Bogleheads® Chapter Series – Sylvia Auton's journey to successfully manage her own finances

00:00:00.000 | Welcome to the Bogleheads chapter series.

00:00:05.600 | This episode was hosted by the pre and early retirement life stage chapter and recorded

00:00:10.460 | November 8th, 2023.

00:00:13.000 | The session features a Q&A and open discussion with our guest, Sylvia Auten.

00:00:18.280 | Bogleheads are investors who follow John Bogle's philosophy for attaining financial independence.

00:00:22.880 | This recording is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as personalized

00:00:27.100 | investment advice.

00:00:30.340 | Sylvia, thanks so much for being here.

00:00:35.000 | It gives us a great pleasure to have you be the guest speaker.

00:00:39.560 | I'll turn it over to you shortly.

00:00:40.940 | I'll reiterate what Jim said and I'll elaborate on it a little without stealing your thunder,

00:00:46.400 | Sylvia.

00:00:47.400 | Just for folks who aren't familiar, you were not involved with personal investing.

00:00:52.640 | Your husband handled much of it.

00:00:55.700 | And following his passing, you were faced with having to learn what to do and how to

00:01:01.940 | handle your situation.

00:01:03.540 | And so if you would, we're excited to hear about your journey.

00:01:09.740 | Thank you very much.

00:01:10.740 | And thank you so much for having me here and giving me an opportunity to talk about my

00:01:17.720 | experiences.

00:01:18.720 | First, I would like to thank Mel Lindauer and Taylor Laramore because all along they

00:01:26.560 | have been so kind and so helpful.

00:01:30.480 | Before beginning, I would also like to talk about something I've come to believe.

00:01:37.840 | And my belief has been based on talking to many people, teaching a course for many years

00:01:46.080 | now, to retirees who are just beginning to invest and then reading more than I ever thought

00:01:55.980 | I would do.

00:01:58.760 | And what my belief is, is that there are many, many, many people who are afraid to invest.

00:02:07.640 | They don't feel comfortable.

00:02:09.720 | They don't understand about investing.

00:02:14.480 | I think they were like me, and I'm hoping that what I can share will help them feel

00:02:22.640 | more comfortable, find joy in investing.

00:02:27.560 | And behind me there, I have a white swan, and that stands for sleep well at night.

00:02:35.160 | And that's what I hope people will be able to do, is to sleep well at night.

00:02:41.920 | Sylvia, if I can just interrupt for a second, thanks.

00:02:46.600 | I just want to, for folks not familiar, mention that Mel Lindauer is on this call, and it's

00:02:53.320 | an honor to have him here as one of the founders of the Bogleheads, and as you mentioned, Taylor

00:02:57.960 | Laramore as well.

00:02:59.400 | Yes.

00:03:00.400 | Well, thank you for that.

00:03:03.360 | When I think about my journey, I think about three stages.

00:03:08.360 | The first stage I call no, no, heck no.

00:03:14.200 | The second stage I think of as, well, I will try and learn a little.

00:03:21.960 | And the third stage I think of as hello, Jack Bogle.

00:03:28.080 | So let me start with the first stage of my journey.

00:03:32.680 | I didn't start to invest until after I retired, and well after I retired.

00:03:42.260 | I asked myself, why didn't I start earlier?

00:03:47.680 | Maybe like you, you were influenced by your childhood.

00:03:53.260 | My parents were young adults when they encountered the Great Depression.

00:04:00.920 | My father lost his job.

00:04:03.360 | They had hard times.

00:04:05.880 | The stock market crash came, and my mother said, never invest in anything but government

00:04:14.120 | bonds.

00:04:15.120 | They will always return your money, and you won't lose a penny.

00:04:21.160 | I didn't know any better, and so that's what I thought was the way to invest.

00:04:27.600 | Then when I married, my husband Dave, it turned out, was an enthusiastic market investor.

00:04:37.480 | And I had great confidence in him.

00:04:40.620 | When we were young, we had almost no money, and he would invest in penny stocks.

00:04:47.200 | Penny stocks, as the name implies, are very low cost and usually very, very risky.

00:04:56.060 | He invested in stocks, gold mines in the Philippines.

00:05:01.360 | That to me sounded risky, but again, we had very little money.

00:05:06.160 | He went on to invest in commodities, corn, pork bellies, and I knew so little about the

00:05:15.440 | market that I thought we could actually have bushels of corn if a bet went wrong.

00:05:24.160 | Then he went on to invest in precious metals and tech stocks.

00:05:29.920 | That was plan A in our house.

00:05:33.880 | He did that.

00:05:34.880 | I did other things.

00:05:36.700 | I had no plan B. And then he died suddenly, and there I was.

00:05:44.920 | In Ireland, there's a headstone which says, "Death leaves a heartache.

00:05:51.800 | No one can heal.

00:05:54.520 | Love leaves a memory no one can steal."

00:05:59.200 | So for a long time, I had heartaches and memories, and I had to do all those things that some

00:06:07.360 | of you might do if you lose a loved one.

00:06:12.020 | And like Scarlett O'Hara, I said, "I'll think about investing tomorrow."

00:06:19.400 | Of course, tomorrow came, and I still didn't know what to do with the funds we had.

00:06:27.920 | We did have a friend, though, who had really done very well in his career and was doing

00:06:36.160 | well in the market.

00:06:38.400 | He said to me, "I have a financial advisor.

00:06:44.040 | He's a great young man.

00:06:46.160 | He will take you as a client."

00:06:49.040 | And I told him to look out after you.

00:06:53.080 | Wow, I felt really comforted that somebody was going to do that for me.

00:07:00.360 | So I went with this young man and put funds there.

00:07:04.840 | And very congenial, large practice, well-known in the Washington area.

00:07:12.260 | He put me into mutual funds with fairly high loads.

00:07:18.800 | I didn't know anything.

00:07:20.440 | I didn't really know how to ask.

00:07:24.400 | But here's where a little turn in my journey came.

00:07:29.000 | I did want to be a good steward.

00:07:31.480 | I didn't want to lose whatever money we had, and I wanted to know a little bit about why

00:07:37.880 | he was doing what he was doing.

00:07:41.800 | So when I would ask a question about an asset, I'd get in the mail a quarterly report on

00:07:50.160 | that asset, which often had little print and much, much data.

00:07:58.280 | It wasn't what I wanted.

00:08:00.000 | It didn't make me feel any more comfortable, but it was my fault.

00:08:05.160 | I didn't know how to ask.

00:08:07.840 | Then my brother-in-law had a relative, and that relative was investing with a young man

00:08:17.520 | in the Chicagoland area.

00:08:20.080 | He was in a very tony suburb, lots of clients.

00:08:24.600 | And my brother-in-law said, "Just talk to him."

00:08:28.120 | So I did.

00:08:29.840 | Another very nice young man.

00:08:32.120 | And he said, "You know, you are paying double.

00:08:35.840 | You're paying the mutual fund companies, and you're paying your manager, whereas I will

00:08:42.960 | invest directly in stocks and bonds, and you will only pay once."

00:08:48.520 | Well, that sounded good to me.

00:08:51.360 | That sounded logical.

00:08:53.580 | So I switched.

00:08:55.420 | Now I'm going to pause for a moment because I know now for many people, switching is very

00:09:02.800 | hard.

00:09:04.120 | Lots of articles have been written on how hard it is to switch, but I did switch.

00:09:11.040 | And after a while, that same little niggling thought came, "Do I really know why this financial

00:09:18.960 | advisor is doing what he's doing?"

00:09:22.240 | So I asked again some questions, and I said, "I don't want the quarterly reports."

00:09:29.200 | He said, "Okay."

00:09:30.200 | He said, "I've got a book for you."

00:09:32.840 | Well, when I looked at the book, what it turned out to be was a book he was using for one

00:09:40.360 | of his levels of financial certification.

00:09:45.000 | It was very dense, lots of numbers, lots of charts.

00:09:50.240 | I took a deep breath, and I said, "Sylvia, you're not asking the right questions.

00:09:56.080 | You're not getting to where you want to be with learning."

00:10:02.800 | And it was at that time, then I said, "Give yourself permission just to do a little learning.

00:10:10.520 | You don't have to be like Dave, but just do a little."

00:10:16.160 | So that kind of ended the first part of my journey.

00:10:20.520 | And I thought, "I'll do three things.

00:10:23.200 | I will talk to friends and neighbors.

00:10:26.680 | I will go to the library and look up books, and I'll get on the internet."

00:10:34.180 | You know, when you talk to people, there have been three taboo subjects.

00:10:39.580 | One is sex, one is religion, and one is politics.

00:10:44.080 | I really think finance could be added in as a fourth subject.

00:10:49.640 | I never asked people what amount of money they had.

00:10:54.760 | I just wanted to know what their rationale is.

00:10:58.400 | Why do they invest the way they did?

00:11:01.840 | We have a few friends who really were very good.

00:11:05.300 | They were very smart, but they were like Dave.

00:11:07.800 | They put a lot of time and energy into their investing.

00:11:13.080 | Another man worked for a large oil company.

00:11:16.980 | He said it was well-run, and that's why he invested there.

00:11:21.640 | But, you know, others, whether they invested on their own or with financial advisors, I

00:11:28.920 | didn't get much sense that they understood what they were doing.

00:11:33.680 | One of my friends said, "I get this report every quarter, and my advisor says, 'Ask me

00:11:41.840 | questions.'"

