Voices [0:01]

A foolish consistency, is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer, a different drummer.

Mostly Mary [0:19]

And now, coming to you from dead center on your dial, welcome to Risk Parity Radio, where we explore alternatives and asset allocations for the do-it-yourself investor Broadcasting to you now from the comfort of his easy chair. Here is your host, frank Vasquez.

Mostly Uncle Frank [0:37]

Thank you, Mary, and welcome to Risk Parity Radio. If you have just stumbled in here, you will find that this podcast is kind of like a dive bar of personal finance and do-it-yourself investing.

Voices [0:53]

Expect the unexpected.

Mostly Uncle Frank [0:55]

It's a relatively small place. It's just me and Mary in here and we only have a few mismatched bar stools and some easy chairs.

Voices [1:10]

We have no sponsors, we have no guests and we have no expansion plans. I don't think I'd like another job.

Mostly Uncle Frank [1:14]

What we do have is a little free library of updated and unconflicted information for do-it-yourself investors. Now who's up for a trip to the library tomorrow. So please enjoy our mostly cold beer served in cans and our coffee served in old chipped and cracked mugs, along with what our little free library has to offer.

Voices [1:43]

Welcome.

Mostly Uncle Frank [1:51]

By now onward to episode 441. Today on Risk Parity Radio, it's time for our weekly portfolio reviews. Of the eight sample portfolios you can find at wwwriskparradiocom on the portfolios page.

Voices [2:06]

Boring.

Mostly Uncle Frank [2:08]

And we'll have a couple of emails, at least a couple of emails.

Voices [2:12]

I'm intrigued by this, how you say emails.

Mostly Uncle Frank [2:18]

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 me Shirley. First off, it is the 10th anniversary of the founding of Portfolio Charts and Tyler has written a nice little walk down memory lane article I will link to in the show notes. But this was a very important milestone in do-it-yourself investing and in the development of the things that I talk about here, because prior to that publication it was very difficult for amateur investors to get good information in a good chart form about a variety of assets. The kinds of things that were available prior to that were the basically like the Seafire Sim type calculators and databases where you really only had stocks, bonds and cash to analyze.

Mostly Mary [3:15]

That's not an improvement.

Mostly Uncle Frank [3:18]

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 at or at least I was trying to figure out well which combination of assets is going to have the highest safe withdrawal rates, and those kinds of calculators were just inadequate for the job, and so I was kind of flailing around there for a couple of years looking at various ideas and scratching my head at them. But when Tyler put out portfolio charts, all of a sudden we had a pretty robust tool for analyzing all kinds of different assets in portfolios.

Mostly Mary [3:57]

I think I've improved on your methods a bit too.

Mostly Uncle Frank [4:00]

And having a good way to compare a lot of then popular portfolios to see which ones were actually the best for particular purposes.

Mostly Mary [4:10]

I employed some Chiara Sciuro shading.

Mostly Uncle Frank [4:13]

So a lot of what I've been able to develop is due in large part to what Tyler put together in 2015. And we should all thank him for that effort. Yay, 2015. And we should all thank him for that effort, because that was the first one, and then we had Portfolio Visualizer come out with a robust set of data the following year. But I feel like Tyler represents kind of an old school way of presenting this kind of information. A lot of this has seemed to become commercialized over the past 10 years that people are repackaging personal finance-related stuff and trying to have clubs and courses and all manner of things.

Voices [4:55]

Act now.

Mostly Uncle Frank [4:57]

Act now and receive as our gift, our gift to you. They come in all colors, one size fits all, and that really was not the way we did things back in the day. The way we did things back in the day was we recognized that there was probably not that great a market for what we were doing at the time, but there were a number of people who were significantly interested in different ideas and being able to put them together interested in different ideas and being able to put them together, and so 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 academic feel to it.

Voices [5:35]

And that's the way it was, and we liked it, we loved it.

Mostly Uncle Frank [5:39]

And I've tried to keep that kind of zeitgeist alive in this podcast, with our business model, of course.

Voices [5:47]

I got this inkling. I got this idea for a business model. I just want to run it past you. Here's how it would work. You get a bunch of people around the world who are doing highly skilled work, but they're willing 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? They give it away rather than sell it. It's going to be huge.

Mostly Uncle Frank [6:15]

Anyway, here's to Tyler and OG fire concepts. Second milestone, and, kind of coincidentally, this podcast is about to go over 1 million downloads, which should occur right after I release this episode.

