In our Friday roundup, Jonathan and Brad discuss the highlights and takeaways from the Monday episode with JL Collins. Then the podcast is opened up and crowd-sourced to the community. Find out the specific travel reward perks that are available for active duty military and how to get started with VTSAX if you don’t have $10,000 to invest
Review with Jim Collins
- Jonathan’s baby was born! And he’s here recording the Friday Roundup two days later
- 2nd Generation FIRE and the impact on Jonathan with his new son
- The value of starting a child on the path to FIRE from the very beginning
- Index investing as one of the main ‘pillars of Financial Independence
- Jim’s Stock Series changed the trajectory of Brad’s investing life and will benefit him to the tune of millions of dollars in his lifetime
- There are no investing gurus out there who will help you outperform the market over decades when including fees into the calculation
- Jim is such a fantastic storyteller
- Fidelity study of the classes of investors who do the best: dead people and those who forgot they had accounts
- The best thing that can happen to someone who is young is for the market to drop while they are pumping money into the market.
- Index investing: Losers can only go down 100%, but winners can go up indefinitely. The index is self-cleansing
- Why stock picking contests promote the wrong behavior
- The stock market always go up over decades.
- You only lose money in the market when you try to “dance in and out of the market”
- Warren Buffett will invest in a Vanguard S&P 500 index fund
- Vanguard is growing faster than all of its 4,000 competitors combined (to the tune of 8.5x)
Feedback
- Stitcher reviews – thank you for leaving them and letting us know they exist!
- Sharing ChooseFI with friends and family
- Feedback from Steve and Amy on the action they’ve taken since first listening to ChooseFI
- How police officers and firefighters can access their 401K’s without penalty
Travel Rewards and Investing Questions
- Travel rewards question about travel in Europe for hotels and Ryanair from Anthony and Abby
- Question from Alyssa about different retirement account options and different investing options and how to get started for younger listeners who don’t have $10,000 to invest in VTSAX in one lump sum
- The standard advice doesn’t apply for people on the path to FI, so they should max out traditional IRAs and 401k instead of Roth-IRAs
Links from the show:
- The Stock Series at JLCollinsNH.com
- ChooseFI podcast with JL Collins
- Vanguard is Growing Faster than Everyone Else Combined at the NY Times
- Friday Roundup 7 talk about hotel redemption options including Hyatt and Starwood
- AwardMapper to see reward hotel options
- Award Wallet to track rewards programs for free
