We want a shrubbery.
Mostly Uncle Frank (25:14):
There's a lot of clubbiness in this group.
Voices (25:17):
I've got a good mind to join a club and beat you over
the head with it.
Mostly Uncle Frank (25:21):
And it is that old adage that you become
the average of the five peopleyou spend the most time with.
You are the average of the fivepeople you spend the most time
with, and so what is verypopular in this group is to talk
incessantly about investmentsand also whinge about every
random possibility of somethingthat might reduce one's wealth
(25:45):
in the future.
On top of that, if this was tohappen, look at the fix I'd be
in.
Popular topics include irma,rmds, long-term care and just
about any other thing you canget yourself wound up about.
What guy in a suit?
no, it's a tax collector a lotof the people in this group are
(26:10):
on an endless hero's journey tobecome as wealthy as possible
when they're dead.
Voices (26:15):
What's with you?
Anyway, I can't help it.
I'm a greedy slob.
It's my hobby.
Save me.
Mostly Uncle Frank (26:22):
And by their behavior, that is their first
and foremost financial goal.
It's what economists call arevealed preference, that if we
assume you're rational, weassume that you are rationally
taking the actions that youintend to take to achieve some
ultimate goal.
Voices (26:41):
Oh boy, I'm rich, I'm wealthy, I'm independent, I'm
socially secure.
I'm rich, I'm rich, I'm rich.
Mostly Uncle Frank (26:50):
It's one big , long, endless hero's journey
that just ends at death.
Voices (26:55):
Dead is dead.
Mostly Uncle Frank (26:57):
One of the hallmarks of a lot of people in
this group is to look for patson the head as to how well
they're doing, because you cannever get enough pats on the
head about how well yourfinances look.
Voices (27:10):
Aw, you're such a good boy.
Mostly Uncle Frank (27:25):
Yeah, you're such a good saver, you're such
a good investor.
Voices (27:30):
Oh, you're such a good boy.
Yeah, you're such a goodinvestor.
Oh, you're such a good boy.
Mostly Uncle Frank (27:35):
Yeah, you're so good and, of course, there's
always this question that's notreally a question.
Do you think I'm gonna make it?
Do you think I should beworried that I'm only spending
two or one percent of my assets?
I don't know.
It's like yes, you do you justmade a fatal mistake.
Mister, I hope you knowsomething about hand-to-hand
(27:56):
combat so you get these peoplewho are in their late 50s with
six or eight million dollarssaying do you think I have
enough to retire?
What am I gonna do about irmaand what about my rmds?
The truth is, most of thesepeople have talked to three or
four different financialadvisors already.
They have and they know all theanswers to these things.
(28:17):
They're just looking forsomebody to say oh, you're in
such good shape, you're such agood person for accumulating all
that money.
Now let me pat you on the headsome more and talk about your
non-problems.
Voices (28:29):
Aw, you're such a good boy.
Mostly Uncle Frank (28:31):
Yeah, you're so good in some communities,
this comprises almost a hundredpercent of the people that are
involved.
There's a podcast I listen tooccasionally, which can be the
(28:51):
comedic whipping boy here forthis purpose.
It's called your Money, yourWealth, although it should be
called your Fear, your Hoarding,and it's run by these two guys
with the AUM advisory firm.
(29:12):
I drink your milkshake and it'srun by these two guys with the
AUM advisory firm.
Voices (29:17):
I drink your milkshake.
Mostly Uncle Frank (29:19):
Who had this radio show going back to I
don't know, sometime in theearly 2000s, like Jojo the Clown
and Big Al, who I think shouldbe called Big Dipstick.
Anyway, these guys sound likethey're made for radio.
They're talking from scripts.
They have the same answers tothe same questions all the time,
(29:39):
but they sure do play to theiraudience, because this audience
makes the best kind of clientsto have if you're an AUM advisor
.
Voices (29:47):
Am I right or am I right , or am I right, right, right,
right.
Mostly Uncle Frank (29:51):
Now, what does this audience sound like?
Well, I don't know if all ofthe people that write in sound
like this or they're justpicking the ones that do, but
virtually everybody whose emailthey read on that program is
well over saved, like at leasttwice as much over saved as they
need to be, and they all havesome large number of millions of
(30:12):
dollars.
They're all barely spendinganything and they're all saying
do you think I'm gonna be okay?
What's a disaster?
Voices (30:21):
that's when bad things happen to people in the world,
things we don't expect, and it'sjust awful oh davy, that is
awful and they're looking forpats on the head and these guys
do their little dance.
Mostly Uncle Frank (30:36):
They give them the pats on the head.
Voices (30:39):
Aw, you're such a good boy.
Yeah, you're so good.
Mostly Uncle Frank (30:45):
But they also say things that lead me to
believe that they're not thatwell informed.
They have not kept up on theirknowledge of stuff.
Whenever the big dipstick getsa question about how much can I
spend in my 50s, he'll go oh youknow, in your 60s you might be
able to spend 4% if you're lucky, but in your 50s, well, we'll
just take another percent off ofthat, and if you go to your 40s
(31:08):
we'll take another one, go downto 2%.
When somebody talks like thatthat somebody who's supposed to
be a professional I know theydon't know what they're doing.
They have no business managingpeople's money other than to
store it up so they can getbigger aum fees off of it I
drink it up and maybe that's thepoint.
Maybe they're allowing for thosegigantic AUM fees.
Voices (31:33):
Because only one thing counts in this life Get them to
sign on the line which is dotted.
Mostly Uncle Frank (31:39):
Because the underspending suits them in two
ways.
First, there's enough room tocollect the fee.
Second, if the client is notspending much money, their
assets continue to grow and theAUM fees continue to grow.
Until they're dead they'resitting out there waiting to
give you their money.
Voices (31:57):
Are you going to take it ?
Mostly Uncle Frank (31:59):
If Dipstick knew what he was talking about,
he'd know that function isasymptotic.
The safe withdrawal rate isasymptotic.
It smooths out.
There's a book by Bill BengenEver heard of him?
It's coming out next month.
Go read it, learn something.
The safe withdrawal rate's onlygoing to drop about 0.6% on a
forever time frame from a30-year time frame.
(32:21):
And if you're going to be adipstick about that, misinform
the public you're supposed to beserving and act like oh, I've
been on the radio.
Oh, you guys ought to.
You know, I'm famous, you oughtto listen to me.
I'm famous, I got a script,just like Dave Ramsey or
something.
Anyway, it's all part of thisculture of hyper-conservativism,
(32:43):
hyper-hoarding and making upproblems and assigning
probabilities to them that arenot real probabilities.
Voices (32:51):
Am I right or am I right , or am I right, right, right,
right.
Mostly Uncle Frank (32:55):
It works well for the hoarding culture
and it also works really wellfor AUM advisors who like to
serve that culture and cater toit with as many pats on the head
as possible, Because those patsare very expensive pats.
Voices (33:11):
Aw, you're such a good boy.
Yeah, you're so good.
Mostly Uncle Frank (33:18):
I think that firm charges up to 1.6% of your
assets under management.
Voices (33:22):
My straw reaches across the room and starts to drink
your milkshake.
Mostly Uncle Frank (33:34):
And yes, john, those people are just
writing into Flex because theydon't really have very good
lives.
They spend a lot of timecounting their money, wanting
other people to count theirmoney and tell them how
wonderful they are.
Voices (33:51):
Aw, you're such a good boy.
Yeah, you're so good.
Mostly Uncle Frank (33:57):
If that's your life, I'm sure you're very
comfortable, but you're nottrying very hard and you're not
living your best life.
You're just not.
Voices (34:05):
There.
I think that's the last of it.
Just a quick check to see if Imissed anything.
Hey, what's this?
Mostly Mary (34:13):
Hmm Well, polished up, it might bring another quick
four bits on the open market.
Mostly Uncle Frank (34:19):
I mean, think about it, think about this
obsession with Irma.
Voices (34:23):
Save me.
Mostly Uncle Frank (34:25):
One of the things you learn from Nick
Maggiuli's new book is this kindof rule of thumb that if what
you're spending in a day is lessthan one ten thousandth of your
net worth, you probably shouldnot be wasting time worrying
about that.