Voices [6:31]

Well, la-dee-freaking-da.

Mostly Uncle Frank [6:35]

And that's pretty amazing, considering we don't have any staff or do any publicity or anything really other than kind of putting it out there and making myself available to talk to people about it whenever they'd like to. But I do really have all of you listeners to thank for that, and you are the ones that have sat down and taken the time to listen to all this stuff integrated into what you're doing, and then pass the word by word 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 the downloads, I think, are due to Alexi the Dude, so that's what you call me. You know that, or?

Voices [7:17]

his dudeness or duder or, you know, Bruce Dickinson.

Mostly Uncle Frank [7:22]

if you're not into the whole brevity thing, my contact info, or Bruce Dickinson, if you're not into the whole brevity thing.

Voices [7:27]

My contact info Ha ha, ha ha.

Voices [7:28]

Trogdor strikes again.

Mostly Uncle Frank [7:31]

And about 15 guys named Kyle Kyle, but we love you, kyle All the Kyles out there.

Voices [7:40]

I want to hold you every morning and love you every night. Kyle, I promise you nothing but love and happiness.

Mostly Uncle Frank [7:47]

And I do really mean it when I say we have the finest podcast audience available, not only the most informed, but also the most generous.

Mostly Mary [7:56]

Top drawer, really top drawer.

Mostly Uncle Frank [8:02]

Third, off and most importantly and on a more personal note, I have to tell you about Mary's milestone. As some of you know, mary is a court-appointed special advocate, which is kind of a professional volunteer position where you get appointed by a court when children have been removed from a home and need to go into foster care. Now the main job of the CASA is to write reports to the judge who is in charge of the case, basically about what everybody else is doing in the case, so that the judge can make decisions in the best interest of the children. But the CASA often ends up acting like an uber-advoc advocate for the best interests of the children that are not necessarily covered by their foster parents or the other people involved in the case. And Mary's been working on a very complicated case for about three years now.

Mostly Uncle Frank [8:57]

That involved five children, one of whom aged out and is now in fostering futures. But the other four were very young when the case began and they're still young and they were formally adopted this past week and they're all going to be living in the same home with the same new parents and their lives have been immeasurably changed for the better. Mary got a nice note from the new parents. That made her cry and made me cry too. They reminded her of all the things that she's done with those children over the past few years, because they were in several different foster homes and they had a lot of other issues to deal with. So Mary was constantly going to foster homes in a couple of different counties, going to medical appointments of various shapes and sizes, going to IEP meetings and all manner of advocacy for these children, kind of like Eowyn in Lord of the Rings.

Voices [9:56]

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 involves dealing with bureaucracies, and the way she does it is by learning the rules of the bureaucracy better than the people that she's dealing with, so that when they tell her an application is denied or delayed, she will come back at them with what's on page six, section 6b, about a right of reapplication or another way of doing it, and she will firmly remind the person that she will be calling her next week to discuss the progress in the application. And she has a way of speaking and of looking at you that makes you feel like you've probably done something wrong or there's something you should feel guilty about. In any event, she's very effective.

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 some of you like to hear some of those things and although Mary really doesn't like me tooting her horn, I feel like I am compelled 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 a couple today, and so without further ado, here I go once again with the email. And First off. First off, off, we have an email from Starfish Amy, amy what you wanna do. And Starfish. Amy writes.

Mostly Mary [12:19]

Hi Frank and Mary. No question today, but I wanted to drop you a short note to let you know I've made a donation to the Father McKenna Center on their website for the Top of the T-Shirt campaign. I mentioned the Risk Parity Radio Top of the T-Shirt campaign in the tribute field to flag the donation for the campaign. I learned of your podcast in 2021 from the ChooseFI community and four years later it remains my number one favorite podcast. I can't adequately express how much I value the education you've provided me over these years. I'm a better investor today and I'm better prepared for early retirement in T-minus two years thanks 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 we are at that millionth download, and you're one of the reasons You're all right. I really do value the people who 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 you, I'm probably good enough for anybody.

Voices [13:37]

Because I'm good enough.

Voices [13:39]

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 not have any sponsors on this program. We do have a charity we support. It's called the Father McKenna Center and it supports hungry and homeless people in Washington DC. Full disclosure. I am on the board of the charity and I'm the current treasurer.