00:11:42.840 | I never do, because I don't know what questions to ask.

00:11:47.960 | Another friend said, "I have this rubber stamp, and I say to my advisor, 'Please do the right

00:11:55.500 | thing by me, and I will rubber stamp it.'"

00:12:00.340 | I came away thinking, I'm not sure I'm getting much from this, but I do know there are a

00:12:06.380 | lot of people out there who may have some of the issues that I do.

00:12:12.540 | I went to the library, and I cannot tell you why I didn't find Jack Bogle's book, but I

00:12:19.300 | found a number of books, again, that were very difficult for me in terms of what I wanted.

00:12:27.140 | I found the book on dummies.

00:12:28.880 | I'm sure I learned something there.

00:12:32.340 | But what surprised me was when I went on the internet.

00:12:37.380 | The site that I remember the most now is Morningstar.

00:12:42.180 | Then I found the Bogleheads, and found it was just tremendously helpful, but I hadn't

00:12:48.980 | come to them when I was on Morningstar.

00:12:54.180 | Now I think the time I was on Morningstar was somewhat like the Wild West.

00:13:01.660 | There were probably a dozen forums.

00:13:06.180 | There was a forum on stocks, another on bonds, closed-end funds, mutual funds, probably one

00:13:14.780 | on Schwab, maybe TIAA, TIAA-CREF, and Vanguard.

00:13:21.000 | And what I decided to do, three things.

00:13:24.300 | I would lurk, I would listen, and I would learn, and you know it was fun.

00:13:30.980 | And I think the more times that learning is fun, the more that I at least do it.

00:13:39.940 | Some of the people on these forums, which people would post their ideas, questions,

00:13:46.740 | and so on, some of these people I think were brilliant investors, and I could listen and

00:13:52.780 | get some ideas.

00:13:54.900 | Some I think were charlatans and really didn't know what they were talking about.

00:14:00.100 | And some would just throw a monkey wrench into conversations.

00:14:04.540 | There were virtual fistfights on some of these sites, and some people would be banned.

00:14:10.260 | So it was kind of fun just to listen in.

00:14:15.060 | Here's what surprised me though when I got onto the Vanguard site.

00:14:21.420 | In my mind there was this old codger, I say that now at my age kind of with a smile, and

00:14:29.740 | I say it very fondly.

00:14:32.420 | His screen name was Limo Man, he was in the Chicago area, and he owned limousine services.

00:14:44.340 | He was such a good man, I think he probably had very little formal education, but what

00:14:52.180 | a street smart man he was.

00:14:55.700 | And he was into Vanguard, into balanced funds.

00:15:00.620 | Balanced funds meaning a fund that has stocks and bonds.

00:15:05.020 | And when someone asked what should I do, how should I invest, he would give them this advice.

00:15:12.420 | He'd say, look at Wellesley and Wellington, those were two bedrock funds in Vanguard.

00:15:21.780 | Wellesley had more bonds, 60%, and Wellington had more stock, 60%.

00:15:31.380 | He said, look at them and make some decisions, put whatever money you want there, keep out

00:15:37.660 | a little.

00:15:38.660 | If you think you're a smart stock picker, pick your stocks and then watch and see who

00:15:47.380 | does better, the professionals at Vanguard, Wellington and Wellesley or you.

00:15:54.620 | If you are better than you can continue with your picks, if not, then you've got your money

00:16:01.420 | safeguarded.

00:16:02.420 | Well, that sounded good to me, and that opened the door for me to look more at Vanguard.

00:16:11.660 | And that's when I found out about Jack Bogle and his philosophy of passive investing index

00:16:21.620 | funds by the entire stock market.

00:16:25.740 | And it was a revelation to me.

00:16:28.380 | I could see my mother investing only in bonds.

00:16:33.060 | My husband being really a great person who did all of this hard work on picking stocks.

00:16:42.380 | But for me, the sweet spot was passive investing, where I could sleep well at night, and I did

00:16:50.500 | not have to worry about which stocks to pick.

00:16:55.420 | Now, I convinced myself of that not only because of the work Jack Bogle did, but I want to

00:17:04.000 | introduce Warren Buffett that most of you have heard of, the Oracle of Omaha.

00:17:12.380 | It was a number of years ago that he put out his now famous bet.

00:17:19.060 | The bet was a million dollars, and it was for 10 years.

00:17:25.620 | He said he believed that passive investing, investing in an index fund, total market,

00:17:32.980 | would outperform hedge fund managers.

00:17:36.060 | Now, I don't know that much about hedge fund managers, but I tend to think of them as uber

00:17:43.940 | stock pickers.

00:17:44.940 | They are very good.

00:17:45.940 | They have a secret sauce, and they even add something additional.

00:17:50.380 | So they really are top.

00:17:54.500 | And he said, whoever won over that 10-year period, the money would go to a charity of

00:18:02.740 | that person's choice.

00:18:04.420 | Now, as I remember the story, it wasn't even halfway over, or maybe halfway over, when

00:18:13.580 | it became clear that Warren Buffett's passive investing was going to be the winner.

00:18:21.620 | "Wow," I said to myself.

00:18:24.900 | And that's the way it turned out, a lot more details, some fun stuff.

00:18:29.940 | But the girls club of Omaha, Nebraska was a million dollars richer because of his bet.

00:18:39.740 | The second thing I wanted to say that impressed me was Warren Buffett's first wife died, and

00:18:49.180 | his second wife has a trust set up by him.

00:18:54.620 | Warren Buffett manages the Berkshire Hathaway stock.

00:18:58.860 | When he dies, and she's alive, the Berkshire Hathaway stock will be in that trust for a

00:19:06.300 | while, and then his executors are to cash it out, and guess what?

00:19:12.700 | Put it in passive index funds, the total market, S&P 500, 90% and 10% in government bonds.

00:19:25.500 | If this great stock picker feels that his wife, who I'm assuming is ordinary, like the

00:19:33.700 | rest of us in terms of picking, if that person should have her money in passive investing,

00:19:40.860 | well, that sounds good for me.

00:19:44.860 | And then I read that starting in the mid-1920s to today, the S&P 500 has on average returned

00:19:57.100 | 10% a year.

00:19:59.860 | So go up, go down, go up, go down, but 10%, I never thought I would make 10%.

00:20:10.020 | But by passive investing, as Jack Bogle said, I would get my fair share.

00:20:16.620 | That gave me great joy, and I could sleep well at night.

00:20:23.380 | So that kind of ends the second part of my journey where I solidified my belief in why

00:20:31.020 | this is so good for so many of us, especially people who think that they're intimidated

00:20:38.340 | by the market, they don't want to do numbers, this is a wonderful way to go.

00:20:44.900 | Now part three was, hello, Jack Bogle.

00:20:49.620 | It turned out that I joined a retirement institute.

00:20:57.080 | There was a man called Bernard Osher, and he left funds across the nation for retirees

00:21:06.700 | to go to their local university and set up a chapter of lifelong learning.

00:21:14.760 | These chapters are all over the country.

00:21:18.160 | We teach one another skills we have.

00:21:21.820 | I've joined the one at George Mason University, which is excellent.

00:21:27.660 | And it had so many good classes, but I want to tell about two and how they influence me.

00:21:35.820 | One is a financial forum, again, no one asks how much money you have.

00:21:42.740 | But there are people who, like Dave, are very interested in investing, and they talk about

00:21:50.380 | it.

00:21:51.380 | And you can sit, and I learned, I listened, and I learned, and I just picked up good information

00:21:58.980 | that made me feel more comfortable.

00:22:02.420 | There are also writing classes, and they're led by really wonderful people.

00:22:10.400 | The people attending want to help you.

00:22:14.460 | And in retirement, I thought, well, I'd like to write maybe a memoir about my travels,

00:22:21.620 | my family, things I want to write to grandchildren.

00:22:25.340 | But as I was going through this learning experience, I did a little writing, and people in the

00:22:31.980 | class were helpful.

00:22:34.300 | I often tore my writing apart, but they were very helpful in having me see what people

00:22:42.340 | would want to know.

00:22:44.860 | And I learned from them.

00:22:47.940 | So when I was doing that, to go back to the forum, a man in the forum said, we're looking

00:22:57.100 | for someone to teach a class to beginners who are retired.

00:23:03.600 | And he said, many cases, a husband and wife, the husband died, he's been doing the investing,

00:23:12.340 | and his wife is lost.

00:23:14.980 | And this man said, there have been occasions where women have lost parts of their funds.

00:23:23.020 | I could really sympathize with it, and said, I'd be happy to teach.

00:23:28.540 | I've been teaching now many years.

00:23:31.340 | I usually teach with a financial advisor, so people can see, here's independent investing,

00:23:40.020 | here's investing with an advisor.

00:23:43.220 | But as I was teaching, a thought came to me.

00:23:47.780 | I've been listening to the experts.

00:23:51.100 | But you know, if I had a shoulder that needed surgery, I'd certainly want to find the expert,

00:23:58.020 | the best doctor I could find, and learn all about that doctor.

00:24:02.900 | But I'd love to talk to his patients.

00:24:07.660 | Was the surgery as good?

00:24:09.660 | Do they have complications?

00:24:11.940 | Were they worried?

00:24:12.940 | Did he reassure them?

00:24:14.460 | I want to talk to some of those people.

00:24:17.900 | And I thought the same about investing.