So if you're worth a millionbucks, you can probably blow a
hundred bucks, not worry aboutit.
So if you're worth a millionbucks, you can probably blow a
hundred bucks, not worry aboutit.
Yes, you can order the mostexpensive entree.
(34:46):
If you're worth 10 millionbucks, you can blow a thousand
dollars, not worry about it.
You can spend that money onconvenience.
And when I look at things likehow much these Irma charges cost
, a lot of times they're in thatballpark.
For most of these people thatit's just not life-changing
money.
And if you are not spendingmoney or not taking the trip or
(35:08):
not doing the thing or nothaving the family celebration
just to avoid going over an Irmabracket, you got your
priorities screwed up.
People say don't let the taxtail wag the investment dog.
Well, what's more important isdon't let the tax tail wag the
life optimization dog.
(35:29):
Set those priorities first,those relationship priorities,
those experience priorities, andthen manage the IRMAs and the
RMDs and whatever else you haveas a problem after that, because
if your life is just about notpaying something, it's not much
of a life.
Voices (35:48):
Somebody says, yeah, but I'm looking for safety and
security.
Fine, then huddle in a corner.
We'll cover you with a sheet,bring you three meals a day and
we'll protect you, feed you,look after you, care for you.
We won't let anything happen toyou and you'll probably live to
be 100.
The guy said well, yeah, I'dlive to be 100.
(36:08):
But what a way to live, Right,what a way to live safe and
secure.
Mostly Uncle Frank (36:14):
But let me tell you something, john.
A lot of these people reallyare not very happy despite all
their wealth, and that's whythey're continually looking for
these pats on the back oraffirmants that what they're
doing is a good idea.
There are a lot of people whoare a lot happier, who don't
have any kind of wealth at alland who have real problems and
(36:36):
real struggles.
Let me tell you about our niece, melissa.
She's about your age.
Melissa was born to two parentsthat could not take care of her
.
One of them was my mentally illbrother, peter, who's now
deceased, and her mother was awoman who had a lot of problems
of her own, who is also nowdeceased.
Melissa went into foster careas a baby and, lucky for her and
(37:02):
to the credit of my eldestbrother and his wife, they
adopted her.
They already had two girls andthey brought her in as their
third daughter.
She struggled in school.
She had learning disabilities,reading was very difficult for
her and when she was a teenagershe started fighting with her
parents.
She says to her mom when she'sabout 16, I don't think you
(37:24):
should have been my parents.
I think Uncle Frank and AuntMary should have been my parents
.
And her mom says you know, thatcan be arranged.
And so it was.
And she came to live with uswhen she was about 16 and stayed
with us for one whole summer.
And if you're going to be achild in a household run by Aunt
(37:45):
Mary, you're not going to besitting around, you're going to
be working or volunteering.
If you're not in school, you'regoing to go to the gym with her
and you're going to be cooking.
And so while she was here,melissa learned to cook a lot of
things and took that with herin the form of a cookbook when
she was 16 years old that sheand Mary created in a binder.
She was one of our starfish.
(38:06):
Now.
Melissa had a number of otherstruggles.
I'm only going to talk about acouple of them here.
She did get through school, shedid become a nurse, and then
she got married and began havingchildren.
One of those children was ababy named Cordelia, and
Cordelia died in her crib only afew weeks after she was born.
(38:28):
I don't need to tell anyonewho's lost a child what that's
like, but I think most peopleagree that that'd be one of the
worst things that could happento you.
Now, despite all these hardships, melissa's one of the happiest
people I know, and she and herhusband don't have a lot of
money.
They live in a tiny littlehouse I think it's less than a
(38:48):
thousand square feet.
It's on a big piece of property.
They have three kids, they havea giant dog, a Cane Corso and a
rabbit named Oreo, and I don'tknow how they all fit in that
little house, but they do.
Her husband recently lost hisjob due to the budget cuts.
He's found something else, butthey're making do.
(39:08):
But I'd like to invite you tosee what kind of person she is
and how things go out there.
She's taken to making a numberof little videos.
I guess you call them reels onFacebook, or I'm not even sure
what they call them on Instagram, but what these reels are are
of her cooking in her littlekitchen with her children and
(39:31):
often the dog in the background.
They're short but they'rehilarious, and for us they're
also heartening to watch,because a lot of the things
she's cooking are out of thatcookbook that she and Mary made
20 years ago when she lived withus, and that's a real legacy.
A legacy is not that pile ofcash or whatever it is you leave
(39:52):
when you're dead, that you wereunwilling to spend when you
were alive.
A legacy is a tradition that haspassed from generation to
generation, that is experiencedwhile everybody is alive, and
you don't need a lot of money todo it.
But I do invite you to watchthese little videos of Melissa
(40:13):
and her family.
On Instagram it's underbringing up the Bailey's
bringing up the Bailey's, and onFacebook she's got it under
Come and Get it.
Come and Get it, because that'swhat she and the kids yell at
the end or at the beginning ofevery one of these little videos
, and they're only about aminute long.
Anyway, john, I'm glad youwrote in and I'm happy to serve
(40:37):
you in any way we can.
Here.
I can tell you it is possibleto go from essentially broke to
in good shape for retirement in10 or 15 years, although I think
it's a lot harder with threekids and some of the stories
I've heard.
But I agree with you thatpersonal finance should be for
everybody, not just the peoplewho are already on top and have
(40:58):
more money than they know whatto do with.
Voices (41:05):
This was not written for chiefs.
Hear me, hear this.
Look at these three words,written larger than the rest,
with a special pride, neverwritten before or since.
Tall words proudly saying we,the people.
That which you call Eidplebnista, was not written for
(41:25):
the chiefs, or the kings, or thewarriors or the rich, or the
powerful, but for all the people.
Mostly Uncle Frank (41:31):
And that's why I really do like to focus
here on how can we spend themost money in our retirement and
not how to spend the least,because it is really not helpful
and really tone deaf if you'retalking about a 2% safe
withdrawal rate and all thethings that quote could go wrong
, unquote.
I don't have any magic plansfor you.
(41:52):
I do think you probably need tofind a way to make more money.
I don't know what your job isright now.
I don't know what yourpossibilities are.
If you are interested insomething like real estate, I
would look up the books writtenby Chad Carson, who got his
start in that kind of justbird-dogging or finding deals
for other people, since hedidn't have any money.
(42:14):
But in the meantime, I justwanted to remind you, with
Melissa's story, that no, youdon't need to have a whole lot
of resources to live a happylife, but having more money does
provide a lot more options.
So I'm glad you listened tothis program and I hope you do
email in again and maybe tell usmore about your situation.
(42:34):
Maybe I can come up withsomething.
I don't know.
I can say we are all pullingfor you and your family because
there are a lot more people inthe same boat as you in this
country than there are of thepeople who send in too many
emails to personal finance shows.
Hopefully that helps a littleand thank you very much for your
(42:56):
email.
Voices (42:59):
And now for something completely different.
And now for somethingcompletely different.
Mostly Uncle Frank (43:02):
And the something completely different
is our weekly portfolio reviews.
Of the eight sample portfoliosyou can find at
wwwriskparadrivercom On theportfolios page.
Just looking at the markets sofar this year, the S&P 500,
represented by VOO, is up 9.39%for the year.
The NASDAQ 100, represented byQQQ, is up 11.07% for the year.
(43:27):
Small cap value, represented bythe fund VIOV, continues to
drag.
It is down 3.33% for the yearso far.
But gold continues to be thebig winner, although it hasn't
moved much recently.
Voices (43:41):
I love gold.
Mostly Uncle Fra (43:45):
Representative fund GLDM is up 27.12% for the
year.
Long-term treasuries,represented by VGLT are up 1.69%
for the year.
Reits, represented by the fundREET, are up 6.09% for the year.
Commodities represented by PDBCare up 1.09% for the year.
Commodities represented by PDBCare up 1.77% for the year.
(44:05):
Preferred shares, representedby the fund PFFV are up 1.12%
for the year so far, and managedfutures are actually managing
to be positive.