Mostly Uncle Frank [14:05]

We are currently running a matching campaign called the Top of the T-Shirt Campaign, which we first rolled out in episode 426. We are about to conclude the campaign this week and I will be enlightening you with the totals at the beginning of next month. I can tell you they are very impressive already, but you still have time. You can get your donation in by July 31st. We can add it to this campaign. That goes with our Walk for McKenna that we hold every year in September, and there are t-shirts handed out with the top donors at the top of the t-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 show notes. That's the easiest way. Or you can go to the support page at wwwriskpartyradarcom and become one of our patrons on Patreon. Either way it counts, and make sure you mention that when you do email in so I know to move your 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 special meaning both in the context of Mary's Casa work and this podcast and life in general. There is a field of psychology called narrative psychology that I've referred to before and I'll link to a nice YouTube video about it in the show notes again. But the idea of narrative psychology is that if you can come up with a little story that sort of encapsulates what your purpose is in life, or your current purpose is in life, it will help keep you motivated and enthusiastic about what you're doing. Now, the most common story that we use in Western society is that of the hero's journey, which kind of goes with our careers in life, and that's a good story for early in life, the first part of your life, but it may not be the best story for later in life, and so I've picked three different stories to sustain me through, hopefully, the remainder of my life. One is that of the Curious Child, one is called the parable of the Mexican fisherman, although it's a Belizean fisherman, and the third one is the parable of the starfish thrower. I talked about all three of those in episode 508 of the Choose FI podcast, which I'll link to again in the show notes. But we're going to talk about the parable of the starfish thrower right now, because that is one that Mary and I actually share as a value and something we aspire to be. And in fact the Parable of the Starfish Thrower is the theme story of the CASA organization. The Court Appointed Special Advocates and they all get a little starfish to put on their keychains. I will link to a version of it in the show notes. You can find it anywhere on the internet.

Mostly Uncle Frank [17:03]

But in the starfish thrower story there's a girl walking on a beach who sees a whole bunch of starfish that have been washed in by the tide and are stuck on the beach. And as she's walking along she starts picking them up and throwing them back into the ocean to save them, one at a time. And there's a grumpy old man hanging out there who looks at her and says, hmm, why are you wasting your time doing that? You can't possibly save all those starfish. What does it matter? And she picks up a starfish, throws it back in, looks at him and smiles and says well, it matters to that one.

Mostly Uncle Frank [17:45]

And there are a couple of different lessons from the story. One is that just because you can't save the whole world doesn't mean you can't save individuals in the world and do some good and it's going to be very important for those individuals. So it's not like this all or nothing thing, but there's a deeper one, that this is how relationships are formed, because in my mind, most of the time the girl goes down there, there is no grumpy old man talking to her. It's just her and the starfish and she's walking along saving a few of them, but also seeing the ones that she saved. They're still there, they're just in the ocean and she has conversations with them. They say thank you for saving me. And that's really how a lot of meaningful 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 to help 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 maybe saving them is just a little toss, a little help. Oftentimes it's not that big a deal.

Voices [19:00]

Forget it. Five grand, no problem, we'll have 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 the best things you can be and one of the most meaningful things you can do to live a fulfilled life. So it was very serendipitous of you to remind us of that story this week. Thank you for being a loyal listener for so long, thank you for your donation to the Father McKenna 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 to propose a rant here. Frank, longtime listener, first time emailer, I'd like to propose a rant here. Can we please talk about the kind of people who keep emailing financial podcasters out there only 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 use a 3% or 2.5% safe withdrawal rate and they act like they're in 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 kids and a sick wife like in my case budgeting down to the dollar, choosing between paying rent and buying groceries case budgeting down to the dollar, choosing between paying rent and buying groceries. We're the ones who actually need real help and advice here. It feels like they're just calling in to flex.

Voices [21:08]

Do not be alarmed by our stunning musculature.

Voices [21:11]

Yeah, we know, your tiny children brains can't possibly comprehend the muscles, so large an 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 with that info? How does that help anyone who's working minimum wage or dealing with medical debt or trying to support a family on scraps? We tune in because we're hoping for guidance, real answers for real problems, but instead we get rich people looking for a gold star. If they want validation, they can go talk to their financial advisor or just look in the mirror and smile. Stop wasting airtime.