00:24:22.660 | Was what I learned what other people learned?

00:24:25.540 | Did they have other ideas?

00:24:28.220 | And so I did a search, and I couldn't find anything.

00:24:32.740 | Now, my not finding anything may have been, you know, just my not doing it.

00:24:41.380 | Bill Bernstein, for example, had showed me an article about how women can be better investors

00:24:48.780 | than men.

00:24:50.040 | I don't think I would have found that without him.

00:24:53.600 | So I thought, well, maybe there's something out there.

00:24:57.500 | I knew a little bit about the Beardstown ladies, but that wasn't quite it.

00:25:03.820 | And sometimes there's a financial advisor who will have a couple of little paragraphs

00:25:08.900 | about clients.

00:25:09.900 | But I wanted to know more.

00:25:13.060 | So I thought, I know the person who will know, and that is Jack Bogle.

00:25:18.580 | So I wrote to him.

00:25:20.900 | It turned out that he had been ill, was no longer the CEO of Vanguard, but had an office

00:25:30.240 | on the campus with staff.

00:25:33.240 | And people also tell me that he was very kind in writing to people, writing back to them.

00:25:41.080 | So I have on his stationery, a little handwritten note that said, of course, something like

00:25:48.040 | this, of course, women can be as good an investor as men.

00:25:53.680 | And he said, I know of no one, no ordinary person who has written about her experiences.

00:26:01.860 | You may be the first.

00:26:04.000 | Now, sometimes being the first is not all that good.

00:26:09.520 | I mean, why wouldn't someone have written about this was in my mind.

00:26:14.920 | And especially since I was in these classes of memoir, I mean, I knew that memoir today

00:26:22.760 | is a very popular genre.

00:26:24.920 | I mean, there are memoirs of people who come to this country may, you know, make it's fantastically

00:26:31.640 | good.

00:26:32.640 | They write about it.

00:26:33.640 | Someone who's been an Olympic star, they write about it.

00:26:37.560 | Someone who's overcome some dreaded background or dreaded disease, and they write about it.

00:26:43.880 | So I wasn't sure why no one had written, but I had written blogs.

00:26:51.400 | I would write blogs for the family on travel, etc.

00:26:55.360 | So I decided I would write a blog about why I learned what I did, and why Jack Bogle's

00:27:03.940 | investment advice made so much sense to me.

00:27:07.880 | There are 24 posts, it's free on the web.

00:27:11.560 | It's called "Grandma's Investing for Beginners."

00:27:16.080 | When I was a little halfway through, Jack Bogle died.

00:27:21.780 | So two of the posts really are about him, and I picked some of the quotes he had.

00:27:30.660 | They were really very, very good for me to read again.

00:27:36.160 | I made a copy of that blog, and I sent it to his wife, Eve.

00:27:41.840 | And she, like him, must be a very wonderful woman.

00:27:47.240 | She sent me a note saying that this was good to see and was good to hear.

00:27:54.080 | After that, someone recommended that I do a YouTube video.

00:27:58.260 | So I've done one.

00:27:59.520 | I did not want to continue to be doing that.

00:28:03.720 | So there's one free YouTube video on the web.

00:28:07.840 | It's called "Grandma Sylvia's Investing for Beginners."

00:28:12.560 | And then I decided I was going to start my own little adventure in reaching out to people.

00:28:19.960 | So I had business cards made.

00:28:22.520 | And when I would go to a restaurant or have some service, I would say to a young person,

00:28:29.600 | do you invest?

00:28:30.600 | Do you want to invest?

00:28:32.280 | What do you know about investing?

00:28:34.080 | I have something here that could help you.

00:28:37.000 | And most of them would take them.

00:28:39.240 | Sometimes I'd meet somebody who would say, oh, I was a day trader.

00:28:43.080 | Wow.

00:28:44.080 | But I loved meeting the young people, and I said, the only thing I ask is, if you make

00:28:50.200 | a million dollars, let me know.

00:28:52.400 | And I put my email down.

00:28:55.000 | So this part of the journey is not finished.

00:28:58.120 | I'm trying to figure out how all of us who are adherents of the Bogle philosophy can

00:29:06.240 | reach out to younger people, because many of them have no defined benefit plans.

00:29:14.560 | Many of them are in the gig economy.

00:29:16.840 | So what can all of us do to help reach young people so that they could have better lives?

00:29:24.480 | Thank you.

00:29:25.480 | Great.

00:29:26.480 | Thank you.

00:29:27.480 | That was great, Sylvia.

00:29:28.480 | So I'll touch on a few things, and then we'll cover some questions.

00:29:37.680 | Great to hear you not just speak about Jack Bogle, but also Warren Buffett, who himself

00:29:42.280 | honored Jack Bogle at the 2017 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting.

00:29:47.920 | And further, he's famously said and put in his annual report that Jack did more for the

00:29:54.240 | individual investor than anyone else that Warren's ever known.

00:29:58.560 | So nice to hear you add to that.

00:30:01.280 | So I'll jump into some questions that were submitted in advance via the RSVP for this

00:30:07.560 | event.

00:30:08.560 | So these are from Bogleheads, and they're often wide-ranging.

00:30:11.880 | You mentioned connecting with early investors or the younger folks.

00:30:18.560 | The one question I'll ask you is, what do you think is the best thing beginner investors

00:30:25.120 | late in life should start with to get their investing life going?

00:30:31.840 | I think it's never too late.

00:30:34.800 | As I said, I started well after I retired.

00:30:39.840 | I think part of it is to give yourself permission to learn and to feel comfortable.

00:30:47.040 | I believe it's the feelings people have, that level of comfort that is so important, especially

00:30:55.160 | when the bad times come, and they always do, as we know, that you feel that you can ride

00:31:04.040 | them out.

00:31:05.040 | You can stay the course, as Jack Bogle would say.

00:31:09.760 | So give yourself time to learn.

00:31:13.120 | Now, one of the things that I really liked my brother-in-law did was to ask different

00:31:23.280 | sources to create portfolios for him.

00:31:29.680 | He had a financial advisor, has a financial advisor, so he knew what assets he had in

00:31:39.280 | this portfolio, but he went to three banks and he told them the kind of investor he was.

00:31:47.920 | They will always ask if you are conservative, if you are more risk taker, and in each case

00:31:58.200 | with no cost, they would create a portfolio for him.

00:32:03.520 | You could do that at Schwab.

00:32:05.720 | You could go to Vanguard, anywhere, and collect what different experts say that might be good

00:32:14.100 | for you.

00:32:15.920 | And then what I think is a good idea, but other people may have other ideas, you put

00:32:21.880 | each of these portfolios into a Morningstar spreadsheet.

00:32:28.240 | We say past performance does not indicate future performance, but you would see something

00:32:35.840 | about each of these and you could start your learning.

00:32:40.280 | I would also say to people, go to the Boglehead website, talk about your concerns, find out

00:32:48.720 | what others say, and go slowly, don't make big decisions, and keep going until you feel

00:32:57.480 | comfortable and can sleep well at night.

00:33:00.600 | Okay.

00:33:01.600 | Fantastic.

00:33:02.600 | Thank you.

00:33:04.160 | Similarly, this question submitted from our Boglehead audience, what advice do you have

00:33:10.520 | for the lesser or non-financially interested spouse or partner who resists getting more

00:33:16.760 | involved?

00:33:18.480 | And I'll expand on the question.

00:33:19.840 | I think in the Bogleheads community, a lot of people are the beacon for personal finance

00:33:26.480 | sounding board.

00:33:28.920 | And within our social circles, there are many well-educated, super smart people, but they're

00:33:34.960 | often not interested in personal finance.

00:33:38.860 | So how do you navigate that?

00:33:43.560 | And usually I'm going to say it's the woman, my experience has been, and that was me certainly,

00:33:52.520 | who is not as interested, but it could be either party.

00:33:58.200 | I think that what's important is to have a discussion because the disinterested or less

00:34:06.240 | interested person, as you said, they're very smart people.

00:34:11.720 | And I say, anyone who can drive a car, follow a recipe, raise children, have a career, do

00:34:21.520 | any of these things.

00:34:24.320 | Sometimes they don't know how easy it is to invest.

00:34:28.960 | The other thing that is important is I believe we all want to be good stewards of our money.

00:34:37.840 | And I think that this idea of a plan B, knowing a little so that should you have to become

00:34:46.000 | involved, you can be the good steward for yourself, for the spouse who is no longer

00:34:54.280 | there, for your family, you do not want to be taken care of.

00:34:59.800 | And my motto now that I tell people of the elevator speech is that investing is as easy

00:35:09.320 | as buying a cup of coffee and as wonderful as winning the lottery.

00:35:16.520 | So know it's easy and take a little time to learn.

00:35:21.320 | Okay.

00:35:22.320 | Fantastic.

00:35:23.320 | So let's build on that a little.

00:35:25.600 | How did you specifically go from underconfident to, I mean, you went on this journey where

00:35:33.180 | you learned a ton and you were able to find high quality, high integrity sources to learn.

00:35:44.420 | What do you say to the folks who for whatever reason are convinced that they're not capable

00:35:50.220 | of learning, even though they're smart in many other areas of their life, how did you

00:35:55.220 | overcome this lack of confidence and go on to the mastery that ended up, I mean, you

00:36:01.940 | teach courses and you wrote a book.

00:36:05.420 | Well, I've always had some degree of confidence in myself.

