As I was feeding the pigs the other evening — Fresca in one hand, feed scoop in the other — my mind started wandering to the (yet unpaid) real estate tax bill sitting on our kitchen counter.

(I know. I’m a Type A nerd. Go ahead and judge.)

As I argued with myself for the ump-teenth time over how stupid I think it is to have to pay taxes simply for the privilege to live on real estate you already own…

Another thought popped in my head…

Most investors spend tons of time and energy trying to pick the right stocks and ETFs.

They obsess over expense ratios. Dividend yields. Growth rates.

And yet they just dump everything into whatever account is most convenient.

Their Roth IRA. Their 401(k). Their taxable brokerage.

Doesn’t matter. Same investments everywhere.

In doing so, they quietly hand thousands of dollars back to the IRS every single year.

For no reason!

So this week I want to chat with you about asset location — and why getting it right might be the easiest money you ever make as an investor.

Not to be confused with asset allocation (what you own).

Asset location is all about where you own it.

Same investments. Different accounts. Dramatically different tax bills.

Let’s get into it👇🏼.

The Problem In Plain English

You probably have more than one type of investment account.

• Maybe a 401(k) through work.

• A Roth IRA you opened a few years ago.

• A taxable brokerage account where you invest extra savings.

Yet what a lot of people don’t realize is that each of these accounts has completely different tax rules.

Your 401(k) and Traditional IRA — every dollar of growth gets taxed as ordinary income when you withdraw.

Could be 12%. Could be 22%. Could be 32%.

Depends on your federal income tax bracket.

Your Roth IRA — completely tax-free. Every dividend. Every gain. Forever.

Your taxable brokerage — you pay taxes every year on dividends and interest, and capital gains tax when you sell an investment for a profit.

On paper, most people I ask say they know this.

But when I talk to them in my 1:1 consults, they aren’t using this knowledge to decide where to put each investment.

And that’s where the real money is hiding.

One Simple Rule:

• Put your least tax-efficient investments in your most tax-protected accounts.

• Put your most tax-efficient investments in your taxable accounts.

That’s it. That’s the whole framework.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

In your Roth IRA/401k — put your highest-growth, most tax-inefficient assets.

Your Roth is your most powerful tax shelter.

Growth is tax-free. Dividends are tax-free. Forever.

This is where you want the investments that would otherwise generate your biggest tax bills to go.

Think:

• SCHD (Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF) — pays a growing dividend every quarter. Every dollar of that dividend inside your Roth compounds tax-free instead of triggering an annual tax bill.

• VNQ (Vanguard Real Estate ETF) — REITs are required by law to distribute 90% of their income to shareholders. That’s a lot of taxable income in a regular account. Inside a Roth? Zero tax. Ever.

• QQQM (Invesco Nasdaq-100 ETF) — high-growth, high-return potential. The bigger the gains, the more valuable the tax-free shelter becomes. Let your most aggressive growers live here.

• Actively managed funds with high portfolio turnover — funds that buy and sell frequently generate short-term capital gains that get taxed at your highest ordinary income rate. Shield them inside your Roth and that problem disappears entirely.

The rule of thumb: if an investment throws off a lot of income or has serious growth potential — it belongs in your Roth first.

In your Traditional 401(k) or IRA — put your bond funds and income-generating assets.

Your Traditional accounts give you tax-deferral — meaning nothing gets taxed until you withdraw in retirement.

That makes them the perfect home for investments that generate regular, heavily-taxed income right now.

Think:

• BND (Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF) — bonds pay interest income regularly. In a taxable account, that interest gets taxed as ordinary income every single year — your highest possible rate. Inside a Traditional 401(k), that interest compounds untouched for decades. You defer the tax bill until retirement when you may be in a lower bracket.

• VCIT (Vanguard Intermediate-Term Corporate Bond ETF) — same principle. Corporate bonds generate consistent interest income that you don’t want sitting in a taxable account getting hit annually.

• Dividend-paying international funds — international ETFs often come with foreign tax complications that are actually easier to manage inside a tax-deferred account.

• High-yield bond funds — these pay generous income, which makes them extremely tax-inefficient in a taxable account. Let them compound inside your 401(k) instead.

The rule of thumb: if an investment pays regular interest or income that would otherwise be taxed at your ordinary income rate — it belongs in your Traditional 401(k) or IRA.

In your taxable brokerage — put your most tax-efficient assets.

Your taxable brokerage is your least tax-protected account.

So you want investments here that naturally generate the smallest tax footprint — ie. assets that grow quietly in the background without throwing off taxable income along the way.

Think:

• VOO (Vanguard S&P 500 ETF) — extremely low turnover, minimal dividend distributions, and most of its return comes from long-term price appreciation. You only pay capital gains tax when you actually sell — and if you hold longer than a year, that rate is 0%, 15%, or 20% depending on your income. Not ordinary income rates of 22-37%.

• VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF) — same story. Broad, diversified, low-cost, tax-efficient. Perfectly suited for a taxable account.

• VUG (Vanguard Growth ETF) — growth-focused stocks pay minimal dividends and instead appreciate over time. That appreciation isn’t taxed until you sell. A natural fit for taxable accounts.

• Individual stocks you plan to hold long-term — buying and holding individual companies for years generates almost no taxable events until you decide to sell. Berkshire Hathaway, for example, pays zero dividends entirely by design — making it one of the most tax-efficient individual stock holdings available.

The rule of thumb: if an investment grows primarily through price appreciation rather than income distributions — and you plan to hold it for years — it belongs in your taxable brokerage.

~

The way to remember all three:

Roth → your most aggressive growers and highest income producers. Tax-free forever.

Traditional 401(k)/IRA → your bonds and interest-generating income. Tax-deferred until retirement.

Taxable brokerage → your quiet, low-turnover index funds. Tax-efficient by design.

~

Let me show you what this actually looks like with real numbers.

Say you have $500,000 invested and $50,000 of that is in a high-dividend ETF like SCHD yielding 3.5%.

That’s $1,750 in annual dividends.

Scenario A — SCHD in your taxable brokerage:

You pay taxes on $1,750 every year. At a 22% qualified dividend rate, that’s $385/year.

Over 20 years, that’s $7,700 in taxes paid — before accounting for the growth you lost on that money.

Scenario B — SCHD in your Roth IRA:

You pay $0 in taxes on those dividends. Every year. The full $1,750 stays invested and compounds.

Over 20 years at 8% returns, that $7,700 in tax savings compounds to over $16,000 in additional wealth.

Same ETF. Same amount invested. Same market returns.

Just in a different account.

$16,000 difference.

And that’s just one holding.

Most investors have 5, 10, sometimes 20+ positions that could be optimized this way.

Subscribe now

The Quick-Check Checklist.

I know this can feel overwhelming, so here’s a step-by-step guide to help you start:

✅ Step 1: Write down every investment account you have and its tax type (Roth, Traditional, or Taxable).

✅ Step 2: List every ETF, mutual fund or individual company you own and ask — does this generate a lot of taxable income? (High dividends, bond interest, or high turnover = tax-inefficient = belongs in your Roth or 401k.)

✅ Step 3: Move tax-inefficient investments into your Roth IRA first. This is your most powerful shelter.

✅ Step 4: Fill your taxable brokerage with broad index funds like VOO or VTI that grow quietly with minimal tax drag.

✅ Step 5: Put bond funds and income-generating fixed income inside your Traditional 401(k) or IRA where the interest compounds tax-deferred.

One important note:

If moving investments between accounts means selling in a taxable account, check your capital gains situation first.

Inside a Roth or 401(k)? Move freely — no tax consequences.

That’s all for this week.

As always — hit Reply and tell me:

What questions do you have about asset location? Did this newsletter give you food for thought on relocating any of your investments?

I read every single reply.