Now.
Representative fund DBMF is up0.48% for the year so far.
So it's funny after all thesturm and drang in the spring,
this is turning out to be apretty good year at the moment.
(44:27):
But don't hold your breath.
Now moving to these sampleportfolios.
First one's the all seasons.
This is a reference portfolio.
It's only 30% in stocks and atotal stock market fund, 55
percent in intermediate andlong-term treasury bonds and the
remaining 15 percent in goldand commodities.
It is up 0.6 percent month todate.
(44:48):
It's up 6.52 percent year todate and up 15.64 percent since
inception in July 2020.
Moving to these bread and butterkind of portfolios first one's
gold and butterfly.
This one's 40% in stocks,divided into a total stock
market fund and a small capvalue fund, 40% in treasury
bonds, divided into a long fundand a short fund and 20% in gold
(45:13):
GLDM.
It's up 1.52% for the month ofJuly.
It's up 7.87% year to date andup 44.37% since inception in
July 2020.
Next one's golden ratio thisone is 42% in stocks divided
into a large-cap growth fund anda small cap value fund, 26% in
(45:35):
long-term treasury bonds, 16% ingold, 10% in a managed futures
fund and 6% in cash in a moneymarket fund, which we just
refilled last week.
It's up 1.74% month-to-date.
It's up 7.18% year-to-date andup 39.28% since inception in
July 2020.
(45:56):
Next one's the risk parityultimate After last week's
rebalancing.
Finally, we were able toconsolidate this back into just
one account with 12 funds in it.
I'm not going to go through allof them.
It is up 1.55% Month-to-date.
It's up 6.62% Year-to-date.
It's up 27.25% since inceptionin July 2020.
(46:16):
Moving to these experimentalportfolios, these all involve
leveraged funds, so don't trythis at home.
Voices (46:25):
You have a gambling problem.
Mostly Uncle Frank (46:28):
First one's the accelerated permanent
portfolio.
It is 27.5% in a levered bondfund TMF, 25% in a levered stock
fund UPRO, 25% in PFFV, apreferred shares fund, and 22.5%
in gold GLDM.
It's up 1.06% month-to-date.
It's up 8.09% year-to-date andup 9.21% since inception in July
(46:51):
2020.
Next one's the aggressive 50-50.
This is the least diversifiedand most levered of all these
portfolios.
It's one-third in a leveredstock fund, upro, one-third in a
levered bond fund, tmf and theremaining third in Ballast in a
preferred shares fund and anintermediate treasury bond fund.
It's up 1.36% month-to-date forJuly.
(47:11):
It's up 3.41% year-to-date, butit's still down 8.93% since
inception in July 2020.
Percent since inception in July2020.
Still dragging up the rear.
Next one's the levered goldenratio.
This one's a year younger thanthe first six.
It's 35 percent in a compositefund NTSX that's the S&P 500 and
(47:34):
treasury bonds Levered up 1.5to 1.
20 percent in gold GLDM, 20% ingold GLDM, 15% in AVDV, which
is an international small capvalue fund.
10% in KMLM that's a managedfutures fund.
10% in TMF it's a levered bondfund.
The remaining 10% in twolevered funds, udao and UTSL,
(47:54):
that follow the DAO and autilities index.
It's up 2.05% month to date.
Canada Utilities Index.
It's up 2.05% month to date.
It's up 11.53% year to date andup 6.6% since inception in July
2021.
Now moving to the last one.
Last but not least, it's ournewest portfolio, the Optra
(48:15):
portfolio.
One portfolio to rule them all.
Voices (48:21):
One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one
ring to bring them all and, inthe darkness, bind them.
Mostly Uncle Frank (48:35):
This is a return stack portfolio.
It is 16% in UPRO, a leveredstock fund, 24% in AVGV, which
is a worldwide value tilted fund, 24% in GOVZ that's a treasury
strips fund, and the remaining36% divided into GLDM, a gold
fund, and DBMF, a managedfutures fund.
(48:57):
It's up 2.05% month-to-date forthe month of July.
It's up 9.6% year-to-date andup 12.79% since inception in
July 2024.
And that concludes our weeklyportfolio reviews.
Next week we'll be doing somedistributions again.
Well, they're mostly going tocome out of cash, since we just
(49:20):
did that.
Well, they're mostly going tocome out of cash, since we just
did that rebalancing, leavingcash in four of the portfolios
for the next distribution.
But now I see our signal isbeginning to fade.
Sorry, we were a little late onthe technical analysis this
time, but I just kind of takethe emails as I find them and do
(49:40):
the best I can with them.
Voices (49:43):
I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your
soul.
Mostly Uncle Frank (49:49):
If you have comments or questions for me,
please send them to frank atriskparityradarcom.
That email is frank atriskparityradarcom.
Or you can go to the website,wwwriskparityradarcom.
Put your message into thecontact form and I'll get it
that way.
If you haven't had a chance todo it, please go to your
favorite podcast provider andlike subscribe.
(50:10):
You'll be some stars.
A follow, a review that wouldbe great.
Okay, thank you once again fortuning in.
This is Frank Vasquez with RiskParty Radio signing off.
Voices (50:26):
When a problem comes along, you must whip it.
If all the cream sets out toolong, you must whip it.
When something's going wrong,you must whip it Now.
(50:49):
Whip it Into shape, shape it up, get straight, go forward, move
ahead, try to detect it.
It's not too late To whip itInto shape, shape it up, get
straight, go forward, move ahead, try to detect it.
(51:12):
It's not too late to whip it.
Whip it good.
Mostly Mary (51:22):
The Risk Parity Radio Show is hosted by Frank
Vasquez.
The content provided is forentertainment and informational
purposes only and does notconstitute financial, investment
tax or legal advice.
Please consult with your ownadvisors before taking any
actions based on any informationyou have heard here, making
sure to take into account yourown personal circumstances.
A foolish consistency, is the hobgoblin of little minds
, adored by little statesmen andphilosophers and divines.
If a man does not keep pacewith his companions, perhaps it
is because he hears a differentdrummer, a different drummer.
Mostly Mary (00:19):
And now, coming to you from dead center on your
dial, welcome to Risk ParityRadio, where we explore
alternatives and assetallocations for the
do-it-yourself investorBroadcasting to you now from the
comfort of his easy chair.
Here is your host, frankVasquez.
Mostly Uncle Frank (00:37):
Thank you, Mary, and welcome to Risk Parity
Radio.
If you have just stumbled inhere, you will find that this
podcast is kind of like a divebar of personal finance and
do-it-yourself investing.
Voices (00:53):
Expect the unexpected.
Mostly Uncle Frank (00:55):
It's a relatively small place.
It's just me and Mary in hereand we only have a few
mismatched bar stools and someeasy chairs.
Voices (01:10):
We have no sponsors, we have no guests and we have no
expansion plans.
I don't think I'd like anotherjob.
Mostly Uncle Frank (01:14):
What we do have is a little free library of
updated and unconflictedinformation for do-it-yourself
investors.
Now who's up for a trip to thelibrary tomorrow.
So please enjoy our mostly coldbeer served in cans and our
(01:34):
coffee served in old chipped andcracked mugs, along with what
our little free library has tooffer.
Voices (01:43):
Welcome.
Mostly Uncle Frank (01:51):
By now onward to episode 441.
Today on Risk Parity Radio,it's time for our weekly
portfolio reviews.
Of the eight sample portfoliosyou can find at
wwwriskparradiocom on theportfolios page.
Voices (02:06):
Boring.
Mostly Uncle Frank (02:08):
And we'll have a couple of emails, at
least a couple of emails.
Voices (02:12):
I'm intrigued by this, how you say emails.
Mostly Uncle Frank (02:18):
But before we get to that, we've got some
milestones to talk about.
Surely you can't be serious.
I am serious and don't call meShirley.
First off, it is the 10thanniversary of the founding of
Portfolio Charts and Tyler haswritten a nice little walk down
memory lane article I will linkto in the show notes.