00:36:12.220 | I didn't have it in this area, but I love people.

00:36:17.300 | I like to talk to people.

00:36:19.260 | I like to learn and I like to ask questions.

00:36:23.940 | If you feel that you have impediments where you're not as able to reach out, then I think

00:36:35.860 | do whatever you can in little ways.

00:36:39.460 | Don't set high benchmarks.

00:36:42.940 | Do little things, get some supporting people around who can show how to do this, how much

00:36:50.900 | fun it is.

00:36:52.900 | And I used to tell people it's like winning the lottery because you'd hear this chink,

00:36:59.900 | chink, chink of money coming in from your assets.

00:37:04.860 | You need a supportive group, I think, if you feel that you really can't do it.

00:37:11.220 | But I want to emphasize this is not math.

00:37:14.860 | This is not statistics.

00:37:17.380 | This is a philosophy of simplicity.

00:37:21.740 | I hope that helps.

00:37:23.460 | That certainly helps.

00:37:24.460 | So how did you resist the very human inclusion that higher fees or that more expensive and

00:37:32.940 | more complicated is better?

00:37:35.820 | Let me see if I can find this.

00:37:39.860 | I have some of Jack Bogle's quotes here.

00:37:45.980 | And I'm going to show you this one because I think it was a good one.

00:37:50.900 | I listened to Jack Bogle.

00:37:53.240 | He said the grim irony of investing then is that we investors as a group not only do not

00:38:02.940 | get what we pay for, we get precisely what we do not pay for.

00:38:09.620 | So if we pay for nothing, we get everything.

00:38:13.740 | Excellent.

00:38:14.740 | That definitely nails the point.

00:38:17.580 | Something else you mentioned in terms of being a woman and learning, I think maybe this generation

00:38:23.460 | is different, but certainly earlier generations, there may have been a norm to the man handling

00:38:31.860 | the finances.

00:38:33.900 | And there's been a lot written about the differences for women investing versus men investing.

00:38:40.460 | And in your book, you mention you now believe that becoming a good investor is no different

00:38:46.420 | for women than for men.

00:38:48.500 | Can you elaborate on how you came to that realization?

00:38:52.420 | Yes.

00:38:55.140 | I think multiple ways.

00:38:57.900 | One, when I talked to a number of men, I realized that they didn't have a clue either.

00:39:07.180 | And that they may have been, you know, reticent to say anything like that.

00:39:16.660 | But we had a friend who went with a financial advisor, I don't know if I mentioned that.

00:39:22.900 | And when I asked, he said, I, you know, my money's coming in, and they have a great Christmas

00:39:29.980 | party.

00:39:30.980 | That was kind of his idea.

00:39:33.740 | But I think reading about women, and today you are right, that I believe younger women

00:39:41.780 | may have a different worldview in general.

00:39:46.220 | But I've talked to a number of young women.

00:39:49.500 | And part of it is, they're still a lack of interest.

00:39:55.700 | And some of it is not the determination to save even a little so that they can get started.

00:40:03.700 | I don't know the answer.

00:40:06.860 | But I do think that women can be very good investors.

00:40:12.700 | It's been shown, and as I say, Bill Bernstein had this great article, because women tend

00:40:19.500 | to be a little more conservative.

00:40:22.300 | So they're not as apt to do some risky things.

00:40:27.140 | I think if we can just get young people to know how easy it is, and not be in debt, that

00:40:36.620 | they can have very good lives, financially.

00:40:40.300 | Fantastic.

00:40:41.660 | Another question submitted via the RSVP, given the investing knowledge you now have, what

00:40:47.740 | would you have done differently, if anything, during this journey?

00:40:51.340 | And I'll add to that question, a lot of people say, yeah, I learned that lesson the hard

00:40:56.020 | way.

00:40:57.020 | Can you share some lessons you learned the hard way along your journey?

00:41:01.860 | Well, I wish there had been a magic wand, and I had known about the Bogle passive investing.

00:41:10.460 | I mean, it's been around for decades.

00:41:15.900 | I am neither pro nor con financial advisors.

00:41:19.420 | As I said, 95% of my friends have financial advisors.

00:41:24.980 | But I think the industry is not set up so that the passive investing is easy to do.

00:41:32.860 | Although now, this revolution has changed and all the big houses are going to passive

00:41:40.860 | investing one way or the other.

00:41:43.620 | I made, so you could call that a mistake.

00:41:48.260 | I think another mistake is I shied away from anything my husband was doing, because he

00:41:54.180 | was doing all these charts, and he would listen to Louis Rukeyser.

00:42:00.380 | I don't know if any of you remember him.

00:42:03.060 | Rukeyser was enormously clever and funny, and he did a program called Washington Week.

00:42:10.140 | And you would have-

00:42:11.140 | Wall Street Week in Review.

00:42:13.420 | Wall Street Week in Review.

00:42:15.220 | That's right.

00:42:16.380 | And he would have these experts.

00:42:18.460 | One would say, "Buy this bank stock."

00:42:21.140 | The other would say, "Sell this bank stock."

00:42:23.580 | And I thought, you know, if the experts don't agree, you know, I'm not going to do this.

00:42:30.260 | But maybe if I had worked with Dave and come at it from a different direction, maybe we

00:42:35.900 | both would have come up with ways of operating, and it would have been fun for both of us.

00:42:43.940 | I think fun and joy in what you're doing is really important.

00:42:49.820 | As to my mistakes, well, one of my mistakes, and again, I do not blame anyone but myself.

00:42:57.780 | One of my mistakes, I believe, was being sold, not buying, but being sold an annuity in an

00:43:08.580 | IRA.

00:43:10.580 | Now, IRAs mean that your funds are tax-deferred.

00:43:17.060 | And so the benefit of an annuity is not the same as if it was in a taxable account.

00:43:26.240 | I think the reason that happened was I was so conservative.

00:43:31.700 | But when you look into annuities, they are very complex instruments.

00:43:37.220 | In fact, I think it was Richard Thaler, the economist, who said even for economists, annuities

00:43:45.820 | are difficult.

00:43:47.340 | And I had one with all sorts of riders that would...

00:43:51.980 | I think I was paying like maybe over 6% for the fees.

00:43:56.460 | Now, I want to make sure that people know I'm not against annuities.

00:44:01.100 | If you have no defined benefit, annuities are great for many people.

00:44:07.820 | But that was a mistake I made and I didn't know better.

00:44:12.800 | And unfortunately, the industry is set up that there's nice commissions to people who

00:44:18.420 | sell them.

00:44:19.860 | So it's kind of a two-edged sword.

00:44:23.060 | That was one of my mistakes.

00:44:25.580 | Okay.

00:44:27.980 | Thanks for sharing.

00:44:30.940 | Something, another question submitted from the Bogleheads.

00:44:34.500 | This may be too personal.

00:44:35.660 | Feel free to say so if it is, but it's a very Boglehead question.

00:44:39.580 | Could you share with us your current asset allocation and how and why you chose that

00:44:44.140 | allocation?

00:44:47.660 | I think I mentioned earlier that when I first started, I would have one or two shares of

00:44:53.780 | a stock because I had free trades.

00:44:57.060 | So I had stocks.

00:44:59.340 | I never went into bonds.

00:45:01.260 | Bonds are much more difficult, I think, for the average person.

00:45:05.740 | But I had closed-end bonds.

00:45:07.960 | I had master limited partnerships, the kind of oil things.

00:45:12.780 | I had all sorts of odd, I think now, stocks.

00:45:19.060 | And once I decided I was going to go toward the simple investing, I have been selling

00:45:27.500 | off, sometimes at a loss, sometimes at a gain, but trying to simplify my portfolio from 60

00:45:37.300 | plus to maybe I have a dozen or so more assets in my portfolio.

00:45:45.260 | I still like the Wellington, which is a balanced fund, and that's probably the only asset I

00:45:54.780 | have that has bonds.

00:45:58.100 | Everything else is in the stock market, either as Vanguard mutual funds or Vanguard ETFs.

00:46:09.700 | I don't know if I'll ever change, but I went with Vanguard, and it's simple for me to buy

00:46:16.700 | within that company.

00:46:20.080 | I'm moving more now towards the total stock market, but because of capital gains and other

00:46:28.180 | things, I don't and can't just liquefy what I did have.

00:46:34.060 | So I am more into VTI, which is the total stock market, index fund, or VOO, which is

00:46:44.260 | the S&P 500.

00:46:47.300 | I have some prime cap, and if any of you have that, you know that it's a good performing

00:46:56.020 | mutual fund.

00:46:57.420 | I think it's been closed for a while, but if it opens, I like that.

00:47:03.860 | I've had some stock for a long time like Costco.

00:47:08.260 | I like Costco, and when I was looking for dividends, Costco was always good because

00:47:16.860 | from time to time, they'd give a big dividend, and it would surprise you, and I kind of like

00:47:22.700 | the joy of that.

00:47:23.700 | I'm sorry.

00:47:24.700 | I'm going to interject here.

00:47:25.700 | Do you think high level, you have a sense of what percent equities, cash, and bonds

00:47:31.100 | you are that you'd want to share?

00:47:34.660 | My bonds must be low.

00:47:38.100 | My equities must be high.

00:47:40.820 | I haven't looked at it recently.