And unlike the algorithms, I actually write back.

Talk soon,

-Charlie

🔗 Links You’ll Love

🏦 The top 10 IRAs to consider opening in 2026 — If this week’s newsletter made you want to open a Roth IRA or consolidate old accounts, this is the best place to start. I went through this list myself before recommending it — straightforward comparison, no fluff.

📊 How asset location can lower your taxes — Vanguard’s own research on the exact strategy we covered this week. Their data shows it can mean up to $74,000 less in taxes over 30 years. Worth a bookmark.

📖 The books I’ve been (re)reading: The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. If you haven’t read it yet — stop what you’re doing. It’s one of the best investing book I’ve ever read and it has almost nothing to do with picking stocks.

💭 Weekly Wonderings…

🐷 On the farm: We’re heading into one of my favorite times of year — late spring. The weather is (finally) staying warmer, the show pigs are learning how to strut their stuff with daily walks, and our new horse/pig barn is (almost) ready for concrete! It’s the time of year that makes me extra grateful for country life. I hope you’ve got something like that in your week too!

📈 On the market: A lot of you have been emailing me asking whether to keep investing given all the uncertainty and noise in the headlines right now. My answer is always the same: zoom out. The investors who won through every crash in history weren’t the ones who predicted the bottom. They were the ones who kept going.

📬 From the inbox: Got a great question this week from a subscriber asking whether asset location still matters if you only have one type of account. Honest answer — not yet. But it’s a great reason to open a Roth IRA if you don’t have one. Which leads me to this week’s…

💰 Quiet Wealth Move

This week, log into every investment account you have. Write down what’s in each one.

If you’ve been meaning to get your portfolio organized and actually want to see where all your investments are, what they’re returning, and whether your allocation is where it needs to be — my Stock Tracker & Portfolio Balancer does exactly that.

It’s a simple Google Sheet, fully customizable, and it costs less than 2 cups of ☕️.

Once you’ve got everything in one place, ask yourself: is my most tax-inefficient investment sitting in my most tax-protected account?

If not — you’ve just found some hidden money!

That’s it. 20 minutes. Could be worth $1,000s over the next decade.

When you’re ready, here’s how I can help:

If you want to sit down together and map out your specific asset location strategy — which investments go where based on your exact accounts, income, and tax situation — that’s exactly what my 1:1 private strategy sessions are for.

No pressure, no pitch. Just your numbers and a clear plan.

Leave a comment

Disclaimer: this content is for educational and informational purposes only, and is not legal, financial or investment advice. Always do your own research before investing, and consult a licensed professional. Charlie and OJD LLC are not responsible for any losses or decisions made based on this content.

Six months ago I hired a new employee straight outta college.

Per usual, HR had given her a stack of onboarding forms 3” thick. And also per usual, the only guidance they gave her when it came to her retirement accounts was: “pick either a Roth 401(k) or a traditional 401(k) by Friday.”

She had no idea what either one meant, nor which one was better for her situation.

“Just tell me which box to check,” she said.

I told her flat out:

“This is not a small decision. What box you pick, may cost you $200K+ over the life of your career.”

Most people give more thought to what they’re having for dinners this week than what type of retirement account will benefit them most.

They pick based on whatever their coworkers did. Or whatever their parents did. Or the ole’ eeny-meeny-miney-mo method.

But pick wrong and you might be eating Ramen from age 65-85 vs. a nice steak dinner twice a month.

But because you’re reading this, you’re smarter than that.

Let’s run through 4 different scenarios to show you exactly how to make the right decision with data instead of guesswork.

But First — What’s the Difference?

Before we get into which one wins in your situation, you need to understand what you’re actually choosing between.

What’s the Same:

• Both IRA and 401k accounts are geared towards making sure you have money to retire on — so you don’t have to work the rest of your life.

• Both account types let your investments grow completely tax-free while the money is inside them.

The biggest difference is when you pay taxes.

Traditional IRA/401k — Pay Taxes LATER

You contribute pre-tax dollars. Meaning every dollar you put in, you’ve not yet paid income taxes on. This reduces your taxable income today.

Ex. Contribute $7,500 to a traditional IRA in 2026 — your taxable income drops by $7,500 this year. If your taxable income before contributions was $65,000, you’d now only be taxed on $57,500 when you file your taxes in April 2027.

If you’re in the 22% federal tax bracket, that $7,500 deduction puts approximately $1,650 back in your pocket this year — money you can spend, save, or invest elsewhere right now.

But when you withdraw from the account in retirement?

Every dollar comes out as ordinary income — taxed at whatever rate applies to you then.

The government gave you a break today. They’ll collect later.

Roth IRA/401k — Pay Taxes NOW

You contribute after-tax dollars. Meaning the money that goes in, you’ve already paid income tax on.

No deduction today. No tax break this year.

But when you withdraw in retirement?

Every single dollar — contributions AND decades of compound growth — comes out completely tax-free.

Forever.

The government gets their cut now. Then they leave you alone.

That’s the trade-off.

Pay taxes now. Or pay taxes later.

Sounds simple right?

The Only Question You Need To Answer…

Forget the jargon for a moment.

There’s really only 1 question you need to answer:

Will your tax rate be higher now — or higher in retirement?

• If your tax rate will be higher in retirement than it is today — pay taxes now. Choose the Roth.

• If your tax rate will be lower in retirement than it is today — defer the taxes. Choose the Traditional.

That’s the whole game.

Everything else is just helping you figure out which scenario applies to you.

The 4 Scenarios — And Which Account Wins

Scenario 1: You’re Early in Your Career Earning <$50,000

Winner: Roth. It’s not even close.

Early in your career, your income — and therefore your tax rate — is almost certainly at its lowest point. You’re likely in the 10% or 12% federal bracket.

Paying taxes now at 12% to get tax-free growth for 30-40 years is one of the best financial decisions a young person can make.

Think about what happens if you invest consistently and build a $1M+ portfolio by retirement.

When you withdraw a traditional IRA/401k, every dollar of that $1M gets taxed as ordinary income.

If you’re pulling $60,000-$80,000 per year in retirement — which puts you in the 22% bracket — you’re handing the government $13,200-$17,600 every single year.

Sorry Uncle Sam, but I worked too hard for that money just to give it away to you.

With a Roth IRA?

You paid 12% on the way in.

Everything that came after — the decades of compound growth, the dividends, the market returns — comes out completely tax-free.

You paid 12% on $7,500 per year. You got $1,000,000 tax-free.

That’s the Roth’s superpower.

And it’s most powerful when you’re young and your tax rate is lowest.

Real-life example:

25-year-old Ana makes $50K/year and contributes $7,500/year to her Roth IRA for 40 years. At 8% annual returns, by age 65 her portfolio is worth approx. $2,060,000.

Every dollar of that — contributions and growth — is completely tax-free.

Ryan, also 25 years old, has a traditional IRA — same $2M+ account balance.

At age 65 he starts withdrawing $82,000/year at a 22% tax rate. He ends up paying roughly $18,040 per year in taxes on the withdrawals.

Over a 25-year retirement that’s over $451,000 paid in taxes alone — on money that could have been completely tax-free with a Roth.

Scenario 2: You’re a High Earner in Your Peak Years

Winner: Traditional. Usually.

Here’s the flip side.

If you’re earning $150,000, $200,000, or more — you’re likely in the 24%, 32%, or 35% federal bracket right now.

Paying 32% in taxes today to avoid taxes in retirement — when you might be in the 22% bracket — is a losing trade.

Take the deduction now. Reduce your taxable income. Invest the tax savings. And plan to pay the lower rate later.

The traditional IRA/401k is essentially the government offering you a $0.32 discount on every $1 you invest today.

That’s a tough deal to turn down.

