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Articles by Carl Richards
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/
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What You Don’t Know About Your Portfolio May Help You
Back in 2008, a friend of mine left for a two-week trek in Nepal. While he was gone, the entire financial world exploded. Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection. A.I.G. received an $85 billion loan from the Federal Reserve to avoid bankruptcy. But here’s the interesting part:...
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Challenge What You Think You Know
I used to ride my road bike a lot. While I didn’t race very often, I did ride with a group of really competitive riders. And when you ride a bike competitively, especially when long climbs are involved, weight is a factor. The less you weigh, the faster you go. Needing all the help I...
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Forecasting the market isn’t like the weather
Because I live in the mountains where the weather changes often, I’ve never really relied on forecasts. Instead, I prefer to look out the window to see what’s happening outside. My low-tech approach made sense for years. But my strategy — and the jokes about weather forecasters — may one day be a thing of...
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Don’t Wait for Creativity Strike – Strike Creativity
What if you don’t have to be “creative” to create? We all know the archetype of the creatives, right? Eccentric, weird, scattered, messy. The creatives are plagued perpetually by writer’s block (or sculptor’s block or painter’s block or whatever block). They spend most of their time lazing about gloomily, smoking cigarettes and cursing this cruel...
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Why Budgeting Will Lead to More Awareness
I don’t run into too many people who love to budget. And when you add another person to the mix, like a spouse or partner, there’s a good chance one of you will actually hate the idea. Budgeting clearly has a marketing problem. It’s a bit like flossing. We understand how important it is to...
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Numbers Don’t Need to Be King
Imagine you’re sitting in an auditorium full of all kinds of people. Everyone is there to learn about what to do with his or her money. All of a sudden, the door to the room opens, and in walks the much-anticipated speaker. Who do you think it is? If you said Warren Buffett or the...
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Hope Is Not a Budgeting Strategy
Maybe you’ve already learned the truth the hard way, but the universe is not going to pay for that BMW you want. In case you missed it, I’m referring to one of the teachings from the best-selling book that goes by the ingenious name “The Secret.” The premise relies on the law of attraction. The...
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Making the Most of Your Money
I keep coming across an interesting problem. People say they want things to be simpler — investing, life insurance, retirement planning, etc. But when a simpler (and effective) option is proposed, they reject it as too simple. In most of the money situations I’ve come across, the best solution is almost by definition the simplest....
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