00:47:42.980 | My cash, because I've been drawing down for some other expenses, was high and is getting

00:47:50.820 | lower, but I do want to make a point about that, and that is if you are an investor and

00:48:01.080 | you need your funds, for example, if you don't have a defined benefit plan, I think your

00:48:09.700 | portfolio would look different.

00:48:13.060 | If you need fewer of those funds, and you're saving for children or grandchildren, then

00:48:19.500 | you might have much more stock than bonds.

00:48:24.180 | I tell you, it surprises me that I have more stocks, a higher percentage of stocks when

00:48:33.280 | I never would have done that initially.

00:48:37.400 | Does that help?

00:48:38.960 | Sure.

00:48:40.120 | And then another question submitted from the group via the RSVP function.

00:48:45.080 | Given all that you've been through financially, do you find yourself today tinkering with

00:48:49.280 | your portfolio to try to earn a greater return?

00:48:54.240 | Very, very little.

00:48:58.120 | I do go to Morningstar, and I have my portfolio on Morningstar.

00:49:05.800 | During these bad months and the bad year, I'm like an ostrich, and I stick my head in

00:49:11.680 | the sand, and I don't want to know how much I have lost, but it's been getting better,

00:49:20.180 | and so I will do a look-see on Morningstar, and there are some things that are still performing

00:49:27.140 | less well than VTI, the total stock market.

00:49:32.400 | So I look at those and say, "Do you really want to keep them?"

00:49:37.120 | People get attached to things.

00:49:40.120 | I had Cody there for a while.

00:49:43.140 | I don't have that anymore.

00:49:44.680 | So in that sense, yes, I am tinkering, and I'm trying to get it down to a very simple

00:49:53.240 | portfolio.

00:49:54.240 | If I were to go to Vanguard today with cash, I think I would probably have no more than

00:50:00.480 | three assets, but right now I probably have a dozen.

00:50:05.160 | Okay.

00:50:06.160 | Thanks for sharing.

00:50:07.160 | So another quote I enjoyed from your book was, "There's another thing I learned about

00:50:12.520 | investors.

00:50:13.520 | They're happy to tell you about their big win, but seem to forget their losses."

00:50:17.940 | Can you tell us a bit about that realization and why it's important?

00:50:25.640 | I believe we're all subject to the kind of glow that winning entails, and if someone

00:50:37.440 | says, "I made a killing in X, Y, or Z," we kind of look up to that person, think that

00:50:44.800 | they maybe know more, and it may be true that that was a good investment, but it may be

00:50:53.560 | true that there were eight or nine investments which were terrible investments.

00:51:00.280 | And so when I say people tend to talk about the things that they did well and kind of

00:51:08.720 | shy away from the problems they had, to me that means whenever anyone does talk about

00:51:17.760 | it in a forum, I want to look carefully.

00:51:22.240 | I've only made a few mistakes in taking surface information and acting on it.

00:51:29.440 | I try not to do that anymore.

00:51:32.200 | Okay.

00:51:33.200 | So maybe building on that, can you share some of the challenges you initially faced when

00:51:39.240 | you took control of your finances?

00:51:44.200 | Well, I had to move my money out of where the second advisor was, and that was difficult.

00:52:01.480 | It turns out that I wanted to put my monies into these passive funds, which had in Vanguard

00:52:11.520 | very low fees.

00:52:14.960 | But this young man was willing to do it, but his company still wanted to charge me 1% of

00:52:24.440 | assets under management.

00:52:27.120 | And I said, "That doesn't make sense.

00:52:29.880 | These are passive investments.

00:52:32.640 | There really is no management as such."

00:52:36.720 | But that was a company rule, and so that was a difficulty, and there were several phone

00:52:45.240 | calls that went back and forth until we realized it just wasn't going to work out.

00:52:52.320 | Got it.

00:52:54.980 | So I'm also curious, Sylvia, if you'll share more personally how you stay active, how you

00:53:02.360 | stay engaged, how you maintain your health, both physically and cognitively.

00:53:10.760 | I think people would be very interested in hearing from you.

00:53:15.120 | Well, I'm in my 80s, and I'm creaky.

00:53:21.040 | I have a wonderful sister and brother-in-law, and my husband and I visit them, and we try

00:53:29.600 | to be active because they're younger and they're active.

00:53:34.240 | I have a wonderful daughter and son-in-law, and they're active, and I have a little grandson,

00:53:40.880 | and so part of me tells me that I have to be active.

00:53:46.200 | This is not a plug for Apple, but my Apple Watch tells me every day what I've done in

00:53:53.280 | terms of exercise, because my husband is 90, and I feel we need to do both things.

00:54:01.400 | We have a gym membership.

00:54:03.360 | We go three times a week to different trainers, one for strength, one for more flexibility,

00:54:13.920 | someone who comes to the house.

00:54:16.160 | I'm thinking that the more we can do to stay physically active, the better, and of course,

00:54:23.400 | lifelong has always been I could lose another pound.

00:54:28.800 | That's funny.

00:54:32.680 | I want to remind folks, I've been semi-monitoring the chat, and folks should feel free to submit

00:54:41.200 | questions via the chat, and we'll turn it over to live questions as well, so feel free

00:54:46.360 | to raise your hand if you'd rather not put questions in the chat for Sylvia.

00:54:53.240 | In the absence of other questions, I'll continue, but happy to turn it over to chat questions

00:54:59.320 | or audience questions when we have questions.

00:55:04.080 | Another quote from your book, Sylvia, "Good advice isn't cheap, neither is bad advice."

00:55:09.880 | Can you tell us more about that?

00:55:11.800 | Well, each chapter of the book has an epigram, something that I hoped would spark interest

00:55:20.560 | in the chapter.

00:55:23.600 | What you read was the epigram for the chapter on financial advisors.

00:55:30.560 | There's a chapter on financial advisors and a chapter on financial planners.

00:55:36.880 | I think Jason Zwieg from the Wall Street Journal had some good articles about the difference

00:55:43.760 | and the importance of the difference between the two, but I was looking for an epigram

00:55:53.520 | that was neutral or positive about financial advisors.

00:56:00.520 | And again, this could be me, but I could find nothing that was giving a positive, that I

00:56:11.480 | could use as a positive quote, so I made up one, and here I've got this little, this one.

00:56:18.440 | It said, "Good advice isn't cheap, neither is bad advice," because when you're given

00:56:27.160 | bad advice and you don't know it, you are wasting time and money.

00:56:33.900 | And it may not be deliberately bad, it may not be someone who is malicious, it may just

00:56:40.520 | not be right for you, and you are the person who has to make that decision.

00:56:47.040 | You're the one who has to know, "Is this advice the right advice for me?"

00:56:52.440 | So that's how it came up.

00:56:54.000 | Okay, fantastic.

00:56:55.000 | You also write a bit about tuning out the noise.

00:56:57.960 | I think there's more information than ever, and it's ever-increasing, and it's hard to

00:57:03.980 | escape it sometimes if you're just naturally immersed in it.

00:57:08.120 | Can you talk about how you have been able to tune out the noise?

00:57:14.720 | Well, I love the computer, I love the internet, but I'm not into television that much.

00:57:25.240 | I'm more into headline news, and so I ask myself when I read a headline, "Is that something

00:57:35.840 | that I want to know, need to know, and will it help me in some way?"

00:57:42.480 | I think because I'm not that much into watching television or listening to a lot of news programs,

00:57:50.640 | that that's been a big help for me.

00:57:54.560 | And just knowing that, you know, Jack Bogle's words about noise, just knowing that there

00:58:03.360 | is so much out there and you need to be on guard, I think that's a good safeguard.

00:58:10.240 | Okay, excellent.

00:58:13.840 | Another quote, "Of all my mistakes, my biggest mistake was that I didn't start investing

00:58:19.240 | sooner."

00:58:20.240 | So I think in our own lives, whether Bogleheads – I think the Bogleheads community, I know

00:58:26.400 | it's wide-ranging.

00:58:27.400 | There are many mature and informed investors, but there are also new arrivals kind of early

00:58:32.320 | in their journey, but even outside of the Bogleheads community, our social circle often

00:58:37.520 | has young people who say they don't have enough to invest, not realizing the power

00:58:42.880 | of time and compounding.

00:58:44.460 | So when you said you learned that you could have or should have started investing sooner,

00:58:50.700 | can you elaborate on how to better connect with folks who are hesitant to start for whatever

00:58:56.320 | reason, including they may think they don't have enough to start?

00:59:00.280 | Yes, let me first say that I was just talking to a young woman when I was getting tires

00:59:08.600 | and I was asking her about investing, and she said, "I've got $11,000 in debt."

00:59:18.760 | Well, I think we all know that you must pay your debt down first, but if you have a strategy

00:59:27.760 | for how you are looking at your life, how you're prioritizing what you do, what's important

00:59:36.040 | for short-term needs and gratifications, and what's important for long-term, then I think

00:59:42.960 | with that kind of an analysis, you can make the decisions.

00:59:48.480 | And my mother would always save a penny or two there.

00:59:52.760 | And I tell the story that in 10 years, she was always able to buy a new car for my dad

01:00:00.320 | by saving a penny or two here and there.

01:00:03.760 | Now, we also know that there are people who have two jobs and they still are not able

01:00:11.760 | to save.

01:00:13.160 | And that's a problem that I think we maybe as a society have to address.

01:00:20.600 | But I believe with many people, it's a decision-making, and if they can become convinced how much

01:00:28.800 | better their lives will be, I think they can make that change.