But there’s an important nuance here…

If you’re a high earner, you may not be able to deduct traditional IRA contributions at all — depending on whether you have access to a workplace retirement plan.

And if your income exceeds the Roth IRA contribution limits — $153,000 for single filers, $242,000 for married filing jointly in 2026 — you can’t contribute to a Roth directly.

This is where the Backdoor Roth comes in — but that’s a topic for a future newsletter.

Real-life example:

Grant is 45 years old earning $180,000, which puts him in the 32% bracket. He contributes $7,500 to a traditional IRA.

The ability to reduce his taxable income by $7,500 saves him $2,400 in taxes this year. He invests those savings.

When he retires at age 65, he starts withdrawing $70,000/year and pays an effective tax rate of ~18%. Grant saves around $0.14 on every $1 compared to what he would’ve paid upfront.

On a $500,000 traditional IRA, that tax rate differential represents roughly $70,000 in lifetime tax savings.

Scenario 3: You Have No Idea What Your Tax Rate Will Be in Retirement

Winner: Split the difference.

This is the most honest answer for most people in their 30s and 40s.

Why?

Because nobody actually knows what tax rates will look like in 20 or 30 years.

The current tax brackets are historically low by modern standards — but they’re also not guaranteed to stay that way.

If you genuinely can’t predict whether your future rate will be higher or lower, the smartest move is to hedge.

Ie. Contribute to both.

Max out your Roth IRA/401k:

If your employer offers a traditional 401(k) with a match — take the match first, then split contributions between traditional and Roth.

You end up with two buckets in retirement: one that’s taxed on the way out (traditional) and one that’s completely tax-free (Roth).

That gives you the flexibility to strategically manage your tax rate in retirement — pulling from whichever account is most tax-efficient in any given year.

This is what most financial planners mean when they talk about “tax diversification.”

Spoiler — it’s criminally underrated.

Real-life example:

38-year-old Kelly contributes $7,500/year to a Roth IRA and $10,000/year to a traditional 401(k) through her job.

By 65, she has approximately $960,000 in her Roth and $1,280,000 in traditional.

In retirement, she splits her living expenses equally between both accounts: $40,000 tax-free from the Roth and $40,000 from the traditional. This allows her to keep her total taxable income in a lower bracket.

This alone saves her $15,000-$25,000+ per year in taxes compared to having everything in a single account type.

Scenario 4: You’re Within 10 Years of Retirement

Winner: It depends — but lean Roth if you can.

This one always surprises people.

Conventional wisdom says: you’re close to retirement, your income is high, take the traditional deduction.

But here’s what conventional wisdom misses:

A Roth has no required minimum distributions (RMDs).

A traditional IRA/401k forces you to start withdrawing — and paying taxes — at age 73 whether you need the money or not.

If you retire with a healthy traditional balance, the government is going to make you take withdrawals that could push you into a higher bracket than you planned — especially if you have Social Security income, pension income, or other retirement income on top of it.

A Roth IRA/401K gives you a tax-free bucket you can leave untouched and growing — potentially for another 10, 20, even 30 years. Or pass to your heirs completely tax-free.

The closer you get to retirement, the more valuable that flexibility becomes.

Real-life example:

Max is 58 years old with $800,000 in a traditional 401k.

When he hits age 73, he faces RMDs of approximately $31,000 in the first year — going up every year after.

Combined with his $30,000 in Social Security income, his total taxable income is $61,000 — pushing him solidly into the 22% bracket and potentially triggering higher Medicare premiums (IRMAA surcharges).

Had Max started moving some of that traditional balance into a Roth in his late 50s and early 60s (known as a Roth conversion) — he could have dramatically reduced those forced withdrawals. And his tax bill.

Subscribe now

The Number That Changes Everything

Here’s the comparison I want you to consider:

• Two investors

• Same age

• Same contributions

• Same market returns

• Same discipline and consistency

Only difference? Account type.

Investor A — Traditional IRA

• Contributes $7,500/year for 30 years

• Earns 8% annual returns

• Portfolio at retirement: $915,000

• Pays 22% tax on withdrawals

After-tax value over 25-year retirement: $714,000 kept

Investor B — Roth IRA

• Contributes $7,500/year for 30 years

• Earns 8% annual returns

• Portfolio at retirement: $915,000

• Pays $0 tax on withdrawals

After-tax value over 25-year retirement: $915,000 kept

~

Same portfolio. Same contributions. Same market.

Difference: $201,000.

Kept by Investor B. Not because they invested better. Not because they earned more.

Because they paid their taxes at the right time.

That’s the decision sitting in front of you right now.

📌 Not sure whether a Roth or traditional makes more sense for your specific income, timeline, and goals? This is exactly the kind of thing we work through together on a personalized 1:1 financial strategy call.

30 minutes. Your numbers. A clear answer.

Book now — spots are limited.

The Simple Decision Framework

If you’re still not sure which account is right for you, run through these four questions:

Q1: What tax bracket are you in right now?

• 10% or 12% → Strong lean toward Roth

• 22% → Could go either way — consider splitting

• 24%+ → Strong lean toward Traditional

Q2: Do you expect your income to grow significantly?

• Yes → Roth now while your rate is lower

• No → Traditional if you’re already at peak earnings

Q3: Do you want flexibility in retirement?

• Yes → Roth (no RMDs, tax-free withdrawals, pass to heirs tax-free)

• No strong preference → Either works

Q4: Can you afford to pay taxes now?

• Yes → Roth. Pay the smaller bill today, avoid the larger bill later.

• No → Traditional. Take the deduction now, deal with taxes later.

Answer these four questions honestly and the right account almost always becomes obvious.

One More Thing Before You Decide…

There’s a question I get constantly from my readers:

“Can I have both a Roth IRA and a traditional IRA?”

Yes. Absolutely.

You can contribute to both in the same year — as long as your total contributions across both accounts don’t exceed the annual limit ($7,500 in 2026, $8,600 if you’re 50 or older).

And if you have a 401(k) at work, that’s completely separate.

You can max out a Roth IRA and still contribute to your 401(k) simultaneously — up to $24,500 in 2026.

The accounts don’t compete with each other. They complement each other.

And if you’re not sure which one to prioritize — contribute to whichever one first gets you the employer match (always take the free money first) → then fund your Roth IRA to the max → then go back to the 401(k) for additional contributions.

That order works for most people in most situations.

The box you check matters more than most people realize.

Now you know exactly how to pick the right one.

Your Action Plan This Week:

If you’re in the 10-12% bracket: Open a Roth IRA today if you don’t already have one. Fidelity, Vanguard, and Charles Schwab all offer them for free with no minimums. Set up an automatic monthly contribution — even $50/month compounds into something big with enough time.

If you’re in the 22%+ bracket: Review your current retirement account mix. If everything is in pre-tax accounts, consider whether adding Roth contributions — even partially — gives you better tax flexibility in retirement.

If you’re unsure: Start with the Roth. For most beginner investors, paying a modest tax rate today to protect decades of compound growth is the right default. You can always adjust as your income grows.

If you have an old 401(k) sitting at a previous employer: Consider whether a Roth conversion makes sense — especially if you’re in a lower-income year. Moving pre-tax money into a Roth during a low-income window is one of the most powerful tax moves available to ordinary investors.

That’s how you build quiet wealth.

— Charlie

📌 P.S. — Once you’ve opened the right account, you need to track it properly. My Stock Tracker & Portfolio Balancer is a fully customizable template that tracks all your holdings, automatically calculates your gains and losses, and shows you exactly how much to buy or sell to stay balanced — all for less than two cups of coffee. If you don’t know your numbers, your future is always uncertain.

Building Quiet Wealth
Helping 13,000+ smart people learn purposeful investing
Advertise with me
Follow me on YouTube & TikTok

Disclaimer: this content is for educational and informational purposes only, and is not legal, financial or investment advice. Always do your own research before investing, and consult a licensed professional. Charlie and OJD LLC are not responsible for any losses or decisions made based on this content.