Mostly Uncle Frank [21:51]

Do you think anybody wants a roundhouse kick to the face while I'm wearing these 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 lady called in asking if she's saving too much for college. It was like $1,800 a month. What world are these people living in? Or in your podcast. The other day, an emailer living on $300,000 a year and wanting to figure out what to do with the pension she won't need. It makes me nauseated. I literally pressed skip on that episode out of shame for my condition. It seems it's just me who can't get out of the situation I'm in, and everybody else in this country is doing great. Please, I'd like to hear more on the people who need this show to actually come up with a scrap of a retirement plan that doesn't involve living in a van down by the river and eating a steady dine of government cheese which will happen to me most probably and not so much on the ones 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 like a shank.

Mostly Uncle Frank [23:07]

Just need to find this button here and away we go. I think it's quite true that personal finance creates these kind of weirdo rich people, communities that don't recognize how very strange they are, especially from a sociological point of view.

Voices [23:36]

The peasants feel you have no regard for them.

Voices [23:39]

What.

Voices [23:40]

I have no regard for the peasants. They are my people, I am their sovereign.

Voices [23:46]

I love them oh, drifting to the left now for framing purposes.

Mostly Uncle Frank [23:56]

nick majuli has a new book out called the wealth ladder, where he divides up people by levels of wealth and notes that 80% of the people in the US are on levels one, two and three and they're basically worth less than a million dollars. So only about 20% of the total is worth more than that, and probably 18% of those people are worth between one and $10 million, and probably 18% of those people are worth between $1 and $10 million. And really that, I think, is the group of people we're talking about here, of which I am 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 popular personal finance media, particularly that involving investing, and what some of them don't seem to realize is the more time they spend in a group only with these types of people talking about only this type of subject matter, the weirder and weirder they actually become and the odder they sound to people who 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 people you spend the most time with.

Mostly Uncle Frank [25:32]

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and so what is very popular in this group is to talk incessantly about investments and also whinge about every random possibility of something that might reduce one's wealth in the future. On top of that, if this was to happen, look at the fix I'd be in. Popular topics include irma, rmds, long-term care and just about any other thing you can get yourself wound up about. What guy in a suit?

Mostly Uncle Frank [26:02]

no, it's a tax collector a lot of the people in this group are on an endless hero's journey to become 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 a revealed preference, that if we assume you're rational, we assume that you are rationally taking the actions that you intend 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 pats on the head as to how well they're doing, because you can never get enough pats on the head about how well your finances 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.

Voices [27:32]

Yeah, you're such a good investor. 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 not really a question. Do you think I'm gonna make it? Do you think I should be worried that I'm only spending two or one percent of my assets? I don't know. It's like yes, you do you just made a fatal mistake.

Mostly Uncle Frank [27:53]

Mister, I hope you know something about hand-to-hand combat so you get these people who are in their late 50s with six or eight million dollars saying do you think I have enough to retire? What am I gonna do about irma and what about my rmds? The truth is, most of these people have talked to three or four different financial advisors already. They have and they know all the answers to these things. They're just looking for somebody to say oh, you're in such good shape, you're such a good person for accumulating all that money. Now let me pat you on the head some 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 hundred percent of the people that are involved. There's a podcast I listen to occasionally, which can be the comedic whipping boy here for this purpose. It's called your Money, your Wealth, although it should be called your Fear, your Hoarding, and it's run by these two guys with the AUM advisory firm. I drink your milkshake and it's run 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 the early 2000s, like Jojo the Clown and Big Al, who I think should be called Big Dipstick. Anyway, these guys sound like they're made for radio. They're talking from scripts. They have the same answers to the same questions all the time, but they sure do play to their audience, because this audience makes the best kind of clients to 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 of the people that write in sound like this or they're just picking the ones that do, but virtually everybody whose email they read on that program is well over saved, like at least twice as much over saved as they need to be, and they all have some large number of millions of dollars. They're all barely spending anything 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's just awful oh davy, that is awful and they're looking for pats 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.

Voices [30:41]

Yeah, you're so good.

Mostly Uncle Frank [30:45]

But they also say things that lead me to believe that they're not that well informed. They have not kept up on their knowledge of stuff. Whenever the big dipstick gets a question about how much can I spend in my 50s, he'll go oh you know, 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 of that, and if you go to your 40s we'll take another one, go down to 2%. When somebody talks like that that somebody who's supposed to be a professional I know they don't know what they're doing. They have no business managing people's money other than to store it up so they can get bigger aum fees off of it I drink it up and maybe that's the point.