(02:38):
But this was a very importantmilestone in do-it-yourself
investing and in the developmentof the things that I talk about
here, because prior to thatpublication it was very
difficult for amateur investorsto get good information in a
good chart form about a varietyof assets.
(03:01):
The kinds of things that wereavailable prior to that were the
basically like the Seafire Simtype calculators and databases
where you really only had stocks, bonds and cash to analyze.
Mostly Mary (03:15):
That's not an improvement.
Mostly Uncle Frank (03:18):
And while that may have been interesting
for the 1990s or the early 2000s, by the time we got into the
2010s we were really looking ator at least I was trying to
figure out well whichcombination of assets is going
to have the highest safewithdrawal rates, and those
kinds of calculators were justinadequate for the job, and so I
(03:39):
was kind of flailing aroundthere for a couple of years
looking at various ideas andscratching my head at them.
But when Tyler put outportfolio charts, all of a
sudden we had a pretty robusttool for analyzing all kinds of
different assets in portfolios.
Mostly Mary (03:57):
I think I've improved on your methods a bit
too.
Mostly Uncle Frank (04:00):
And having a good way to compare a lot of
then popular portfolios to seewhich ones were actually the
best for particular purposes.
Mostly Mary (04:10):
I employed some Chiara Sciuro shading.
Mostly Uncle Frank (04:13):
So a lot of what I've been able to develop
is due in large part to whatTyler put together in 2015.
And we should all thank him forthat effort.
Yay, 2015.
And we should all thank him forthat effort, because that was
the first one, and then we hadPortfolio Visualizer come out
with a robust set of data thefollowing year.
(04:36):
But I feel like Tylerrepresents kind of an old school
way of presenting this kind ofinformation.
A lot of this has seemed tobecome commercialized over the
past 10 years that people arerepackaging personal
finance-related stuff and tryingto have clubs and courses and
all manner of things.
Voices (04:55):
Act now.
Mostly Uncle Frank (04:57):
Act now and receive as our gift, our gift to
you.
They come in all colors, onesize fits all, and that really
was not the way we did thingsback in the day.
The way we did things back inthe day was we recognized that
there was probably not thatgreat a market for what we were
doing at the time, but therewere a number of people who were
(05:19):
significantly interested indifferent ideas and being able
to put them together interestedin different ideas and being
able to put them together, andso it was more of a kind of
sharing of information economy,if you can call it an economy.
So it had a more of an academicfeel to it.
Voices (05:35):
And that's the way it was, and we liked it, we loved
it.
Mostly Uncle Frank (05:39):
And I've tried to keep that kind of
zeitgeist alive in this podcast,with our business model, of
course.
Voices (05:47):
I got this inkling.
I got this idea for a businessmodel.
I just want to run it past you.
Here's how it would work.
You get a bunch of peoplearound the world who are doing
highly skilled work, but they'rewilling to do it for free and
volunteer their time 20,sometimes 30 hours a week oh,
but I'm not done.
And then what they create?
(06:09):
They give it away rather thansell it.
It's going to be huge.
Mostly Uncle Frank (06:15):
Anyway, here's to Tyler and OG fire
concepts.
Second milestone, and, kind ofcoincidentally, this podcast is
about to go over 1 milliondownloads, which should occur
right after I release thisepisode.
Voices (06:31):
Well, la-dee-freaking-da .
Mostly Uncle Frank (06:35):
And that's pretty amazing, considering we
don't have any staff or do anypublicity or anything really
other than kind of putting itout there and making myself
available to talk to peopleabout it whenever they'd like to
.
But I do really have all of youlisteners to thank for that,
and you are the ones that havesat down and taken the time to
(06:55):
listen to all this stuffintegrated into what you're
doing, and then pass the word byword of mouth to others who may
be interested in the material,and some of you have been with
me for a very long time.
Probably about half thedownloads, I think, are due to
Alexi the Dude, so that's whatyou call me.
You know that, or?
Voices (07:17):
his dudeness or duder or , you know, Bruce Dickinson.
Mostly Uncle Frank (07:22):
if you're not into the whole brevity thing
, my contact info, or BruceDickinson, if you're not into
the whole brevity thing.
Voices (07:27):
My contact info Ha ha, ha ha.
Trogdor strikes again.
Mostly Uncle Frank (07:31):
And about 15 guys named Kyle Kyle, but we
love you, kyle All the Kyles outthere.
Voices (07:40):
I want to hold you every morning and love you every
night.
Kyle, I promise you nothing butlove and happiness.
Mostly Uncle Frank (07:47):
And I do really mean it when I say we
have the finest podcast audienceavailable, not only the most
informed, but also the mostgenerous.
Mostly Mary (07:56):
Top drawer, really top drawer.
Mostly Uncle Frank (08:02):
Third, off and most importantly and on a
more personal note, I have totell you about Mary's milestone.
As some of you know, mary is acourt-appointed special advocate
, which is kind of aprofessional volunteer position
where you get appointed by acourt when children have been
removed from a home and need togo into foster care.
(08:25):
Now the main job of the CASA isto write reports to the judge
who is in charge of the case,basically about what everybody
else is doing in the case, sothat the judge can make
decisions in the best interestof the children.
But the CASA often ends upacting like an uber-advoc
advocate for the best interestsof the children that are not
(08:46):
necessarily covered by theirfoster parents or the other
people involved in the case.
And Mary's been working on avery complicated case for about
three years now.
That involved five children, oneof whom aged out and is now in
fostering futures.
But the other four were veryyoung when the case began and
(09:06):
they're still young and theywere formally adopted this past
week and they're all going to beliving in the same home with
the same new parents and theirlives have been immeasurably
changed for the better.
Mary got a nice note from thenew parents.
That made her cry and made mecry too.
(09:26):
They reminded her of all thethings that she's done with
those children over the past fewyears, because they were in
several different foster homesand they had a lot of other
issues to deal with.
So Mary was constantly going tofoster homes in a couple of
different counties, going tomedical appointments of various
shapes and sizes, going to IEPmeetings and all manner of
(09:49):
advocacy for these children,kind of like Eowyn in Lord of
the Rings.
Voices (09:56):
Women of this country learned long ago those without
swords can still die upon them.
I fear neither death nor pain.
I fear neither death nor pain.
Mostly Uncle Frank (10:05):
Mary's really an expert in this kind of
advocacy, which involvesdealing with bureaucracies, and
the way she does it is bylearning the rules of the
bureaucracy better than thepeople that she's dealing with,
so that when they tell her anapplication is denied or delayed
, she will come back at themwith what's on page six, section
(10:27):
6b, about a right ofreapplication or another way of
doing it, and she will firmlyremind the person that she will
be calling her next week todiscuss the progress in the
application.
And she has a way of speakingand of looking at you that makes
you feel like you've probablydone something wrong or there's
(10:48):
something you should feel guiltyabout.
In any event, she's veryeffective.
Voices (10:56):
You fool.
No, man can kill me, die now.
Mostly Uncle Frank (11:26):
I am no man, so it's been an emotional week
in a good way.
Voices (11:34):
Emotions running high.
Mostly Uncle Frank (11:35):
yes, and I thought I might share it with
some of you, because I know someof you like to hear some of
those things and although Maryreally doesn't like me tooting
her horn, I feel like I amcompelled and obligated to do it
anyway.
Voices (11:49):
Yes.
Mostly Uncle Frank (11:51):
But now let's turn to your emails.
I think we've got time for acouple today, and so without
further ado, here I go onceagain with the email.
And First off.
First off, off, we have anemail from Starfish Amy, amy
(12:12):
what you wanna do.
And Starfish.
Amy writes.
Mostly Mary (12:19):
Hi Frank and Mary.
No question today, but I wantedto drop you a short note to let
you know I've made a donationto the Father McKenna Center on
their website for the Top of theT-Shirt campaign.
I mentioned the Risk ParityRadio Top of the T-Shirt
campaign in the tribute field toflag the donation for the
campaign.
I learned of your podcast in2021 from the ChooseFI community
(12:39):
and four years later it remainsmy number one favorite podcast.
I can't adequately express howmuch I value the education
you've provided me over theseyears.
