This month, our team read the new Morgan Housel book, The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness. It is THE best personal finance book we have read in a long time. Why? It is filled with real stories that show, instead of just tell, the real impact investing behavior has on people’s financial lives. Matt Hall recently interviewed Morgan Housel on his podcast, and Housel shared some of these astounding stories and more. Listen here!
Our favorite takeaways:
Rich vs. Wealthy
Rich is out in the open like a flashy sports car, while wealth is the money that you don’t see but has the capacity to change lives – yours or others. “Rich” is empty. Wealth is rock-solid. How do we get wealthy? Save a bit more than you spend over a long period of time, and try not to interrupt the compounding. Sound familiar?
The importance of time, and the magic of compounding
Compounding is so hard to imagine because it is by definition not intuitive. Warren Buffet is 90 years old, and he’s worth roughly $90 billion. That’s a huge number. It gets even crazier when you realize 99% of his net worth came after his 50th birthday, and 97% came after his 65th birthday. That’s worth repeating – 99% of his net worth came after 50. The lesson: once wealth starts compounding over time, the numbers get bigger faster than you can imagine. Also, it’s really never too late; however, starting today (or yesterday) is the best. That’s the long view in neon lights!
How to feel “better off”
If the more you make the more you spend, it will always feel like the goal line is moving. To feel better off, growing the gap between what you earn and what you spend is key. One exercise that has helped our clients is understanding what “enough” means for them. From a place of enough, any additional dollar earned contributes to growing wealth.
So how do you define “enough”? In our experience, a simple dinner conversation with family is a great place to start. If you want help facilitating that family conversation, let us know – family meetings are one of our favorite services to provide.
Do you eat your own cooking?
At HIG, we “eat our own cooking.” Translation: we invest our personal investments the same way we invest our client’s. While that sounds like an obvious statement, it is not the norm in the financial advice world. Sadly, not even close. Morgan talks about how important it is to ask experts how they apply their expertise to themselves or their family. For example, ask your doctor what kind of care they would want if they were in your shoes. You might be surprised by the answer. Curious to learn more? Give us a call.