Mostly Uncle Frank [31:28]

Maybe they're allowing for those gigantic 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 to collect the fee. Second, if the client is not spending much money, their assets continue to grow and the AUM fees continue to grow. Until they're dead they're sitting 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 is asymptotic. The safe withdrawal rate is asymptotic. It smooths out. There's a book by Bill Bengen Ever heard of him? It's coming out next month. Go read it, learn something. The safe withdrawal rate's only going to drop about 0.6% on a forever time frame from a 30-year time frame. And if you're going to be a dipstick about that, misinform the public you're supposed to be serving and act like oh, I've been on the radio. Oh, you guys ought to. You know, I'm famous, you ought to listen to me. I'm famous, I got a script, just like Dave Ramsey or something. Anyway, it's all part of this culture of hyper-conservativism, hyper-hoarding and making up problems and assigning probabilities to them that are not 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 well for AUM advisors who like to serve that culture and cater to it with as many pats on the head as possible, Because those pats are very expensive pats.

Voices [33:11]

Aw, you're such a good boy.

Voices [33:14]

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 they don't really have very good lives. They spend a lot of time counting their money, wanting other people to count their money and tell them how wonderful they are.

Voices [33:51]

Aw, you're such a good boy.

Voices [33:53]

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 not trying 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.

Voices [34:09]

Just a quick check to see if I missed 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 kind of rule of thumb that if what you're spending in a day is less than one ten thousandth of your net worth, you probably should not be wasting time worrying about that. So if you're worth a million bucks, you can probably blow a hundred bucks, not worry about it. So if you're worth a million bucks, you can probably blow a hundred bucks, not worry about it. Yes, you can order the most expensive entree. If you're worth 10 million bucks, you can blow a thousand dollars, not worry about it. You can spend that money on convenience.

Mostly Uncle Frank [34:53]

And when I look at things like how much these Irma charges cost, a lot of times they're in that ballpark. For most of these people that it's just not life-changing money. And if you are not spending money or not taking the trip or not doing the thing or not having the family celebration just to avoid going over an Irma bracket, you got your priorities screwed up. People say don't let the tax tail wag the investment dog. Well, what's more important is don't let the tax tail wag the life optimization dog. Set those priorities first, those relationship priorities, those experience priorities, and then manage the IRMAs and the RMDs and whatever else you have as a problem after that, because if your life is just about not paying 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 to you and you'll probably live to be 100. The guy said well, yeah, I'd live to be 100. 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 really are not very happy despite all their wealth, and that's why they're continually looking for these pats on the back or affirmants that what they're doing is a good idea. There are a lot of people who are a lot happier, who don't have any kind of wealth at all and who have real problems and real struggles. Let me tell you about our niece, melissa. She's about your age. Melissa was born to two parents that could not take care of her. One of them was my mentally ill brother, peter, who's now deceased, and her mother was a woman who had a lot of problems of her own, who is also now deceased. Melissa went into foster care as a baby and, lucky for her and to the credit of my eldest brother and his wife, they adopted her. They already had two girls and they brought her in as their third daughter.

Mostly Uncle Frank [37:11]

She struggled in school. She had learning disabilities, reading was very difficult for her and when she was a teenager she started fighting with her parents. She says to her mom when she's about 16, I don't think you should have been my parents. I think Uncle Frank and Aunt Mary should have been my parents. And her mom says you know, that can be arranged. And so it was. And she came to live with us when she was about 16 and stayed with us for one whole summer. And if you're going to be a child in a household run by Aunt Mary, you're not going to be sitting around, you're going to be working or volunteering. If you're not in school, you're going 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 her in the form of a cookbook when she was 16 years old that she and Mary created in a binder. She was one of our starfish. Now.

Mostly Uncle Frank [38:08]

Melissa had a number of other struggles. I'm only going to talk about a couple of them here. She did get through school, she did become a nurse, and then she got married and began having children. One of those children was a baby named Cordelia, and Cordelia died in her crib only a few weeks after she was born. I don't need to tell anyone who's lost a child what that's like, but I think most people agree that that'd be one of the worst things that could happen to you.