I'm a better investor today andI'm better prepared for early
retirement in T-minus two yearsthanks to all I've learned.
Warmest regards Starfish Amy.
Voices (13:01):
I think I could stay with you for a while, maybe
longer if I do.
Mostly Uncle Frank (13:11):
Well, amy, it's very timely for you to send
an email in like this, since weare at that millionth download,
and you're one of the reasonsYou're all right.
I really do value the peoplewho have been here the longest,
especially ones such as yourself, who I know are associated with
the institution known as MIT,because if I'm good enough for
(13:33):
you, I'm probably good enoughfor anybody.
Voices (13:37):
Because I'm good enough.
I'm smart enough and doggone it.
People like me.
Mostly Uncle Frank (13:45):
I also want to thank you for your donation
to the Father McKenna Center,which has moved you to the front
of this email line.
As most of you know, we do nothave any sponsors on this
program.
We do have a charity we support.
It's called the Father McKennaCenter and it supports hungry
and homeless people inWashington DC.
Full disclosure.
I am on the board of thecharity and I'm the current
treasurer.
We are currently running amatching campaign called the Top
(14:08):
of the T-Shirt Campaign, whichwe first rolled out in episode
426.
We are about to conclude thecampaign this week and I will be
enlightening you with thetotals at the beginning of next
month.
I can tell you they are veryimpressive already, but you
still have time.
You can get your donation in byJuly 31st.
(14:30):
We can add it to this campaign.
That goes with our Walk forMcKenna that we hold every year
in September, and there aret-shirts handed out with the top
donors at the top of thet-shirt.
If you'd like to donate,there's two ways to do that.
You can go to the donation page, the Father McKenna Center,
which I'll link to in the shownotes.
That's the easiest way.
(14:50):
Or you can go to the supportpage at wwwriskpartyradarcom and
become one of our patrons onPatreon.
Either way it counts, and makesure you mention that when you
do email in so I know to moveyour email to the front of the
line.
Voices (15:07):
Show me the money.
I need to feel you, Jerry.
Show me the money.
Jerry, you better yell.
Show me the money.
Mostly Uncle Frank (15:15):
Now you refer to yourself as Starfish,
amy, and that does have specialmeaning both in the context of
Mary's Casa work and thispodcast and life in general.
There is a field of psychologycalled narrative psychology that
I've referred to before andI'll link to a nice YouTube
video about it in the show notesagain.
(15:36):
But the idea of narrativepsychology is that if you can
come up with a little story thatsort of encapsulates what your
purpose is in life, or yourcurrent purpose is in life, it
will help keep you motivated andenthusiastic about what you're
doing.
Now, the most common story thatwe use in Western society is
that of the hero's journey,which kind of goes with our
(15:59):
careers in life, and that's agood story for early in life,
the first part of your life, butit may not be the best story
for later in life, and so I'vepicked three different stories
to sustain me through, hopefully, the remainder of my life.
One is that of the CuriousChild, one is called the parable
(16:20):
of the Mexican fisherman,although it's a Belizean
fisherman, and the third one isthe parable of the starfish
thrower.
I talked about all three ofthose in episode 508 of the
Choose FI podcast, which I'lllink to again in the show notes.
But we're going to talk aboutthe parable of the starfish
thrower right now, because thatis one that Mary and I actually
(16:41):
share as a value and somethingwe aspire to be.
And in fact the Parable of theStarfish Thrower is the theme
story of the CASA organization.
The Court Appointed SpecialAdvocates and they all get a
little starfish to put on theirkeychains.
I will link to a version of itin the show notes.
You can find it anywhere on theinternet.
(17:03):
But in the starfish throwerstory there's a girl walking on
a beach who sees a whole bunchof starfish that have been
washed in by the tide and arestuck on the beach.
And as she's walking along shestarts picking them up and
throwing them back into theocean to save them, one at a
time.
And there's a grumpy old manhanging out there who looks at
(17:27):
her and says, hmm, why are youwasting your time doing that?
You can't possibly save allthose starfish.
What does it matter?
And she picks up a starfish,throws it back in, looks at him
and smiles and says well, itmatters to that one.
And there are a couple ofdifferent lessons from the story
(17:48):
.
One is that just because youcan't save the whole world
doesn't mean you can't saveindividuals in the world and do
some good and it's going to bevery important for those
individuals.
So it's not like this all ornothing thing, but there's a
deeper one, that this is howrelationships are formed,
(18:08):
because in my mind, most of thetime the girl goes down there,
there is no grumpy old mantalking to her.
It's just her and the starfishand she's walking along saving a
few of them, but also seeingthe ones that she saved.
They're still there, they'rejust in the ocean and she has
conversations with them.
(18:29):
They say thank you for savingme.
And that's really how a lot ofmeaningful relationships in life
are formed.
Voices (18:38):
I haven't taken leave of my senses, bob.
I've come to them.
From now on, I want to try tohelp you to raise that family of
yours.
Mostly Uncle Frank (18:48):
If you'll let me, Go find people you can
save and save them, and maybesaving them is just a little
toss, a little help.
Oftentimes it's not that big adeal.
Voices (19:00):
Forget it.
Five grand, no problem, we'llhave it for you in the morning.
Let's go, elwood.
Mostly Uncle Frank (19:05):
But both Mary and I believe that being a
starfish thrower is one of thebest things you can be and one
of the most meaningful thingsyou can do to live a fulfilled
life.
So it was very serendipitous ofyou to remind us of that story
this week.
Thank you for being a loyallistener for so long, thank you
(19:26):
for your donation to the FatherMcKenna Center and thank you for
your email.
Voices (20:00):
Last off.
Mostly Uncle Frank (20:02):
Last off, we have an email from John.
Mostly Mary (20:05):
How about John?
That's nice and simple.
Voices (20:08):
What are you serious?
Mostly Mary (20:10):
Well, yeah.
Voices (20:11):
John, you want to do that to the kid.
Mostly Mary (20:14):
And John writes hey , frank, long-time listener,
first-time emailer, I'd like topropose a rant here.
Frank, longtime listener, firsttime emailer, I'd like to
propose a rant here.
Can we please talk about thekind of people who keep emailing
financial podcasters out thereonly to stroke their own egos
about money?
Voices (20:29):
I don't care about the children, I just care about
their parents' money.
Mostly Mary (20:33):
I'm talking about the ones who already have
millions in investments.
Their homes are paid off.
They're debating whether to usea 3% or 2.5% safe withdrawal
rate and they act like they'rein some kind of financial crisis
.
Voices (20:46):
You can't handle the dogs and cats living together.
Mostly Mary (20:50):
Meanwhile, the rest of us are out here making
$37,000 a year with three kidsand a sick wife like in my case
budgeting down to the dollar,choosing between paying rent and
buying groceries case budgetingdown to the dollar, choosing
between paying rent and buyinggroceries.
We're the ones who actuallyneed real help and advice here.
It feels like they're justcalling in to flex.
Voices (21:08):
Do not be alarmed by our stunning musculature.
Yeah, we know, your tinychildren brains can't possibly
comprehend the muscles, so largean arm, so strong a body, so
firm.
Mostly Mary (21:20):
Oh, should I pay cash for my third rental
property or take out a loan?
Are you serious?
What am I supposed to do withthat info?
How does that help anyone who'sworking minimum wage or dealing
with medical debt or trying tosupport a family on scraps?
We tune in because we're hopingfor guidance, real answers for
real problems, but instead weget rich people looking for a
(21:42):
gold star.
If they want validation, theycan go talk to their financial
advisor or just look in themirror and smile.
Stop wasting airtime.
Mostly Uncle Frank (21:51):
Do you think anybody wants a roundhouse kick
to the face while I'm wearingthese bad boys?
Voices (21:55):
Forget about it.
Mostly Mary (21:57):
The other day I was listening to the Afford
Anything podcast and a ladycalled in asking if she's saving
too much for college.
It was like $1,800 a month.
What world are these peopleliving in?
Or in your podcast.
The other day, an emailerliving on $300,000 a year and
wanting to figure out what to dowith the pension she won't need
.
It makes me nauseated.