01:00:34.560 | Okay.

01:00:35.560 | Excellent.

01:00:36.560 | Thanks for sharing.

01:00:39.080 | Changing topics, what advice would you give to someone who suddenly finds themselves responsible

01:00:45.040 | for their family's financial affairs?

01:00:49.120 | Well, I should have said early on, of course, I'm not a financial advisor and I can only

01:00:59.800 | rely on my own sense of what I would do.

01:01:04.760 | But I don't know what it means when they are responsible for their financial affairs.

01:01:11.160 | Does that mean helping them take their resources and learn how to manage it?

01:01:19.080 | Does that mean paying their bills?

01:01:22.640 | I think we would have to go in more detail to what that actually means.

01:01:30.800 | It's always important to me to help family.

01:01:36.520 | Family is very important.

01:01:38.880 | But it's also important to keep yourself financially intact and not do things which will jeopardize

01:01:48.840 | your own standing.

01:01:51.280 | If someone through no fault of their own has terrible medical bills, then how do you work

01:01:58.880 | with that person to get the resources to get what they need?

01:02:04.600 | May not be a perfect solution, but you should also think of safeguarding your own financial

01:02:11.720 | well-being.

01:02:13.440 | If the situation was because of bad decision-making, then even more so to be a resource, to be

01:02:22.800 | a help, but to draw a line somewhere about what you can and cannot do.

01:02:30.240 | Great.

01:02:31.240 | Thanks.

01:02:32.240 | Jim, I see a question in the chat that is definitely worth asking.

01:02:35.640 | Do you want to take it or shall I read it?

01:02:38.000 | Why don't you just take it?

01:02:40.960 | Okay.

01:02:41.960 | Sylvia, from the chat, this is as a grandmother too, I currently have five grandchildren between

01:02:47.960 | the ages of 18 and 23.

01:02:50.920 | Any suggestions on how to introduce the idea of investing with them?

01:03:00.080 | First of all, congratulations on having five grandchildren of that age.

01:03:05.480 | I think that's wonderful.

01:03:09.360 | It might be their personalities too, and talking with each individually, I think is how I might

01:03:18.200 | approach it.

01:03:20.560 | I don't know the books that are out now for teenagers and young adults, but I do think

01:03:28.480 | that giving young adults some sense of what could be in their future if they made small

01:03:38.080 | changes in their lives and how they could be enriched.

01:03:44.440 | It doesn't take long to come up with some numbers and use the compound interest formula

01:03:53.800 | to show how a person, when they're that age, could become a millionaire if they invested

01:04:01.920 | wisely, especially with low fees.

01:04:07.160 | I guess I would also hope that as a grandmother, you might be modeling some of those behaviors

01:04:16.240 | so they could say, "Wow, my grandmother does this," and look at her success.

01:04:23.720 | If you have enthusiasm for it, that conveys a lot.

01:04:28.960 | Okay, fantastic.

01:04:33.040 | Something else.

01:04:34.040 | I want to reiterate for the crowd.

01:04:35.640 | Feel free to raise your hand via Zoom if you want to ask a live question or continue to

01:04:42.000 | put questions into the chat.

01:04:44.240 | In the absence of additional questions, Sylvia, can you elaborate on how you discerned good

01:04:51.200 | sources, like high-integrity, high-quality sources to learn from, given there's so much

01:04:57.080 | out there now?

01:04:58.640 | Well, that's a wonderful question.

01:05:06.360 | There are many - let me give you a couple of examples.

01:05:10.880 | There are many YouTube videos, and there are many blogs, and I've looked at a fair number

01:05:20.560 | and the landscape changes.

01:05:25.800 | I think if you have a few guiding principles like the Bogleheads have in terms of low cost,

01:05:36.040 | low expenses, that that will help as you look at sites.

01:05:44.960 | I guess that I'm always suspect when something seems too good to be true.

01:05:54.160 | I think the best thing is to step back and think about it for a while, but not get so

01:06:04.400 | involved in so many sites or so much reading that it kind of overpowers you.

01:06:12.920 | I'm not sure that I'm answering what the person has in mind.

01:06:18.600 | I just found some YouTube sites not very good, but on the other hand, I came across some

01:06:25.760 | that were great, and maybe it's an internal sense you gather after a while, but just don't

01:06:35.640 | make decisions based on some recommendations that may not have enough background information

01:06:44.680 | for you.

01:06:46.160 | Okay, that's helpful.

01:06:49.200 | Something else you wrote about stay invested rather than jumping in and out of the market.

01:06:54.440 | How do you resist the very human temptation?

01:06:57.080 | I think Bogleheads largely know the fundamentals of trying to not time the market, but this

01:07:04.080 | very human, oh, the market is at its peak or you want to wait till it's dropped.

01:07:10.960 | How did you separate the emotional side of the intellectual knowledge we learn, but our

01:07:19.320 | human tendencies fight against that sometimes?

01:07:24.400 | Yes, I think my biggest strategy is that I tune out.

01:07:32.280 | It may be this idea of the ostrich with her head in the sand, but also I have a defined

01:07:41.680 | benefit of pension.

01:07:45.280 | I think I can hold my breath and I think I can believe Jack Bogle and Warren Buffett

01:07:53.760 | and believe in the long term.

01:07:56.640 | Warren Buffett is very strong on America and that things over time will continue to be

01:08:04.000 | good.

01:08:05.280 | I think if you have that faith and you know that your income from a pension, for example,

01:08:13.560 | is there every month, I think you can look at these scary times a little different.

01:08:20.520 | If I was solely dependent on my investments, I might have a different perspective.

01:08:28.480 | I might be much more concerned about the ups and downs and in fact, for some people, I

01:08:36.000 | do believe that they, because of their situation, might be better not being in the market.

01:08:43.520 | They should be in government bonds or annuities where there is a standard that they can count

01:08:52.520 | on.

01:08:53.960 | For me, I tend to tune out.

01:08:58.400 | I won't listen to things when things are going bad and I'll get on with other parts of my

01:09:07.440 | life.

01:09:08.440 | Okay, makes sense.

01:09:09.600 | Something else you wrote about, you had to overcome your mother's advice to never lose

01:09:13.120 | a penny.

01:09:14.320 | You've also written that to make money in the market, you have to be willing to take

01:09:18.080 | certain risks.

01:09:19.800 | Can you elaborate on that because it's a conceptual change within yourself and I think a lot of

01:09:27.440 | people struggle with that.

01:09:30.960 | Yes.

01:09:32.520 | Again, I think it's very dependent on your situation.

01:09:40.840 | If it's going to have a big impact on your quality of learning, quality of living, if

01:09:48.280 | you lose a penny or two, then that's very different than if you can wait out the storms.

01:09:58.680 | It took me so long, as I say, it was well into retirement because of that advice, which

01:10:08.060 | was very good advice from her perspective, but then I saw how Dave invested.

01:10:15.320 | When I listened to so many people and heard what Jack Bogle had to say and believe Warren

01:10:24.680 | Buffett had to say, I think it was a gradual, emotional feeling, not only cognitive thinking

01:10:33.920 | about it, but an emotional feeling that I did not have to be so super worried.

01:10:42.920 | Once you've gone through one bad stretch and you see that the market has come back, wow,

01:10:50.440 | you may have lost 10%, but then the next year it comes back, I think you have hope.

01:10:57.200 | Now, if we ever got into a stretch, as has happened around the world, where it's five

01:11:03.200 | years or more, I mean, that might test me.

01:11:07.120 | Okay.

01:11:08.120 | Great.

01:11:09.120 | Speaking of testing you, there are some people who I think are born Bogleheads.

01:11:14.600 | They would be frugal and conscientious investors versus some people who are born spenders.

01:11:22.440 | What did you have to fight against your own natural tendencies to adopt versus what came

01:11:30.480 | very naturally to you as you learned, say, Boglehead philosophy?

01:11:36.120 | Are we talking about spending or saving?

01:11:40.600 | Under that umbrella in broadly personal finance, let's say you learned some things and once

01:11:44.760 | they crystallized, they came naturally to you because they aligned with your tendencies.

01:11:50.640 | But a lot of folks have different tendencies and saving and investing may not be as natural

01:11:58.980 | to them, but it's not out of reach either.

01:12:02.100 | What were some examples that you had to do either mental gymnastics for, or you had to

01:12:08.320 | fight against your natural tendencies to achieve what you knew was good for you?

01:12:13.720 | Well, I'll go back to my mother and I think her stories of how you can have a very good

01:12:23.880 | life.

01:12:25.840 | We never had a lot.

01:12:28.520 | We never went out to restaurants, but we traveled all over the country, camping.

01:12:37.120 | We had music lessons.

01:12:38.560 | We had a lot of things, but she was a wonderful budget person.

01:12:45.800 | And so I think that when you call it a natural tendency, I think that I saw that you can

01:12:53.600 | have a very good life without spending a lot of money.

01:12:58.400 | And let me interject that today there's this movement fired.

01:13:04.240 | I think it's financial independence, retire early, and people are making decisions.

01:13:12.240 | Maybe they did not have modeling.

01:13:15.480 | Maybe it didn't come natural to them, but they decided that they wanted to be free of

01:13:23.640 | jobs, free of worry at an earlier age, and they made decisions that would allow them

01:13:33.440 | to do that.

01:13:35.100 | So for me, I think I had that advantage of having the assurance that if you do save,

01:13:43.620 | you can use it later for things you want, but you don't have to spend a lot to be happy.