Mostly Uncle Frank [38:38]

Now, despite all these hardships, melissa's one of the happiest people I know, and she and her husband don't have a lot of money. They live in a tiny little house I think it's less than a thousand square feet. It's on a big piece of property. They have three kids, they have a giant dog, a Cane Corso and a rabbit named Oreo, and I don't know how they all fit in that little house, but they do. Her husband recently lost his job due to the budget cuts. He's found something else, but they're making do.

Mostly Uncle Frank [39:08]

But I'd like to invite you to see what kind of person she is and how things go out there. She's taken to making a number of little videos. I guess you call them reels on Facebook, or I'm not even sure what they call them on Instagram, but what these reels are are of her cooking in her little kitchen with her children and often the dog in the background. They're short but they're hilarious, and for us they're also heartening to watch, because a lot of the things she's cooking are out of that cookbook that she and Mary made 20 years ago when she lived with us, and that's a real legacy.

Mostly Uncle Frank [39:48]

A legacy is not that pile of cash or whatever it is you leave when you're dead, that you were unwilling to spend when you were alive.

Mostly Uncle Frank [39:57]

A legacy is a tradition that has passed from generation to generation, that is experienced while everybody is alive, and you don't need a lot of money to do it. But I do invite you to watch these little videos of Melissa and her family. On Instagram it's under bringing up the Bailey's bringing up the Bailey's, and on Facebook she's got it under Come and Get it. Come and Get it, because that's what she and the kids yell at the end or at the beginning of every one of these little videos, and they're only about a minute long. Anyway, john, I'm glad you wrote in and I'm happy to serve you in any way we can. Here. I can tell you it is possible to go from essentially broke to in good shape for retirement in 10 or 15 years, although I think it's a lot harder with three kids and some of the stories I've heard. But I agree with you that personal finance should be for everybody, not just the people who are already on top and have more money than they know what to do with.

Voices [41:05]

This was not written for chiefs. Hear me, hear this.

Voices [41:09]

Look at these three words, written larger than the rest, with a special pride, never written before or since. Tall words proudly saying we, the people. That which you call Eid plebnista, was not written for the chiefs, or the kings, or the warriors 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 the most money in our retirement and not how to spend the least, because it is really not helpful and really tone deaf if you're talking about a 2% safe withdrawal rate and all the things that quote could go wrong, unquote. I don't have any magic plans for you. I do think you probably need to find a way to make more money. I don't know what your job is right now. I don't know what your possibilities are. If you are interested in something like real estate, I would look up the books written by Chad Carson, who got his start in that kind of just bird-dogging or finding deals for other people, since he didn't have any money.

Mostly Uncle Frank [42:14]

But in the meantime, I just wanted to remind you, with Melissa's story, that no, you don't need to have a whole lot of resources to live a happy life, but having more money does provide a lot more options. So I'm glad you listened to this program and I hope you do email in again and maybe tell us more about your situation. Maybe I can come up with something. I don't know. I can say we are all pulling for you and your family because there are a lot more people in the same boat as you in this country than there are of the people who send in too many emails to personal finance shows. Hopefully that helps a little and thank you very much for your email.

Voices [42:59]

And now for something completely different. And now for something completely different.

Mostly Uncle Frank [43:02]

And the something completely different is our weekly portfolio reviews. Of the eight sample portfolios you can find at wwwriskparadrivercom On the portfolios page. Just looking at the markets so far this year, the S&P 500, represented by VOO, is up 9.39% for the year. The NASDAQ 100, represented by QQQ, is up 11.07% for the year. Small cap value, represented by the fund VIOV, continues to drag. It is down 3.33% for the year so far. But gold continues to be the big winner, although it hasn't moved much recently.

Voices [43:41]

I love gold.

Mostly Uncle Frank [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 fund REET, are up 6.09% for the year. Commodities represented by PDBC are up 1.09% for the year. Commodities represented by PDBC are up 1.77% for the year. Preferred shares, represented by the fund PFFV are up 1.12% for the year so far, and managed futures are actually managing to be positive.

Mostly Uncle Frank [44:15]

Now. Representative fund DBMF is up 0.48% for the year so far. So it's funny after all the sturm and drang in the spring, this is turning out to be a pretty good year at the moment. But don't hold your breath. Now moving to these sample portfolios. First one's the all seasons. This is a reference portfolio. It's only 30% in stocks and a total stock market fund, 55 percent in intermediate and long-term treasury bonds and the remaining 15 percent in gold and commodities. It is up 0.6 percent month to date. It's up 6.52 percent year to date and up 15.64 percent since inception in July 2020.