Leave a comment

That was the thought running through my head two weeks ago during a 1:1 call I had with a woman named Lori who wanted me to review her portfolio.

She had about $300,000 invested with a financial advisor. She’d been with him for years. She trusted him. She liked him personally.

But after our phone call, something started nagging at her.

So she did what I always tell people to do…

She asked her advisor three specific questions.

And sent me his responses.

I’m going to share them with you — word for word — because what happened next is something every single person who has a 401k, IRA, and/or brokerage account needs to see.

Q1: “What am I actually paying in fees?”

His answer:

“Currently 0.90% to me and 0.30% strategy fee. I do typically charge 1.2% on accounts below $500K. National averages are near 1.75% all in fee on a $300K account. So in my opinion, even being in the 1.2-1.5% range isn’t bad at all.”

In plain English:

Lori is paying 1.2% total on a $300,000 portfolio.

That’s $3,600 per year. Every year. Automatically deducted.

And his defense?

“National averages are near 1.75% — so 1.2% isn’t bad.”

That’s like a restaurant charging you $18 for a burger and justifying it by saying the place down the street charges $22.

The benchmark isn’t what other advisors charge.

The benchmark is what this is actually costing you over time.

Here’s the math he didn’t show her:

At $3,600 per year in fees, compounded at the opportunity cost of 8% annual returns, Lori is giving up roughly $175,000 over 20 years — just in advisory fees alone, before we even touch the strategy fee or the fund expense ratios underneath.

$175,000!!

For a service she could largely replicate herself with a simple three-fund portfolio and a 30-minute annual rebalance.

Q 2: “What am I actually getting for that fee?”

His answer:

“I am using buffered ETFs to limit your downside exposure while letting you benefit on certain levels of gains. Last year the S&P 500 was +17.88% and your account was +10.60%. The S&P is currently -4.25% since Jan 1 and your account is -1.92%.”

This one is more nuanced — and more dangerous. Because it sounds compelling.

He’s essentially saying:

“You give up some upside, but we protect you on the downside.”

That’s the pitch for buffered ETFs. And on the surface it sounds reasonable.

But let’s look at what it actually cost Lori:

Last year the S&P 500 returned +17.88%.

Lori’s account returned +10.60%.

That’s a 7.28% gap — on a $300,000 portfolio — meaning she missed out on approximately $21,840 in gains in a single year.

In exchange for what?

A buffer on the downside. In a year when the market went up nearly 18%.

She paid $3,600 in fees. She gave up $21,840 in gains.

That’s a $25,440 cost in a single year — for protection she didn’t need in a year the market crushed it.

~

Now here’s where it gets really interesting.

He points out the S&P is currently down 4.25% and her account is only down 1.92%. He frames this as a win.

And mathematically, in this exact moment, he’s right.

But here’s what he’s not telling her:

Over any rolling 20-year period in stock market history, the S&P 500 has never produced a negative return. Not ONCE.

The “protection” she’s paying for is protection against short-term volatility in an account she doesn’t need to touch for decades.

She’s paying a premium for an umbrella — in a climate that’s sunny 90% of the time.

And in the 10% of rainy years? The umbrella helps.

But the sunny years — the compounding years, the recovery years, the bull market years — she’s sitting on the sideline watching the S&P grow without her.

That gap compounds too.

It just compounds against her instead of for her.

Q3: “Why shouldn’t I just invest in low-cost index funds instead?”

His defense:

“National averages are near 1.75% all in on a $300K account — so 1.2-1.5% isn’t bad at all.”

I want to be direct with you here.

Comparing yourself to an expensive industry average is not a defense. It’s a distraction.

The relevant comparison isn’t what other advisors charge.

It’s what Lori could be paying instead.

A simple three-fund portfolio at Fidelity or Vanguard — covering US stocks, international stocks, and bonds — costs between 0.03% and 0.07% in total expense ratios.

No advisory fee. No strategy fee. No buffered ETF premium.

Total annual cost on a $300,000 portfolio: roughly $90 to $210 per year.

Versus $3,600.

That’s a difference of $3,390 to $3,510 per year — money that stays invested, compounds at 8% annually, and over 20 years becomes approximately $165,000 to $170,000 in additional wealth.

Not because Lori picked better stocks.

Not because she timed the market.

Just because she stopped paying for something she didn’t need.

What I Told Lori

Here’s the thing about Lori’s advisor.

He’s not a bad person. And I feel confident he’s not running a scam.

He genuinely believes in what he’s selling. He’s polite, responsive, and clearly cares about his clients.

But caring about your clients, and being the optimal solution for your clients are two very different things.

The advisor who charges 1.2% and puts you in buffered ETFs that cap your upside is solving for your emotional comfort — not your long-term wealth.

And emotional comfort has a price tag.

In Lori’s case, that price tag is potentially $175,000 over 20 years.

Here’s what I told her to consider:

If she needs downside protection because market volatility genuinely keeps her up at night — that’s a legitimate need.

But the solution isn’t expensive buffered ETFs.

It’s building an asset allocation with the right mix of stocks and bonds that she can hold through volatility without panicking. That costs almost nothing and accomplishes the same goal.

If she needs professional guidance — tax planning, estate coordination, a comprehensive financial plan — a fee-only fiduciary advisor charges a flat fee for that service.

NOT a percentage of her assets forever.

She gets the guidance. She keeps the compounding.

If she’s comfortable managing a simple three-fund portfolio herself — she could be paying $90 a year instead of $3,600. With better long-term results. And zero conflict of interest.

None of those options require paying 1.2% annually to an advisor running buffered ETFs in a bull market.

Lori’s situation is not unique. It is everywhere.

That’s why I created the “30-Min. Fee Audit”.

And why taking just half an hour of your life, might be the most valuable time you spend on your finances all year.

Here it is:

That conversation with Lori is exactly what my 1:1 portfolio review strategy calls are designed for.

You share your current holdings, your fee structure, and what you’re trying to build. I go through it with you — line by line — the same way I did with Lori.

No judgment. No jargon.

Just an honest look at what your portfolio is actually costing you and what a simpler, cheaper strategy could look like instead.

If you’ve been wondering whether your fees are quietly working against you — the answer is probably yes. And the only way to know for sure is to actually look.

Book your private portfolio review call here →

Now let’s make sure you have the tools to find your own leaks — starting in the next 30 minutes.

The 30-Min. Fee Audit — Do This Today!

⚡ Step 1: Investment Fees Check (Time: 10 min.)

Log in to your brokerage account.

Find your current holdings. For every fund or ETF you own, search the ticker symbol followed by “expense ratio.”

Write each one down. Add them up.

If any single fund is above 0.50% — flag it immediately.

If your weighted average across all funds is above 0.25% — you have work to do.

Five minutes. Could be worth six-figures over your investing lifetime.

⚡ Step 2: The 401(k) Audit (Time: 5 min.)

Send this exact email to your HR department today:

“Hi — can you send me the fee disclosure document for our 401(k) plan? I want to review the expense ratios on the available funds.”

They are legally required to provide it.

While you wait, log into your 401(k) portal and look at what funds you’re currently invested in.

Most plans offer at least one low-cost index fund — often an S&P 500 fund with an expense ratio under 0.10%.

If you’re sitting in an actively managed fund charging 0.75% and there’s a comparable index fund available at 0.05%, switching takes three clicks and could save you $10,000+ over your career.

⚡ Step 3: Advisory Fee Review (Time: 10 min.)

If you work with a financial advisor, pull up your last statement.

Find the advisory fee line.

Then ask yourself — and if necessary, ask them directly — these 3 questions:

“What specific services am I receiving for this fee?”