01:13:57.420 | Excellent.

01:13:58.420 | Well, I think you're preaching to the choir.

01:14:03.340 | So something else in terms of your learning journey after you had a good handle on the

01:14:07.700 | fundamentals and again, you went on to teach courses in it, obviously written a book, how

01:14:14.180 | incrementally did you add to that knowledge base?

01:14:18.860 | Were you pursuing more complicated things or was there a sufficiency and contentedness

01:14:25.740 | that you weren't missing out on things that you didn't know?

01:14:33.380 | I don't believe I have pursued it more knowledge with great vigor.

01:14:42.140 | I will do some, but it tends to be more incidental and the things that I do, if they've confirmed

01:14:55.100 | what I think is the right thing to do, then I'm kind of even less likely to do it.

01:15:02.640 | I have some other writing that I'm interested in doing.

01:15:07.460 | And so I can kind of leave this and let it perk along on its own.

01:15:17.740 | And that's one of the joys.

01:15:19.480 | That's why it's a sweet spot for me.

01:15:22.340 | I don't have to keep pulling the tree up by the roots to see how it's doing.

01:15:28.180 | I don't have to keep looking at the pot if it's boiling.

01:15:32.060 | I just let it sit there and I go on with other things.

01:15:37.100 | Fantastic.

01:15:38.660 | So we're coming up to 9.20 Eastern, so an hour and 20 minutes.

01:15:44.100 | I'll again remind folks, feel free to submit questions in the chat or raise your hand if

01:15:48.700 | you'd like to ask a question of Sylvia directly.

01:15:53.020 | In the absence of additional audience questions, Sylvia, in writing this book, what were some

01:15:59.820 | of the, apart from what you've mentioned already, what were some of the big ideas or main goals

01:16:05.740 | of sharing via the book, your goal in getting your message out there?

01:16:13.980 | I really wanted to address the emotional issue.

01:16:18.260 | I think there's plenty out there of knowledge and facts, the cognitive, but I believe that

01:16:26.780 | so much in life is on the emotional side.

01:16:31.820 | How we feel about something, whether we feel competent, what are ... I used to say the

01:16:38.980 | tapes in our head.

01:16:41.660 | There are children who are raised and their parents give them so many good things.

01:16:48.100 | Those children have self-reliance, they have resiliency.

01:16:53.500 | Other children may have different tapes in their heads because of what parents or others

01:17:00.620 | have said to them.

01:17:02.940 | I wanted to help erase some of those tapes in their heads.

01:17:09.140 | Now, I do say that I worked with a wonderful person, a writing coach.

01:17:15.580 | I'm not a writer.

01:17:17.300 | This is my first real initiative.

01:17:23.980 | He would take my writing and say, "You want stories.

01:17:28.500 | You want to connect with people, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah."

01:17:31.500 | Then I worked with a wonderful editor.

01:17:34.060 | She kept saying, "Tapes in your head, that's too old.

01:17:37.820 | People won't understand tapes in your head.

01:17:40.580 | Do sound bites."

01:17:41.820 | I think the book says sound bites, but to me, it is still tapes in our head.

01:17:47.820 | What is our self-talk?

01:17:50.980 | If we think that the market requires a great deal of expertise, if we think the market

01:17:58.540 | requires heavy-duty mathematics, if we think the market requires just certain innate abilities,

01:18:10.380 | then we're not going to go forward as easily.

01:18:15.660 | That's what I wanted to stress.

01:18:17.820 | I wanted to stress that I had insecurities, but that today it is so easy and anyone can

01:18:27.940 | do it.

01:18:29.180 | I wanted women and men to say, "Oh, this is as easy as so many other things in life."

01:18:38.380 | It was really that emotional piece, and a bit about the joy when you find that you are

01:18:48.780 | able to look at the world in terms of companies, what they provide.

01:18:55.980 | I think I mentioned some of Journey to Jamestown.

01:19:02.220 | When we were looking around, I found out about the Jamestown Company, which I had learned

01:19:08.420 | in school, but I never really realized the financial implications.

01:19:17.340 | Much of having some interest in investing perks your interest in some of the things

01:19:25.820 | going on in the world.

01:19:27.700 | But today, now, what is going to happen with alternative energy?

01:19:32.940 | Are we going to find a time when it will be so beneficial to the world and to poor people

01:19:41.260 | to have solar energy?

01:19:44.660 | That's just a big area, and of course, it has implications for the stock market.

01:19:50.700 | I wanted to help people find that joy and to overcome personal fear.

01:19:59.540 | Okay, great.

01:20:03.060 | Before I turn it over to Jim, Lady Geek, and even Mel as a guest speaker for any closing

01:20:09.220 | comments, I have another question for you, perhaps my last.

01:20:13.340 | It'll be, I'll say, a holistic lifestyle question.

01:20:16.820 | A lot of Bogleheads have been so successful at saving and investing and living a meaningful,

01:20:24.020 | thoughtful life, a fulfilling one, the way you described, you don't need to spend a lot

01:20:27.860 | of money to have a good life or to enjoy oneself.

01:20:32.060 | A lot of Bogleheads are finding in their later years a challenge to spend money.

01:20:39.300 | What has brought you joy to spend on, or do you have this challenge of finding things

01:20:48.340 | to spend on to add joy to your life?

01:20:53.140 | Not joy from spending, but what have you found worthwhile to spend on?

01:20:58.460 | Yes, I think like many people, when your major life responsibilities, your family, your career,

01:21:12.260 | when that is a finished part and you're on to this stage of life, whatever your age is,

01:21:19.820 | then this idea of spending, which is sometimes an anathema, we've got built in habits of

01:21:30.020 | what we think we should do, that it takes some learning, and that's why I think it's

01:21:37.980 | always good to be around people to see what they're doing, how they're learning.

01:21:46.100 | What I find joy in is doing some small work with our universities in terms of trying to

01:21:58.300 | set up scholarships for young people, or to do things with the family where we can get

01:22:08.360 | together and maybe I can put in a little bit more of the assets and bring people together,

01:22:18.980 | where when families are scattered, sometimes we're not able to do it.

01:22:24.820 | Also to think of some of the people in the family who are having harder lives and to

01:22:34.700 | provide them with some resources.

01:22:38.820 | So it's both close to home, and it's looking at the community, and in some ways this development

01:22:51.460 | of the book is not a money maker, but I'm hoping if it ever makes money that I can put

01:23:00.380 | it in scholarships and to look to the next generation, but I am also a selfish person

01:23:09.940 | in the sense that I still want to get out as much as I can to do things, so I think

01:23:18.700 | it's that balance where we are trying to look both at a fulfilling life for ourselves, but

01:23:26.500 | then what are the needs of our close family, our friends, and our community.

01:23:33.100 | Wonderful.

01:23:34.740 | Great to hear your work for scholarships and the other things you mentioned.

01:23:40.180 | So again, we're approaching an hour and a half, and I think we're very grateful for

01:23:46.620 | what you shared, Sylvia.

01:23:49.100 | Mel, as a special guest attendee, do you want to share any comments?

01:23:56.420 | Well, I'd just like to say that I was glad to help Sylvia in any way I could on her book

01:24:04.700 | because I think it's needed, and we're all aiming for the same goal, and that's to help

01:24:13.580 | other people avoid the mistakes that we made and what we learned along the way, and I can

01:24:19.220 | tell you that I made every mistake.

01:24:21.220 | Fortunately, I started very young and made all the mistakes when I was young and didn't

01:24:27.220 | have a lot of money, so it's great to see people like you doing what you can to help

01:24:35.120 | the people who need help, so thanks again for what you're doing, and thanks for appearing

01:24:41.300 | tonight.

01:24:42.300 | Great.

01:24:43.300 | Thanks for those comments, Mel, and obviously, thanks for what you do, and I'm sorry, Sylvia,

01:24:48.020 | you may have had a response.

01:24:49.180 | Well, no, I think that it's people like Mel and Taylor, and I must say that Taylor and

01:24:57.340 | his wife were very helpful in reading some of what I had written, and when people are

01:25:06.940 | willing to give you their time, I think that's another resource we have.

01:25:11.860 | It's not just money, but it is our time, and so how do we reach out to people and give

01:25:21.480 | our time to help them have good lives, and finance is certainly a part of it.

01:25:29.220 | Wonderful, and I see Miriam just joined.

01:25:33.020 | Hello, Miriam.

01:25:34.660 | Hi.

01:25:35.660 | And for Lady Geek, did you have any closing comments?

01:25:39.340 | Well, Sylvia, I'd like to thank you for joining us tonight, and one of your goals was to educate

01:25:45.100 | people, and you did that, and the YouTube video will help educate many, many more people,

01:25:51.260 | so thank you again.

01:25:52.260 | Well, thank you for all you do.

01:25:54.740 | Yeah, from Lady Geek, yeah, just thank you.

01:25:58.900 | I mean, it's already been said, but thank you for showing up.

01:26:04.220 | Thank you for the discussion.

01:26:05.220 | It was quite a different perspective, because people come in and they want to start talking

01:26:10.540 | about technical details.

01:26:11.540 | You just told your story, and I think that's quite different and quite interesting, so

01:26:18.140 | thanks.

