Carl Richards is a Certified Financial Planner and a columnist for the New York Times, Morningstar magazine and Yahoo Finance. He is author of 2 books, The Behavior Gap & The One-Page Financial Plan. Carl lives with his family in Park City, Utah. You can find his work and sign up for his newsletter (which has an international audience) at www.behaviorgap.com/
For the next few minutes, I want you to focus on the most successful person you know (and yes, it may be you). What makes this individual successful in your mind? Professional accomplishments? Personal wealth? Now, I want you to think of the happiest person you know. Did you come up with the same name?…
“I don’t know what to do.” I’ve heard those words a lot over the years. Smart, successful people with good educations would sit across from me and tell me they’d done little to no financial planning. They just didn’t know what to do, so they did nothing. I’m not surprised. Uncertainty has a way of…
Worry is a terrible strategy, but for a long time it was the only one I knew. Now, I consider this a safe place, so don’t judge me when I tell you a little story. For years, when I would send in the sketch that goes with my column for the New York Times, I…
You are not your spending thoughts. Spending without thinking about the long-term consequences is a problem. And by the long term, I mean just 30 days from now when the credit-card statement arrives. Some people label this type of spending “impulsive.” Others use the word “urge” to describe the feeling that comes just before they…
I have a lucky friend. Chances are you know him. He has written several New York Times best sellers. By any outward appearance, he has officially made it. I wanted to know what role he thought luck played in his career. Without batting an eye, he said, “Oh, luck has been everything. I can point…
I’m going to assume for a minute that you’re one of the millions of people who have a recurrently frustrating relationship with spending. It probably starts with a commitment to sticking to your budget, and you do for a few days. Then, despite your resolve, you break down, pull out the credit card and do…
This statement contradicts just about every evolutionary instinct we possess. We tend to seek out safety and avoid risk whenever possible. A classic example has to be the instinct that (still) tells us we are safer staying with the group. If members of the herd stray, they are easier for predators to pick off. Staying…
Remember that kid in your high-school geometry class who raised his hand and asked the question everyone knew the answer to? Remember how the class laughed and thought he was so dumb? It turns out that kid wasn’t dumb. That kid was humble. More humble than most of us. And being humble, when it comes to money,…
I received these two messages within three minutes of each other recently: Several years back I used to mine Bitcoin, and then I sold most of them off for a down payment for our house. I had 400 BTC at one point, which would be worth $6.8 million today. Needless to say, I am really…
When it comes to money, what we don’t know can hurt us. I’ve seen this truth play out time and again when people tell me they want to get serious about their finances. They want to invest. They want to make plans for the future. “Great,” I’ll say, “so what can you tell me about…
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