“Has my portfolio outperformed a simple index fund after your fee is deducted?”

“What would it cost me to replicate this myself?”

A good advisor answers these confidently and completely.

They show you exactly what value they’re adding beyond fund selection — tax planning, estate coordination, behavioral coaching, comprehensive financial planning.

An advisor who gets defensive or vague?

That’s your answer.

⚡ Step 4: The Fund Swap (Time: 5 min.)

If your audit reveals high-cost, actively managed mutual funds, here’s your replacement playbook:

Instead of this...

Consider this...

These four funds cover virtually every major asset class at a fraction of the cost of their actively managed equivalents.

• Log in

• Sell the expensive fund

• Buy the low-cost replacement

Done.

One note: if the funds are in a taxable brokerage account, check for capital gains before selling (ie. did you make a profit on the position or lose money, and how long have you held it?) Inside a Roth IRA or 401(k)? Switch freely. No tax consequences.

Subscribe now

⚡ BONUS: The Old 401(k) Rescue

Raise your hand if you have a forgotten 401(k) sitting at an old employer.

It’s ok. Most people do.

And those old plans are almost always loaded with limited, high-cost fund options — plus administrative fees you’re still paying even though you haven’t worked there in years.

Rolling an old 401(k) into a Roth IRA at Fidelity, Vanguard, or Schwab takes about 30 minutes of paperwork.

Immediately after, you get access to the entire universe of low-cost index funds.

Zero administrative fees. Full control.

One phone call. 30 minutes. Potentially $1,000’s saved every single year going forward.

I guarantee this is the highest-ROI 30 minutes you’ll spend on your finances this year.

Your 4-Step Action Plan

If your audit revealed you’re overpaying — and statistically, most people are — here’s exactly what to do next:

Step 1: Replace any fund with an expense ratio above 0.50% with a low-cost index fund alternative. Use the swap table above as your guide.

Step 2: If your total fee burden exceeds 1% annually, have a direct conversation with your advisor about what you’re receiving for that fee. If the answer doesn’t satisfy you — explore a fee-only fiduciary or start doing it yourself.

Step 3: Roll any old 401(k)s from previous employers into a low-cost IRA where you control the investment selection.

Step 4: Set a calendar reminder to repeat this audit every 12 months. Fee creep is real — especially as your portfolio grows and percentage-based fees take bigger and bigger bites.

The Bottom Line

❌ You cannot control the market.

❌ You cannot predict returns.

❌ You cannot eliminate volatility.

✅ But you can control your fees.

In 30 minutes or less.

Reducing your total fee burden from 1.5% to 0.15% is the equivalent of giving yourself a guaranteed 1.35% annual return boost — forever.

On a $500,000 portfolio, that’s an extra $308,000 over 20 years.

You didn’t need a better stock pick.

You didn’t need a market rally.

You just needed to stop the leak.

Nobody showed Lori for 15 years.

I’m showing you right now.

Building wealth isn’t about what you earn. It’s about what you keep.

Stop the leak. Keep more. Build faster.

That’s quiet wealth.

-Charlie

📌 P.S. — Want me to help you audit your specific portfolio and build a low-cost, high-efficiency investing strategy tailored to your situation? Book a private 1:1 strategy session with me and let’s find your leaks and fix them together.

📌 P.P.S. — Once you’ve cleaned up your fees, you need one place to track everything clearly. My Stock Tracker & Portfolio Balancer is a fully customizable Google Sheets template that tracks all your holdings, automatically calculates gains and losses, and shows you exactly how much to buy or sell to stay balanced — all for just $9.99. Because knowing your numbers is the first step to protecting them.

Disclaimer: this content is for educational and informational purposes only, and is not legal, financial or investment advice. Always do your own research before investing, and consult a licensed professional. Charlie and OJD LLC are not responsible for any losses or decisions made based on this content.

Leave a comment

The way we’re taught how money is made is 100% wrong.

❌ Better job. Higher salary. Bigger bonus.

❌ Work harder, get paid more, repeat until rich.

That’s the story most of us were sold.

It wasn’t until I started investing, and paying attention to how the (truly) wealthy (not the flashy, in-your-face internet wealthy) think about money, that I realized how backwards I had it.

They don’t just make more money. They build money differently.

A doctor earning $800,000 a year can still be broke at 60. A Texas pig farmer with the right system can die leaving millions behind.

Nobody taught us this. And that’s why most of us, including high-earners stay broke.

But you subscribe to this newsletter, so you’re not going to be one of those anymore.

Here’s 9 rules I’ve compiled after spending 15 years studying the ultra-wealthy. And not one of them is “work harder”. 🙅🏽‍♀️

Rule 1: The Asset Pays for Itself

The wealthy don’t buy just any investments. They buy self-funding machines.

Most people think investing means sacrificing money today for a return “someday” in the future. The wealthy think differently.

They find assets that generate enough income to cover their own cost — and then some.

In the stock market, this looks like dividend-paying stocks and ETFs that throw off regular cash payments just for holding them.

You buy the asset. The asset pays you. You use those payments to buy more of the asset.

You’re not funding the machine. The machine funds itself.

Tactical example: You invest $50,000 in SCHD — the Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF — which currently yields around 3.5% annually. That’s roughly $1,750 per year in dividends hitting your account — automatically, without you doing anything.

You turn on dividend reinvestment (DRIP) and those dividends buy more shares → more shares generate more dividends → more dividends buy more shares. The asset is now paying for its own growth.

You just had to show up once to plant the seed.

Rule 2: Debt Is the Engine, Not the Enemy

Every time someone tells you debt is bad, ask them one question:

“Who pays the debt — the asset or you?”

That’s the only distinction that matters.

❌ Bad debt drags your wealth down.

Credit card balances. Car payments on depreciating vehicles. Personal loans funding a lifestyle you can’t afford. You pay it every month out of your own pocket.

✅ Good debt moves your wealth forward.

A mortgage on a cash-flowing rental. A business loan that generates more revenue than it costs. Borrowing strategically to acquire appreciating, income-generating assets. Debt that the asset services — not you.

In the investing world this shows up as what is called margin. But ONLY when used smartly. Margin is basically a loan against your existing holdings. Said another way — it means taking out a loan secured by the assets in your brokerage account as collateral.

The mistake to avoid here is NEVER over-leverage!

If you’re going to use margin borrowing on your investments you must:

• ensure your account holds the minimum equity to cover a trade before you place it

• if the equity in your account is not sufficient, or your brokerage believes the risk is too great, they can liquidate (call) the loan (ie. sell your assets) at any time

The wealthy don’t avoid debt. They just never let it cost them anything out of pocket.

Tactical example: A securities-backed line of credit (SBLOC) lets you borrow against your investment portfolio — typically at 1-3% interest — without selling a single share.

If your portfolio is generating 8% annual returns and you’re borrowing at 2% to fund a new investment, your cost of capital is 2% and your asset is growing at 8%. The spread between those two numbers is your engine. The wealthy use this constantly.

You keep your investments. You get access to more cash. The asset pays the freight.

Rule 3: Someone Else Is Erasing Your Cost Basis Every Single Month

In real estate, tenants pay down your mortgage. In the stock market, the equivalent is even more powerful — because companies do it automatically, invisibly, and at scale.

Every profitable company in your portfolio is generating earnings. Those earnings reduce debt on the company’s balance sheet, fund buybacks that shrink the share count, and (some) pay dividends that return cash to you.

You didn’t do the work. The company did.

Every month you hold a quality business* in your portfolio, that business is working on your behalf — paying its own obligations, growing its own value, and sending you a cut of the profits.

You’re just the owner.

Tactical example: Apple has bought back over $700 billion of its own stock over the past decade.