(22:18):
I literally pressed skip onthat episode out of shame for my
condition.
It seems it's just me who can'tget out of the situation I'm in
, and everybody else in thiscountry is doing great.
Please, I'd like to hear moreon the people who need this show
to actually come up with ascrap of a retirement plan that
doesn't involve living in a vandown by the river and eating a
(22:39):
steady dine of government cheesewhich will happen to me most
probably and not so much on theones who use it to show off.
Thanks, john.
Mostly Uncle Frank (22:49):
So John wants a little rant.
Voices (22:52):
I want you to be nice until it's time to not be nice.
Mostly Uncle Frank (23:00):
Well, let's see what I can do.
Voices (23:03):
Right to get my butcher in tools.
I'm going to de-board him likea shank.
Mostly Uncle Frank (23:07):
Just need to find this button here and away
we go.
I think it's quite true thatpersonal finance creates these
kind of weirdo rich people,communities that don't recognize
(23:31):
how very strange they are,especially from a sociological
point of view.
Voices (23:36):
The peasants feel you have no regard for them.
What.
I have no regard for thepeasants.
They are my people, I am theirsovereign.
I love them oh, drifting to theleft now for framing purposes.
Mostly Uncle Frank (23:56):
nick majuli has a new book out called the
wealth ladder, where he dividesup people by levels of wealth
and notes that 80% of the peoplein the US are on levels one,
two and three and they'rebasically worth less than a
million dollars.
So only about 20% of the totalis worth more than that, and
probably 18% of those people areworth between one and $10
(24:17):
million, and probably 18% ofthose people are worth between
$1 and $10 million.
And really that, I think, isthe group of people we're
talking about here, of which Iam one.
Mostly Mary (24:28):
Don't be saucy with me, Bernays.
Mostly Uncle Frank (24:30):
But this is the group that overwhelmingly
populates and consumes popularpersonal finance media,
particularly that involvinginvesting, and what some of them
don't seem to realize is themore time they spend in a group
only with these types of peopletalking about only this type of
subject matter, the weirder andweirder they actually become and
(24:53):
the odder they sound to peoplewho are not in the group.
Voices (24:56):
We are the keepers of the sacred words.
Mostly Uncle Frank (25:04):
There's a lot of group think in this group
.
Voices (25:06):
Well, what is it you want?
We want a shrubbery.
Mostly Uncle Frank (25:14):
There's a lot of clubbiness in this group.
Voices (25:17):
I've got a good mind to join a club and beat you over
the head with it.
Mostly Uncle Frank (25:21):
And it is that old adage that you become
the average of the five peopleyou spend the most time with.
You are the average of the fivepeople you spend the most time
with, and so what is verypopular in this group is to talk
incessantly about investmentsand also whinge about every
random possibility of somethingthat might reduce one's wealth
(25:45):
in the future.
On top of that, if this was tohappen, look at the fix I'd be
in.
Popular topics include irma,rmds, long-term care and just
about any other thing you canget yourself wound up about.
What guy in a suit?
no, it's a tax collector a lotof the people in this group are
(26:10):
on an endless hero's journey tobecome as wealthy as possible
when they're dead.
Voices (26:15):
What's with you?
Anyway, I can't help it.
I'm a greedy slob.
It's my hobby.
Save me.
Mostly Uncle Frank (26:22):
And by their behavior, that is their first
and foremost financial goal.
It's what economists call arevealed preference, that if we
assume you're rational, weassume that you are rationally
taking the actions that youintend to take to achieve some
ultimate goal.
Voices (26:41):
Oh boy, I'm rich, I'm wealthy, I'm independent, I'm
socially secure.
I'm rich, I'm rich, I'm rich.
Mostly Uncle Frank (26:50):
It's one big , long, endless hero's journey
that just ends at death.
Voices (26:55):
Dead is dead.
Mostly Uncle Frank (26:57):
One of the hallmarks of a lot of people in
this group is to look for patson the head as to how well
they're doing, because you cannever get enough pats on the
head about how well yourfinances look.
Voices (27:10):
Aw, you're such a good boy.
Mostly Uncle Frank (27:25):
Yeah, you're such a good saver, you're such
a good investor.
Voices (27:30):
Oh, you're such a good boy.
Yeah, you're such a goodinvestor.
Oh, you're such a good boy.
Mostly Uncle Frank (27:35):
Yeah, you're so good and, of course, there's
always this question that's notreally a question.
Do you think I'm gonna make it?
Do you think I should beworried that I'm only spending
two or one percent of my assets?
I don't know.
It's like yes, you do you justmade a fatal mistake.
Mister, I hope you knowsomething about hand-to-hand
(27:56):
combat so you get these peoplewho are in their late 50s with
six or eight million dollarssaying do you think I have
enough to retire?
What am I gonna do about irmaand what about my rmds?
The truth is, most of thesepeople have talked to three or
four different financialadvisors already.
They have and they know all theanswers to these things.
(28:17):
They're just looking forsomebody to say oh, you're in
such good shape, you're such agood person for accumulating all
that money.
Now let me pat you on the headsome more and talk about your
non-problems.
Voices (28:29):
Aw, you're such a good boy.
Mostly Uncle Frank (28:31):
Yeah, you're so good in some communities,
this comprises almost a hundredpercent of the people that are
involved.
There's a podcast I listen tooccasionally, which can be the
(28:51):
comedic whipping boy here forthis purpose.
It's called your Money, yourWealth, although it should be
called your Fear, your Hoarding,and it's run by these two guys
with the AUM advisory firm.
(29:12):
I drink your milkshake and it'srun by these two guys with the
AUM advisory firm.
Voices (29:17):
I drink your milkshake.
Mostly Uncle Frank (29:19):
Who had this radio show going back to I
don't know, sometime in theearly 2000s, like Jojo the Clown
and Big Al, who I think shouldbe called Big Dipstick.
Anyway, these guys sound likethey're made for radio.
They're talking from scripts.
They have the same answers tothe same questions all the time,
(29:39):
but they sure do play to theiraudience, because this audience
makes the best kind of clientsto have if you're an AUM advisor
.
Voices (29:47):
Am I right or am I right , or am I right, right, right,
right.
Mostly Uncle Frank (29:51):
Now, what does this audience sound like?
Well, I don't know if all ofthe people that write in sound
like this or they're justpicking the ones that do, but
virtually everybody whose emailthey read on that program is
well over saved, like at leasttwice as much over saved as they
need to be, and they all havesome large number of millions of
(30:12):
dollars.
They're all barely spendinganything and they're all saying
do you think I'm gonna be okay?
What's a disaster?
Voices (30:21):
that's when bad things happen to people in the world,
things we don't expect, and it'sjust awful oh davy, that is
awful and they're looking forpats on the head and these guys
do their little dance.
Mostly Uncle Frank (30:36):
They give them the pats on the head.
Voices (30:39):
Aw, you're such a good boy.
Yeah, you're so good.
Mostly Uncle Frank (30:45):
But they also say things that lead me to
believe that they're not thatwell informed.
They have not kept up on theirknowledge of stuff.
Whenever the big dipstick getsa question about how much can I
spend in my 50s, he'll go oh youknow, in your 60s you might be
able to spend 4% if you're lucky, but in your 50s, well, we'll
just take another percent off ofthat, and if you go to your 40s
(31:08):
we'll take another one, go downto 2%.
When somebody talks like thatthat somebody who's supposed to
be a professional I know theydon't know what they're doing.
They have no business managingpeople's money other than to
store it up so they can getbigger aum fees off of it I
drink it up and maybe that's thepoint.
Maybe they're allowing for thosegigantic AUM fees.
Voices (31:33):
Because only one thing counts in this life Get them to
sign on the line which is dotted.
Mostly Uncle Frank (31:39):
Because the underspending suits them in two
ways.
First, there's enough room tocollect the fee.
Second, if the client is notspending much money, their
assets continue to grow and theAUM fees continue to grow.
Until they're dead they'resitting out there waiting to
give you their money.
Voices (31:57):
Are you going to take it ?
Mostly Uncle Frank (31:59):
If Dipstick knew what he was talking about,
he'd know that function isasymptotic.