01:26:19.140 | Well, thank you, and this group is composed of so many, I'm going to say good-hearted,

01:26:27.380 | the old-fashioned words, good-hearted people who are there for others, and I feel privileged

01:26:35.540 | to be a part of it, and of course, Jack Bogle.

01:26:41.140 | One of the things, I didn't come up here, and I don't know if it would be timely, but

01:26:49.220 | I have in back of me a poster when I talked to Gus Sautter, who was one of Jack's close

01:27:00.900 | associates.

01:27:01.900 | I guess he worked for Jack, and what happened when they were first introducing the idea

01:27:08.780 | and how much pushback they got, and so I keep that little poster there that exchange-traded

01:27:17.180 | funds are un-American.

01:27:21.440 | Index funds.

01:27:22.700 | Index funds, yeah.

01:27:24.140 | Right.

01:27:25.140 | Maybe elaborate on that, because out of context, it's not clear when that was or who put that

01:27:31.820 | out and why they did.

01:27:34.380 | You want me to do that now?

01:27:35.860 | If you'd like.

01:27:36.860 | Sure.

01:27:37.860 | Well, I think it was Mel that got me in touch with Gus, and I had a long conversation with

01:27:45.900 | him, and he's retired, but I think he was the first global something or something at

01:27:54.500 | Vanguard, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this was in the 1970s when Jack had

01:28:04.980 | come out with passive investing, and of course, he was wanted at many, many places and conferences,

01:28:14.180 | and sometimes he would go, and sometimes he would send Gus.

01:28:18.820 | Well, Gus went to one conference, and he was on the stage with a financial advisor, and

01:28:32.340 | that person was very good.

01:28:34.540 | I don't know if he was like a Peter Lynch, but he was one that kind of went beyond and

01:28:41.900 | always did well for his clients beating the S&P 500, and Gus said, "I still held my ground,"

01:28:50.580 | even though they found this example, and then Gus went to another conference, and he was

01:28:57.180 | on the stage, and lo and behold, there was this same man who had beat the odds and beat

01:29:05.100 | the S&P 500.

01:29:06.740 | Well, after about three or four times, Gus thought to himself, "They can't find another

01:29:13.220 | person who has beat the S&P," and then I think it was he who said that there was a company.

01:29:24.260 | I don't remember which one it was, but it was a financial company, financial services,

01:29:33.420 | and they put this poster out which said, "Help stamp out index funds.

01:29:39.060 | They are un-American," and of course, today, we all know that Jack revolutionized the industry

01:29:48.460 | to now where all the big houses are following suit, so I just thought that was very funny.

01:29:55.740 | It is.

01:29:56.740 | It is, and Miriam, did you have any comments you wanted to share?

01:30:01.140 | I know you joined late, so feel free.

01:30:04.100 | Thank you.

01:30:05.100 | Thank you for coming, Sylvia.

01:30:08.500 | I know that your book and portions of your book are in the Bogleheads Wiki under Taylor's

01:30:17.960 | Investing Gems, and in my post on the Bogleheads, I did quote you several times, and I really

01:30:25.500 | liked those quotes.

01:30:27.620 | The first one was, "The biggest impediment to my getting started was that I had no confidence

01:30:33.980 | in myself as an investor," and I see that even in young people, in people in college

01:30:41.060 | and just out of college, their first jobs, having no confidence as an investor, not just

01:30:50.260 | elderly people or not just people who have now for some reason have come in to be in

01:30:59.380 | charge of their family finances like you were.

01:31:02.980 | It takes a while to get used to investing, and there's this feeling that it must be something

01:31:08.900 | special that only certain people know how to do it, and the average person cannot do

01:31:15.380 | it.

01:31:16.380 | It's nice for, well, Jack Bogle, of course, revolutionized that, and his books tell us,

01:31:23.980 | "Yes, you can do it," and the Bogleheads tell us, "Yes, you can do it."

01:31:29.860 | Well, Miriam, I think you were not here when I said that I now have this elevator speech

01:31:37.700 | when I meet young people, and I say to them, "It's as easy as buying a cup of coffee and

01:31:46.060 | as wonderful as winning the lottery.

01:31:49.980 | You do not need to know any math.

01:31:52.540 | You don't need to know a lot of charts and spend time because Jack Bogle gave us a revolution

01:32:01.420 | in investing," and I tell them it's like the Copernican when I give a PowerPoint.

01:32:06.860 | I talk about the Copernican revolution where we used to think that the sun went around

01:32:13.940 | the earth, and it was very hard to dispel that notion, and today we have to dispel the

01:32:21.020 | notion that investing is difficult because it is not.

01:32:26.460 | Well, you've made great contributions in spreading that message.

01:32:31.420 | We want to thank you for being a part of the Boglehead community, sharing what you have.

01:32:36.580 | Many thanks to the Boglehead community in how it empowers others and how it's not just

01:32:44.100 | educating oneself for oneself.

01:32:46.340 | There's very much of a paying it forward aspect.

01:32:49.500 | People go on to help others well beyond after they themselves know what they need to know.

01:32:58.340 | Everything you've said, I shouldn't say everything, but so much of what you said aligns with the

01:33:04.060 | Boglehead community in a way that we're grateful.

01:33:08.020 | Absent any other comments?

01:33:10.140 | I do have one more comment, and that is even though investing can be easy in that you don't

01:33:18.100 | have to know lots of fancy investing terms, you don't need to know exactly how stocks

01:33:31.340 | work on the stock market, you don't need to know how to buy individual stocks and when

01:33:37.580 | to sell them, it is not necessarily easy in the sense that we always think, "If I did

01:33:45.360 | one more thing, if I did something different, I could probably have a better portfolio and

01:33:51.060 | make more money."

01:33:52.060 | The whole purpose is to make money, although really the purpose is also to invest it and

01:33:57.020 | save it for our retirement because young people won't have pensions, probably.

01:34:04.100 | They have to create their own pension with their 401(k).

01:34:07.920 | How do you do that?

01:34:11.140 | You get this big list of all these mutual funds in your 401(k).

01:34:15.880 | How do you select the ones that you need and how do you select the ones you don't need

01:34:21.220 | or figure out which ones you don't need?

01:34:23.900 | How many do you need?

01:34:26.140 | What are bonds?

01:34:28.260 | Do I need bonds?

01:34:30.940 | It is not necessarily, I would say, easy, but it is not difficult to learn.

01:34:38.300 | We have many Bogleheads who can explain in easy terms, very like Mike Piper in his investing

01:34:49.140 | make simple.

01:34:50.140 | It makes it very simple to understand it.

01:34:53.340 | You can say, "Oh, okay, in my 401(k) I'm just going to select these three funds then," and

01:34:58.420 | then you watch it.

01:34:59.420 | Then you have to get over the idea that if I just added one more fund, I would be better

01:35:05.660 | off.

01:35:06.660 | Then the market goes up or down and then you say, "Well, then I'll change it and I'll add

01:35:11.220 | this fund and I'll take away that fund."

01:35:13.660 | It's also the problem of trying to recreate or tinker with, is what people will call it,

01:35:21.420 | their portfolio, trying to get a better return.

01:35:26.100 | And that is hard.

01:35:27.100 | I agree with you, Miriam, although I'll go back to what Jack said.

01:35:32.500 | You buy three funds, the total stock, the total bond, and the total international, and

01:35:38.500 | you don't tinker.

01:35:39.780 | You don't keep adding and subtracting.

01:35:42.500 | Now maybe that's hard for everyone, but I love that idea of what he said.

01:35:49.980 | I do like the idea of sleep well at night, not constantly be worrying about what decision

01:35:57.220 | you make.

01:35:58.440 | You get your fair share by doing simple investing.

01:36:03.220 | Indeed.

01:36:04.220 | I meant to share this earlier.

01:36:06.660 | There was a comment in the chat about your book, Sylvia.

01:36:09.980 | Someone wrote, "I found the appendices that explained various terms most valuable."

01:36:15.740 | So I wanted to make sure folks heard that comment.

01:36:21.140 | That's good.

01:36:22.140 | I put them in just as more information and put in sections about some of the great leaders

01:36:30.900 | that we have.

01:36:33.060 | I cited Mellon Taylor's book.

01:36:36.380 | Jason Zweig had a really interesting book called The Devil's Dictionary, some of you

01:36:42.420 | know of it, and then about talk on the street.

01:36:46.980 | What are these things?

01:36:47.980 | I mean, Dave never said, I mean, he always said, "Why is it that I'm supposed to sell

01:36:52.700 | my winners and buy my losers?"

01:36:56.620 | And then somebody else would say, "No, you buy your winners and sell your losers."

01:37:02.500 | Well, there's so much like that that if we don't understand it, it sounds confusing and

01:37:07.900 | we're just backing away, but once we understand, it is great.

01:37:14.020 | Understood, yeah.

01:37:16.180 | So some of what you said hints at rebalancing, and I'll share Buffett has said he'd prefer

01:37:24.860 | to water the flowers and cut the weeds.

01:37:29.020 | So there are many takes on that topic.

01:37:33.600 | So absent any other comments, we can close.

01:37:37.260 | Sylvia, I want to reiterate everyone's gratitude and thank you again for being here and sharing

01:37:42.740 | what you did.

01:37:43.740 | Thank you.

01:37:44.740 | Thank you.

01:37:45.740 | Thank you.

01:37:50.740 | Thank you.

01:37:55.740 | Thank you.

01:38:00.740 | Thank you.

01:38:05.740 | (upbeat music)