Every buyback shrinks the total share count — which means your slice of the company gets bigger without you buying a single additional share. If Apple had 10 billion shares outstanding and buys back 500 million, your 100 shares now represent a slightly larger ownership percentage of the entire business.

You didn’t write a check. You didn’t buy more stock. You earned more simply by holding the stock.

*Notice I said quality businesses. This is why as a retail investor you shouldn’t invest in penny/meme stocks, IPOs (initial public offerings - ie. startups), crypto, or anything you don’t understand how the business actually makes money.

Rule 4: Equity Is Stored Power

If you’ve ever played action-based video games, you know your character usually has a bank of energy, special skill or power that builds up over time. The strategy is — you save as much of that power as you can until you have to battle the Big Boss. Then you deploy it all at once to take the enemy down and win the game.

In investing, equity isn’t just the value of what you own. It’s your power bank.

Every month your portfolio grows — through price appreciation (ie. share price going up), dividend reinvestment, and compound returns — your stored power increases. Until one day you pull the trigger and deploy it into the next opportunity.

Most people passively watch their brokerage balance go up and think, “huh, that’s nice.”

The wealthy watch their brokerage balance go up and ask: “What can I buy next?”

Equity (ownership) sitting idle is potential. The wealthy know how to convert potential into the next position — without ever touching their principal.

Tactical example: You’ve built a $200,000 portfolio over 8 years. The market pulls back 20% and a high-quality stock you’ve been watching drops to a price you’ve never seen. Because you’ve been consistently setting aside some cash in a high-yield savings account or your brokerage’s money market fund (ex. Fidelity’s SPAXX), you don’t have to scramble to find the funds to “buy the dip”.

You simply make the trade from say SPAXX, and use it to buy the high-quality stock you’ve been watching at a discount.

✅ Your original portfolio stays intact and keeps compounding
✅ You added a significant position at a generational price

You used stored equity as a power bank. No selling. No disruption. Just deployment.

Rule 5: Never Sell the Asset (Or Sell Only After One Year)

This is where most investors get it completely wrong.

They buy a stock. It goes up 30% in eight months. They sell it. They feel smart.

Then the tax bill arrives.😱

Here’s what they didn’t account for:

The IRS treats your investments very differently depending on how long you held them. And the difference in what you keep versus what you hand over to the government is staggering!

Short-term capital gains — anything held less than one year — are taxed as ordinary income. Depending on your bracket, that’s typically anywhere from 12% to 37%. You made 30% on your investment and gave a third of it back before you ever saw it.

Long-term capital gains — anything held longer than one year — are taxed at 0%, 15%, or 20% depending on your income. For most middle-class investors, that’s 15%.

The difference between those two numbers isn’t peanuts.

It’s the difference between keeping $0.63 of every $1 you made versus keeping $0.85.

On a $50,000 gain, that’s a $11,000 swing — just by waiting 12 months.

The wealthy don’t trade in and out of positions. They buy quality assets, hold them long enough to cross the one-year threshold (or never sell), and let the tax code reward their patience.

They don’t work the market harder. They let time work for them.

Tactical example: You invest $20,000 in VOO in January. By October it’s worth $26,000 — a $6,000 gain. You’re tempted to sell and lock in the profit. If you do, that $6,000 is taxed as ordinary income — say 24%, meaning you owe $1,440 to the IRS.

Instead you hold until January — just three more months. Now that same $6,000 gain is a long-term capital gain taxed at 15%. You owe $900 instead of $1,440. You kept an extra $540 by doing absolutely nothing except waiting.

Scale that across a portfolio of $200,000 with $60,000 in gains and the difference becomes $5,400 saved — in a single year — just by being patient.

Subscribe now

Rule 6: Deal 1 Funds Deal 2

Here’s the myth most investors believe:

“I need to save more before I can invest more.”

The wealthy don’t go back to their savings account for the next investment.

The first position generates the returns → the returns become the new cash → the new cash funds the next position.

And the flywheel keeps going — and each cycle builds on the last.

This is how portfolios compound from 5-figures to 6 to 7.

Not by saving more. By letting each layer of wealth fund the next layer.

Tactical example: You invest $10,000 in a dividend growth ETF. Over 4 years, between the share price going up and reinvested dividends, that position grows to $16,000. You take $6,000 in gains — and buy a new ETF in a different asset class (ex. REITs, commodities or precious metals).

Now you have two positions compounding simultaneously.

Position 1 keeps growing. Position 2 starts building. Neither required you to add new money from your paycheck.

Deal 1 seeded Deal 2. You just kept going.

Rule 7: Every Investment Gets Easier

Your first investment is always the hardest.

You don’t know what you don’t know. The terminology sounds like alphabet soup. Every decision feels like it could be catastrophically wrong. The stakes feel enormous even when the dollar amounts are small.

But here’s what happens after you survive the first one…

You have experience. A track record. Proof — to yourself and to the market — that you can do this.

Your second investment comes with more confidence.

Better decisions. Lower emotional cost. Your third comes faster than your second. Your fourth faster than your third, and so on.

The wealthy didn’t start fearless. They started anyway. And the process got easier every time.

Tactical example: Your first $1,000 investment felt terrifying. You checked the price daily. You panicked during every dip. You almost sold three times. But you held. And it grew.

Your second $1,000 investment? You barely checked it. You knew what a dip felt like. You knew how to hold.

By your fifth investment, you’re deploying capital calmly and systematically — not because the market got less volatile, but because you got more confident and more experienced.

The learning compounds just like the money does.

There’s a consistent pattern I see when I talk to readers 1-on-1.

Logically, they understand these rules. They nod along like they get it.

But when it comes to applying them to their own specific situation — their income, their current portfolio, their goals — they freeze.

That’s exactly what my private 1:1 strategy sessions are designed for.

We take these 9 rules and build your personal roadmap around them. Your numbers. Your timeline. Your next move.

If you’re ready to stop nodding and start building — book a private strategy session with me here. Let’s map out your flywheel together.

Rule 8: The Flywheel Never Stops

This is the rule that honestly blows my mind, even 15 years after learning it.🤯

Asset generates returns → returns get reinvested → reinvestment grows the base → larger base generates larger returns → larger returns buy new assets.

Loop. Repeat. Forever.

This is the investing flywheel.

And once it’s spinning — once your portfolio is large enough that the returns on your returns are meaningful — it funds itself indefinitely.

You don’t need another raise. You don’t need to work more hours. You don’t need to save harder.

The system simply runs.

Tactical example: At $10,000 invested, an 8% annual return generates $800. Meaningful but modest.

At $100,000, that same 8% generates $8,000 — enough to fund a significant new position every year without touching your paycheck.

At $500,000, it generates $40,000 annually — more than some people earn at their 9-5.

At $1,000,000, it generates $80,000.

The flywheel isn’t spinning faster. The base just got bigger. And a bigger base means more fuel for the next revolution.

You stopped being the engine a long time ago. Now, you’re just the person who keeps it oiled.

Rule 9: Cash Flow Is Oxygen

Everything above — every rule, every strategy, every flywheel — dies without this one.

In life, in business, in investing — cash flow is king.

In investing, cash flow is the dividend income, interest payments, and distributions your portfolio generates regularly. It’s the lifeblood that keeps the machine running between market downturns and growth cycles.

Without it, you’re 100% dependent on price appreciation. And price appreciation is unpredictable, cyclical, and sometimes brutally slow.

Cash flow gives you options.

• It means you never have to sell in a down market to fund your life.

• It means your portfolio can survive recessions, corrections, and bear markets without you panic-selling at the worst possible moment.

Cash flow is what lets you hold forever. And holding forever is how the wealthy win.

Tactical example: Before you build a position in any stock or ETF, stress test the cash flow. Ask: “does this asset pay me to hold it — through dividends, distributions, or yields — or am I 100% dependent on its price going up?”