The safe withdrawal rate isasymptotic.
It smooths out.
There's a book by Bill BengenEver heard of him?
It's coming out next month.
Go read it, learn something.
The safe withdrawal rate's onlygoing to drop about 0.6% on a
forever time frame from a30-year time frame.
(32:21):
And if you're going to be adipstick about that, misinform
the public you're supposed to beserving and act like oh, I've
been on the radio.
Oh, you guys ought to.
You know, I'm famous, you oughtto listen to me.
I'm famous, I got a script,just like Dave Ramsey or
something.
Anyway, it's all part of thisculture of hyper-conservativism,
(32:43):
hyper-hoarding and making upproblems and assigning
probabilities to them that arenot real probabilities.
Voices (32:51):
Am I right or am I right , or am I right, right, right,
right.
Mostly Uncle Frank (32:55):
It works well for the hoarding culture
and it also works really wellfor AUM advisors who like to
serve that culture and cater toit with as many pats on the head
as possible, Because those patsare very expensive pats.
Voices (33:11):
Aw, you're such a good boy.
Yeah, you're so good.
Mostly Uncle Frank (33:18):
I think that firm charges up to 1.6% of your
assets under management.
Voices (33:22):
My straw reaches across the room and starts to drink
your milkshake.
Mostly Uncle Frank (33:34):
And yes, john, those people are just
writing into Flex because theydon't really have very good
lives.
They spend a lot of timecounting their money, wanting
other people to count theirmoney and tell them how
wonderful they are.
Voices (33:51):
Aw, you're such a good boy.
Yeah, you're so good.
Mostly Uncle Frank (33:57):
If that's your life, I'm sure you're very
comfortable, but you're nottrying very hard and you're not
living your best life.
You're just not.
Voices (34:05):
There.
I think that's the last of it.
Just a quick check to see if Imissed anything.
Hey, what's this?
Mostly Mary (34:13):
Hmm Well, polished up, it might bring another quick
four bits on the open market.
Mostly Uncle Frank (34:19):
I mean, think about it, think about this
obsession with Irma.
Voices (34:23):
Save me.
Mostly Uncle Frank (34:25):
One of the things you learn from Nick
Maggiuli's new book is this kindof rule of thumb that if what
you're spending in a day is lessthan one ten thousandth of your
net worth, you probably shouldnot be wasting time worrying
about that.
So if you're worth a millionbucks, you can probably blow a
hundred bucks, not worry aboutit.
So if you're worth a millionbucks, you can probably blow a
hundred bucks, not worry aboutit.
Yes, you can order the mostexpensive entree.
(34:46):
If you're worth 10 millionbucks, you can blow a thousand
dollars, not worry about it.
You can spend that money onconvenience.
And when I look at things likehow much these Irma charges cost
, a lot of times they're in thatballpark.
For most of these people thatit's just not life-changing
money.
And if you are not spendingmoney or not taking the trip or
(35:08):
not doing the thing or nothaving the family celebration
just to avoid going over an Irmabracket, you got your
priorities screwed up.
People say don't let the taxtail wag the investment dog.
Well, what's more important isdon't let the tax tail wag the
life optimization dog.
(35:29):
Set those priorities first,those relationship priorities,
those experience priorities, andthen manage the IRMAs and the
RMDs and whatever else you haveas a problem after that, because
if your life is just about notpaying something, it's not much
of a life.
Voices (35:48):
Somebody says, yeah, but I'm looking for safety and
security.
Fine, then huddle in a corner.
We'll cover you with a sheet,bring you three meals a day and
we'll protect you, feed you,look after you, care for you.
We won't let anything happen toyou and you'll probably live to
be 100.
The guy said well, yeah, I'dlive to be 100.
(36:08):
But what a way to live, Right,what a way to live safe and
secure.
Mostly Uncle Frank (36:14):
But let me tell you something, john.
A lot of these people reallyare not very happy despite all
their wealth, and that's whythey're continually looking for
these pats on the back oraffirmants that what they're
doing is a good idea.
There are a lot of people whoare a lot happier, who don't
have any kind of wealth at alland who have real problems and
(36:36):
real struggles.
Let me tell you about our niece, melissa.
She's about your age.
Melissa was born to two parentsthat could not take care of her
.
One of them was my mentally illbrother, peter, who's now
deceased, and her mother was awoman who had a lot of problems
of her own, who is also nowdeceased.
Melissa went into foster careas a baby and, lucky for her and
(37:02):
to the credit of my eldestbrother and his wife, they
adopted her.
They already had two girls andthey brought her in as their
third daughter.
She struggled in school.
She had learning disabilities,reading was very difficult for
her and when she was a teenagershe started fighting with her
parents.
She says to her mom when she'sabout 16, I don't think you
(37:24):
should have been my parents.
I think Uncle Frank and AuntMary should have been my parents
.
And her mom says you know, thatcan be arranged.
And so it was.
And she came to live with uswhen she was about 16 and stayed
with us for one whole summer.
And if you're going to be achild in a household run by Aunt
(37:45):
Mary, you're not going to besitting around, you're going to
be working or volunteering.
If you're not in school, you'regoing to go to the gym with her
and you're going to be cooking.
And so while she was here,melissa learned to cook a lot of
things and took that with herin the form of a cookbook when
she was 16 years old that sheand Mary created in a binder.
She was one of our starfish.
(38:06):
Now.
Melissa had a number of otherstruggles.
I'm only going to talk about acouple of them here.
She did get through school, shedid become a nurse, and then
she got married and began havingchildren.
One of those children was ababy named Cordelia, and
Cordelia died in her crib only afew weeks after she was born.
(38:28):
I don't need to tell anyonewho's lost a child what that's
like, but I think most peopleagree that that'd be one of the
worst things that could happento you.
Now, despite all these hardships, melissa's one of the happiest
people I know, and she and herhusband don't have a lot of
money.
They live in a tiny littlehouse I think it's less than a
(38:48):
thousand square feet.
It's on a big piece of property.
They have three kids, they havea giant dog, a Cane Corso and a
rabbit named Oreo, and I don'tknow how they all fit in that
little house, but they do.
Her husband recently lost hisjob due to the budget cuts.
He's found something else, butthey're making do.
(39:08):
But I'd like to invite you tosee what kind of person she is
and how things go out there.
She's taken to making a numberof little videos.
I guess you call them reels onFacebook, or I'm not even sure
what they call them on Instagram, but what these reels are are
of her cooking in her littlekitchen with her children and
(39:31):
often the dog in the background.
They're short but they'rehilarious, and for us they're
also heartening to watch,because a lot of the things
she's cooking are out of thatcookbook that she and Mary made
20 years ago when she lived withus, and that's a real legacy.
A legacy is not that pile ofcash or whatever it is you leave
(39:52):
when you're dead, that you wereunwilling to spend when you
were alive.
A legacy is a tradition that haspassed from generation to
generation, that is experiencedwhile everybody is alive, and
you don't need a lot of money todo it.
But I do invite you to watchthese little videos of Melissa
(40:13):
and her family.
On Instagram it's underbringing up the Bailey's
bringing up the Bailey's, and onFacebook she's got it under
Come and Get it.
Come and Get it, because that'swhat she and the kids yell at
the end or at the beginning ofevery one of these little videos
, and they're only about aminute long.
Anyway, john, I'm glad youwrote in and I'm happy to serve
(40:37):
you in any way we can.
Here.
I can tell you it is possibleto go from essentially broke to
in good shape for retirement in10 or 15 years, although I think
it's a lot harder with threekids and some of the stories
I've heard.
But I agree with you thatpersonal finance should be for
everybody, not just the peoplewho are already on top and have
(40:58):
more money than they know whatto do with.
Voices (41:05):
This was not written for chiefs.
Hear me, hear this.
Look at these three words,written larger than the rest,
with a special pride, neverwritten before or since.
Tall words proudly saying we,the people.
That which you call Eidplebnista, was not written for
(41:25):
the chiefs, or the kings, or thewarriors or the rich, or the
powerful, but for all the people.