Mostly Uncle Frank [44:56]

Moving to these bread and butter kind of portfolios first one's gold and butterfly. This one's 40% in stocks, divided into a total stock market fund and a small cap value fund, 40% in treasury bonds, divided into a long fund and a short fund and 20% in gold GLDM. It's up 1.52% for the month of July. It's up 7.87% year to date and up 44.37% since inception in July 2020. Next one's golden ratio this one is 42% in stocks divided into a large-cap growth fund and a small cap value fund, 26% in long-term treasury bonds, 16% in gold, 10% in a managed futures fund and 6% in cash in a money market fund, which we just refilled last week. It's up 1.74% month-to-date. It's up 7.18% year-to-date and up 39.28% since inception in July 2020.

Mostly Uncle Frank [45:56]

Next one's the risk parity ultimate After last week's rebalancing. Finally, we were able to consolidate this back into just one account with 12 funds in it. I'm not going to go through all of them. It is up 1.55% Month-to-date. It's up 6.62% Year-to-date. It's up 27.25% since inception in July 2020. Moving to these experimental portfolios, these all involve leveraged funds, so don't try this 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 bond fund TMF, 25% in a levered stock fund UPRO, 25% in PFFV, a preferred shares fund, and 22.5% in gold GLDM. It's up 1.06% month-to-date. It's up 8.09% year-to-date and up 9.21% since inception in July 2020. Next one's the aggressive 50-50. This is the least diversified and most levered of all these portfolios. It's one-third in a levered stock fund, upro, one-third in a levered bond fund, tmf and the remaining third in Ballast in a preferred shares fund and an intermediate treasury bond fund. It's up 1.36% month-to-date for July. It's up 3.41% year-to-date, but it's still down 8.93% since inception in July 2020. Percent since inception in July 2020. Still dragging up the rear.

Mostly Uncle Frank [47:28]

Next one's the levered golden ratio. This one's a year younger than the first six. It's 35 percent in a composite fund NTSX that's the S&P 500 and treasury bonds Levered up 1.5 to 1. 20 percent in gold GLDM, 20% in gold GLDM, 15% in AVDV, which is an international small cap value fund. 10% in KMLM that's a managed futures fund. 10% in TMF it's a levered bond fund. The remaining 10% in two levered funds, udao and UTSL, that follow the DAO and a utilities 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 and up 6.6% since inception in July 2021. Now moving to the last one. Last but not least, it's our newest portfolio, the Optra 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, in the darkness, bind them.

Mostly Uncle Frank [48:35]

This is a return stack portfolio. It is 16% in UPRO, a levered stock fund, 24% in AVGV, which is a worldwide value tilted fund, 24% in GOVZ that's a treasury strips fund, and the remaining 36% divided into GLDM, a gold fund, and DBMF, a managed futures fund. It's up 2.05% month-to-date for the month of July. It's up 9.6% year-to-date and up 12.79% since inception in July 2024. And that concludes our weekly portfolio reviews. Next week we'll be doing some distributions again. Well, they're mostly going to come out of cash, since we just did that. Well, they're mostly going to come out of cash, since we just did that rebalancing, leaving cash in four of the portfolios for the next distribution. But now I see our signal is beginning to fade. Sorry, we were a little late on the technical analysis this time, but I just kind of take the emails as I find them and do 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 at riskparityradarcom. That email is frank at riskparityradarcom. Or you can go to the website, wwwriskparityradarcom. Put your message into the contact form and I'll get it that way. If you haven't had a chance to do it, please go to your favorite podcast provider and like subscribe. You'll be some stars. A follow, a review that would be great. Okay, thank you once again for tuning in. This is Frank Vasquez with Risk Party Radio signing off.

Voices [50:26]

When a problem comes along, you must whip it. If all the cream sets out too long, you must whip it. When something's going wrong, you must whip it Now. Whip it Into shape, shape it up, get straight, go forward, move ahead, try to detect it. It's not too late To whip it Into shape, shape it up, get straight, go forward, move ahead, try to detect it. 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 for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment tax or legal advice. Please consult with your own advisors before taking any actions based on any information you have heard here, making sure to take into account your own personal circumstances.