A portfolio built entirely on individual tech stocks with zero broad, diverse index funds or dividend income is completely dependent on price appreciation of a few companies. One bad decade and you’re selling principal to live.

A portfolio with a healthy chunk invested in consistent, stable indices like the S&P 500 or total U.S. stock market, or one with even a 3-4% dividend yield on a $500,000 base generates $15,000-$20,000 per year in cash regardless of what the market does.

That cash is your oxygen. It keeps you in the game when everyone else is being forced out.

The Bottom Line

You could be earning $300,000 a year and still be broke at 60.

Plenty of people are.

High income without these rules is just an expensive treadmill. A golden cage.

You work more, spend more, and never actually get ahead. Because income without assets is just a job — and jobs end.

The ultra-wealthy aren’t smarter than you. They don’t work harder than you. In fact, I’d argue that after the first few years, they work a lot less than you.

They just learned these 9 rules — and then built a system around them that runs whether they show up or not.

And the good news is this system is available to anyone willing to understand it.

Every week in this newsletter you get exactly that — one data-backed wealth-building technique you don’t need an MBA to understand, plus actionable ways to apply it to your own financial life so you can start building differently instead of just earning more.

This is how the wealthy think.

Now you think this way too.

That’s quiet wealth.

-Charlie

📌 P.S. — Want to walk through how these 9 rules could apply specifically to your financial situation and portfolio? Book a private 1:1 strategy session with me and let’s map out your personal wealth-building flywheel together.

📌 P.P.S. — If you’re serious about putting these rules into action, you need to know exactly where your money is at all times. That’s why I built the Stock Tracker & Portfolio Balancer — a fully customizable Google Sheets template that tracks all your investments in one place, automatically calculates your gains and losses, shows you exactly how much to buy or sell to stay balanced, and visualizes your current vs. target allocation with charts. The investors who win long-term aren’t just following the right rules — they’re tracking the right numbers. Get instant access.

Building Quiet Wealth
Helping 9,000+ smart people learn purposeful investing
Advertise with me
Follow me on YouTube & TikTok

Disclaimer: this content is for educational and informational purposes only, and is not legal, financial or investment advice. Always do your own research before investing, and consult a licensed professional. Charlie and OJD LLC are not responsible for any losses or decisions made based on this content.

Leave a comment

There’s a moment in every investor’s journey that nobody warns you about.

You’re doing everything right.

Contributing every month. Watching your balance creep upward. Making sacrifices to fund your future.

And it still feels like nothing is happening.

Your portfolio looks basically the same as it did six months ago.

The market goes up a little, down a little. Your contributions feel like they’re disappearing into a black hole.

So you start to wonder: Is this even working?

Here’s the brutal truth nobody tells you at the beginning:

In the early stages, YOU are doing all the work. Your money isn’t pulling its weight yet.

But that changes. Dramatically. At three very specific numbers.

Miss these milestones and you’ll never understand why some people seem to build wealth effortlessly while others grind forever and never get ahead.

Hit them — and stay invested long enough to hit all three — and your money eventually starts making more than you do at your actual job.

It’s not luck. It’s not magic.

It’s math. And it works. Every. Single. Time.

Why Wealth Feels Impossibly Slow at the Start

Before we get to the milestones, you need to understand why the beginning feels so discouraging.

When you first start investing, almost all of your progress comes from your own contributions — not your returns.

Let me show you what that looks like with real numbers👇🏼:

Say you invest $200 a month and earn 8% annually — roughly what a broad S&P 500 index fund has historically delivered after inflation.

After 3 years you’ve put in $7,200 of your own money. Your investment growth on top of that? A few hundred dollars. A blip on the chart.

This is the phase where most people quit.

And honestly? It makes sense emotionally.

You’re making real sacrifices — skipping dinners out, driving the older car, saying no to things everyone else is saying yes to — and your portfolio looks almost identical to what you put in.

But here’s what’s happening underneath the surface that you can’t see yet:

Your returns are generating their own returns.

Quietly. Invisibly. Building momentum like a flywheel that’s just starting to spin.

The technical term is compounding. But the practical reality is this:

The growth you can’t see today is the foundation for the growth that will eventually shock you.

And it accelerates at three very specific milestones.

Milestone #1: $10,000

What it proves: You can build wealth.

The first $10,000 is the hardest money you will ever make as an investor.

Why?

But because at this stage, almost every dollar of that balance came from YOU — your discipline, your consistency, your willingness to keep going when it didn’t feel like anything was working.

Investing $200 a month at 8% annually, you’ll hit $10,000 in about 3.5 years.

Now here’s where it gets interesting…

Let’s say you hit $10,000 and then completely stop. No more contributions. Ever. You just leave it alone.

At 8% annual growth, that $10,000 becomes $46,600 in 20 years — without you doing a single thing.

That’s $36,600 in gains you didn’t have to work for.

Not enough to retire on. But proof of something powerful:

Your money is now capable of making money on its own.

And the psychological shift that happens when you see five-figures in your investment account for the first time?

It’s real. Something clicks. You stop feeling like investing is a sacrifice and start feeling like it’s a system that’s working for you.

The first $10,000 proves you can stick to a plan. That you can build capital. That you can make investing a habit when most people around you aren’t even trying.

How to get there faster:

If your employer offers a 401(k) match, this is your single fastest path to $10,000.

If you contribute $200/month and your employer matches it dollar for dollar, you’re effectively investing $400/month and hitting that first milestone in roughly half the time — without increasing your actual out-of-pocket contribution by a single cent.

Never leave that match on the table! It’s a 100% return that no investment can compete with.

Action step: Log into your 401(k) portal this week. Find your employer match percentage. Increase your contribution to capture every dollar of that match. That one move could cut your timeline to $10,000 in half.

~

And if you’re at the stage where you want to go deeper — to actually understand how compounding, index funds, and tax-advantaged accounts work before you put real money in — these are the exact books and resources I personally used when I was learning.

No fluff. No courses trying to sell you something. Just the tools that actually moved the needle for me.

Milestone #2: $100,000

What it proves: Your money can build wealth for you.

This is the milestone that changes the entire game.

Not because $100,000 is enough to retire on (it isn’t).

But because at $100,000, compounding stops being a concept you read about and starts being something you can actually see and feel in real time.

Here’s the math:

At 8% annual returns, $100,000 generates $8,000 in investment growth in year one alone.

That’s $667 per month — without contributing a single new dollar.

Think about that.

Your portfolio is now generating the equivalent of a part-time job’s worth of income just by existing.

At $10,000, your money was whispering. At $100,000, it starts talking.

But here’s the number that really makes people sit up and pay attention:

If you invest $100,000 by age 35 and never contribute another dollar — that money grows to over $1,000,000 by age 65 at 8% returns.

Wait another 10 years to age 75?

Over $2,000,000.

This strategy even has a name: Coast FIRE.

The idea is that if you front-load your investments early enough, time does all the heavy lifting — and you can ease off the gas long before you retire without sacrificing the outcome.

Now, I’m not saying everyone can hit $100,000 by 35. Life doesn’t play that nicely for all of us. But the point isn’t to follow that script perfectly.

The point is to understand how dramatically the math shifts once you cross that six-figure threshold.

Each additional $100,000 after your first takes less time than the one before it — because you now have a larger base generating returns on your behalf.

The first $100K is the hardest. Every one after that comes faster.

How to get there:

Contributing $500/month at 8% returns gets you to $100,000 in approximately 11 years.

Can’t do $500?

Start with $200. It takes longer — but the time will pass either way. You may as well let it pass with your money working for you.

Action step: Calculate exactly how far you are from $100,000 right now. If you’re at $0, your number is $100,000. If you’re at $34,000, your number is $66,000.

Write it down. Give it a timeline. Make it a target, not an abstraction.