Mostly Uncle Frank (41:31):
And that's why I really do like to focus
here on how can we spend themost money in our retirement and
not how to spend the least,because it is really not helpful
and really tone deaf if you'retalking about a 2% safe
withdrawal rate and all thethings that quote could go wrong
, unquote.
I don't have any magic plansfor you.
(41:52):
I do think you probably need tofind a way to make more money.
I don't know what your job isright now.
I don't know what yourpossibilities are.
If you are interested insomething like real estate, I
would look up the books writtenby Chad Carson, who got his
start in that kind of justbird-dogging or finding deals
for other people, since hedidn't have any money.
(42:14):
But in the meantime, I justwanted to remind you, with
Melissa's story, that no, youdon't need to have a whole lot
of resources to live a happylife, but having more money does
provide a lot more options.
So I'm glad you listened tothis program and I hope you do
email in again and maybe tell usmore about your situation.
(42:34):
Maybe I can come up withsomething.
I don't know.
I can say we are all pullingfor you and your family because
there are a lot more people inthe same boat as you in this
country than there are of thepeople who send in too many
emails to personal finance shows.
Hopefully that helps a littleand thank you very much for your
(42:56):
email.
Voices (42:59):
And now for something completely different.
And now for somethingcompletely different.
Mostly Uncle Frank (43:02):
And the something completely different
is our weekly portfolio reviews.
Of the eight sample portfoliosyou can find at
wwwriskparadrivercom On theportfolios page.
Just looking at the markets sofar this year, the S&P 500,
represented by VOO, is up 9.39%for the year.
The NASDAQ 100, represented byQQQ, is up 11.07% for the year.
(43:27):
Small cap value, represented bythe fund VIOV, continues to
drag.
It is down 3.33% for the yearso far.
But gold continues to be thebig winner, although it hasn't
moved much recently.
Voices (43:41):
I love gold.
Mostly Uncle Fra (43:45):
Representative fund GLDM is up 27.12% for the
year.
Long-term treasuries,represented by VGLT are up 1.69%
for the year.
Reits, represented by the fundREET, are up 6.09% for the year.
Commodities represented by PDBCare up 1.09% for the year.
Commodities represented by PDBCare up 1.77% for the year.
(44:05):
Preferred shares, representedby the fund PFFV are up 1.12%
for the year so far, and managedfutures are actually managing
to be positive.
Now.
Representative fund DBMF is up0.48% for the year so far.
So it's funny after all thesturm and drang in the spring,
this is turning out to be apretty good year at the moment.
(44:27):
But don't hold your breath.
Now moving to these sampleportfolios.
First one's the all seasons.
This is a reference portfolio.
It's only 30% in stocks and atotal stock market fund, 55
percent in intermediate andlong-term treasury bonds and the
remaining 15 percent in goldand commodities.
It is up 0.6 percent month todate.
(44:48):
It's up 6.52 percent year todate and up 15.64 percent since
inception in July 2020.
Moving to these bread and butterkind of portfolios first one's
gold and butterfly.
This one's 40% in stocks,divided into a total stock
market fund and a small capvalue fund, 40% in treasury
bonds, divided into a long fundand a short fund and 20% in gold
(45:13):
GLDM.
It's up 1.52% for the month ofJuly.
It's up 7.87% year to date andup 44.37% since inception in
July 2020.
Next one's golden ratio thisone is 42% in stocks divided
into a large-cap growth fund anda small cap value fund, 26% in
(45:35):
long-term treasury bonds, 16% ingold, 10% in a managed futures
fund and 6% in cash in a moneymarket fund, which we just
refilled last week.
It's up 1.74% month-to-date.
It's up 7.18% year-to-date andup 39.28% since inception in
July 2020.
(45:56):
Next one's the risk parityultimate After last week's
rebalancing.
Finally, we were able toconsolidate this back into just
one account with 12 funds in it.
I'm not going to go through allof them.
It is up 1.55% Month-to-date.
It's up 6.62% Year-to-date.
It's up 27.25% since inceptionin July 2020.
(46:16):
Moving to these experimentalportfolios, these all involve
leveraged funds, so don't trythis at home.
Voices (46:25):
You have a gambling problem.
Mostly Uncle Frank (46:28):
First one's the accelerated permanent
portfolio.
It is 27.5% in a levered bondfund TMF, 25% in a levered stock
fund UPRO, 25% in PFFV, apreferred shares fund, and 22.5%
in gold GLDM.
It's up 1.06% month-to-date.
It's up 8.09% year-to-date andup 9.21% since inception in July
(46:51):
2020.
Next one's the aggressive 50-50.
This is the least diversifiedand most levered of all these
portfolios.
It's one-third in a leveredstock fund, upro, one-third in a
levered bond fund, tmf and theremaining third in Ballast in a
preferred shares fund and anintermediate treasury bond fund.
It's up 1.36% month-to-date forJuly.
(47:11):
It's up 3.41% year-to-date, butit's still down 8.93% since
inception in July 2020.
Percent since inception in July2020.
Still dragging up the rear.
Next one's the levered goldenratio.
This one's a year younger thanthe first six.
It's 35 percent in a compositefund NTSX that's the S&P 500 and
(47:34):
treasury bonds Levered up 1.5to 1.
20 percent in gold GLDM, 20% ingold GLDM, 15% in AVDV, which
is an international small capvalue fund.
10% in KMLM that's a managedfutures fund.
10% in TMF it's a levered bondfund.
The remaining 10% in twolevered funds, udao and UTSL,
(47:54):
that follow the DAO and autilities index.
It's up 2.05% month to date.
Canada Utilities Index.
It's up 2.05% month to date.
It's up 11.53% year to date andup 6.6% since inception in July
2021.
Now moving to the last one.
Last but not least, it's ournewest portfolio, the Optra
(48:15):
portfolio.
One portfolio to rule them all.
Voices (48:21):
One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one
ring to bring them all and, inthe darkness, bind them.
Mostly Uncle Frank (48:35):
This is a return stack portfolio.
It is 16% in UPRO, a leveredstock fund, 24% in AVGV, which
is a worldwide value tilted fund, 24% in GOVZ that's a treasury
strips fund, and the remaining36% divided into GLDM, a gold
fund, and DBMF, a managedfutures fund.
(48:57):
It's up 2.05% month-to-date forthe month of July.
It's up 9.6% year-to-date andup 12.79% since inception in
July 2024.
And that concludes our weeklyportfolio reviews.
Next week we'll be doing somedistributions again.
Well, they're mostly going tocome out of cash, since we just
(49:20):
did that.
Well, they're mostly going tocome out of cash, since we just
did that rebalancing, leavingcash in four of the portfolios
for the next distribution.
But now I see our signal isbeginning to fade.
Sorry, we were a little late onthe technical analysis this
time, but I just kind of takethe emails as I find them and do
(49:40):
the best I can with them.
Voices (49:43):
I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your
soul.
Mostly Uncle Frank (49:49):
If you have comments or questions for me,
please send them to frank atriskparityradarcom.
That email is frank atriskparityradarcom.
Or you can go to the website,wwwriskparityradarcom.
Put your message into thecontact form and I'll get it
that way.
If you haven't had a chance todo it, please go to your
favorite podcast provider andlike subscribe.
(50:10):
You'll be some stars.
A follow, a review that wouldbe great.
Okay, thank you once again fortuning in.
This is Frank Vasquez with RiskParty Radio signing off.
Voices (50:26):
When a problem comes along, you must whip it.
If all the cream sets out toolong, you must whip it.
When something's going wrong,you must whip it Now.
(50:49):
Whip it Into shape, shape it up, get straight, go forward, move
ahead, try to detect it.
It's not too late To whip itInto shape, shape it up, get
straight, go forward, move ahead, try to detect it.
(51:12):
It's not too late to whip it.
Whip it good.
Mostly Mary (51:22):
The Risk Parity Radio Show is hosted by Frank
Vasquez.
The content provided is forentertainment and informational
purposes only and does notconstitute financial, investment
tax or legal advice.
Please consult with your ownadvisors before taking any
actions based on any informationyou have heard here, making
sure to take into account yourown personal circumstances.
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