Subscribe now

Milestone #3: $1,000,000

What it proves: Work becomes optional.

This is the one that changes everything.

At $1,000,000 invested — assuming the same 8% average annual return — your portfolio generates $80,000 in year one.

Year 2: $86,400.

Year 10: nearly $160,000 — in a single year, from a portfolio you may not have added a single dollar to.

At this point, for most people, the income their investments generate begins to compete with — and eventually overtake — what they earn at their actual job.

Work doesn’t disappear. But it becomes a choice.

This is what financial independence actually means. Not never working again.

But having the option.

The 4% Rule — what $1,000,000 actually gets you:

There’s a well-researched guideline in retirement planning called the 4% rule. It works like this:

If you withdraw 4% of your portfolio balance per year — adjusted for inflation going forward — your money should last at least 30 years.

With $1,000,000 invested, that’s $40,000 per year in withdrawals. The remaining $960,000 stays invested and keeps growing. Over time, that growth offsets both your withdrawals and inflation.

This isn’t a perfect formula for everyone.

Your expenses, your timeline, and your investment mix all matter. But it gives you a framework for understanding what a million dollars actually buys you in real life.

For many people: it buys the ability to work less, choose more, and stop making financial decisions from a place of fear.

How to get there:

Honestly? By hitting milestones one and two first.

The investors who reach $1,000,000 aren’t the ones who found a secret shortcut (legally).

They’re the ones who started early, contributed consistently, and refused to quit during the long, boring, middle section where it felt like nothing was happening.

That’s exactly why I started this newsletter. To help you do this.

This is that framework. Now let’s make it practical.

Your Milestone Roadmap: The Exact Numbers

Here’s what the journey looks like investing $500/month at 8% annual returns:

$10,000 → Reached in approximately 3.5 years. Proof you can build the habit. Your money starts compounding.

$100,000 → Reached in approximately 11 years. Compounding becomes visible. Your money earns $8,000/year on its own.

$1,000,000 → Reached in approximately 30 years. Work becomes optional. Your portfolio generates $80,000/year.

Can’t do $500/month yet? Start with $100 (or whatever you can). The milestones take longer but the math still works.

The only version of this that fails is the one where you never start.

The One Thing Most People Get Wrong

People don’t get off-track because of the market.

Or the economy.

Not even because of falling interest rates, recessions or fear-mongering headlines.

The reason they get derailed is because they quit during the long, slow, boring stretch between $0 and $100,000 — when you’re doing all the work and your money hasn’t started pulling its weight yet.

That stretch is where 90% of people give up.

The ones who don’t?

They eventually wake up one morning and realize their portfolio made more last month than they did at work.

And then they understand — at a gut level — why every single month of consistency in the early years was worth it.

Don’t quit before the curve bends.

That’s quiet wealth.

-Charlie

📌 P.S. — Want to figure out exactly which milestone you’re closest to — and build a personalized plan to hit it? Book a private 1:1 strategy session with me and let’s map out your exact path to $10K, $100K, and beyond.

Building Quiet Wealth
Helping 9,000+ smart people learn purposeful investing
Advertise with me
Follow me on YouTube & TikTok

Disclaimer: this content is for educational and informational purposes only, and is not legal, financial or investment advice. Always do your own research before investing, and consult a licensed professional. Charlie and OJD LLC are not responsible for any losses or decisions made based on this content.

Leave a comment

War. Inflation. Rate cuts. Election uncertainty. A banking scare. An oil spike.

It’s enough to make any investor, particularly those just starting out, take their money and run for the hills.

And every single time — without fail — the headlines make it feel like this time is different.

This time the market won’t recover. This time you should get out. This time cash is king.

Instinctively, we all know news is also a business. And calm, boring headlines don’t sell.

Yet, as human beings with complex emotions, we give into the noise.

But remember, stories aren’t facts. Math doesn’t lie.

And giving into this fear has cost ordinary investors like you and me more money than any market crash ever has.

Here’s the real TRUTH👇🏼

What History Actually Shows Us

Let’s skip the gaslighting and go straight to the data.

Here’s what the market did during some of its worst moments in modern history:

Black Monday — October 1987

In a single day, the Dow Jones dropped 22.6%.

The largest one-day percentage decline in stock market history. It looked like the entire financial system was collapsing.

On that day alone, Apple fell 24.4% and Microsoft dropped 19.5%.

Investors who panicked and sold locked in those losses permanently.

Investors who did nothing and held?

In a little more than two years, the market had not only recovered its losses, but surpassed its previous all-time high.

Apple went on to become the most valuable company in history.

The Dot-Com Crash — 2000-2002

The NASDAQ lost nearly 80% of its value. Some companies went to literal zero overnight.

Microsoft’s stock dropped 65% — a $1,000 investment made at the start of 2000 was worth just $355 two and a half years later.

But here’s what happened to investors who held anyway and never sold:

That same $1,000 investment in Microsoft is worth approximately $8,500 today — a return of nearly 700%.

The people who sold at the bottom never got that back.

The 2008 Financial Crisis

I graduated college in the middle of this. Back then, the entire global banking system and U.S. housing markets nearly imploded. The S&P 500 dropped 57% from its then-peak.

Amazon shares dropped 64% — falling from a high of $97 to a low of $34.68.

If you ignored the noise and kept your shares?

From the end of 2008 through 2023, Amazon’s stock rose over 3,000%.

That’s not a typo.

All for the people who ignored the headlines.

COVID-19 Crash — March 2020

The fastest crash in history.

The S&P 500 dropped 34% in 33 days. Economies all over the world ground to a halt.

Apple fell 31% — from around $82 per share in February 2020, down to $56 per share in March 2020.

For anyone watching their portfolio in real time, it was genuinely terrifying.

Yet just three months later — June 2020 — Apple reached a new all-time high, and returned 119% the following year.

Just six months to fully recover. Then it kept going.

Now zoom ALL the way out.

Over the last 30 years — through every war, every crisis, every recession, every panic — the S&P 500 went from 470 to nearly 6,900. That’s a 1,200% increase in value.

The NASDAQ went from 1,000 to 23,000. That’s a 2,000% increase.

Every single person who sold during one of the crises in the graph above, and waited “to see what would happen” before getting back in, missed a massive portion of that return.

Because here’s the brutal truth about market recoveries:

The best days in the market almost always happen right in the middle of the worst periods.

• Miss the 10 best days in any given decade and your returns get cut nearly in half.

• Miss the 20 best days and you’ve essentially lost the entire benefit of being invested at all.

Those best days?

They happen when fear is at its absolute peak. When everyone is selling. When the news is the scariest.

Why Our Brains Betray Us

So if the data is this clear, why do smart people keep making the same mistake?

Because our brains aren’t wired for long-term investing. They’re wired for survival.

When you see your portfolio drop $50,000, your brain doesn’t process it as a temporary loss on paper. It processes it as a threat to your ability to pay your mortgage, feed your family, or pay the electric bill.

The same primal response that would have made your ancestors run from a predator kicks in — and it’s screaming at you to do something.

Selling feels like doing something. Holding feels like doing nothing.

But in investing, doing nothing is almost always the right move.

Psychologists call this loss aversion — we feel the pain of losing money roughly twice as intensely as we feel the pleasure of gaining the same amount.

A $10,000 loss hurts about as much as a $20,000 gain feels good.

That asymmetry is exactly what causes people to panic-sell at the bottom.

They can’t tolerate the pain of watching it go lower. So they sell. And then they watch it recover without them. And then they wait for a “safe” entry point that never feels safe enough. And they miss the entire recovery.

It’s not stupidity. It’s biology.

But knowing it’s biology means you can build a system to override it.

The 4-Step Framework for Not Making Emotional Decisions

Here’s the simple framework I use — and teach — for staying rational when the market makes it feel impossible.

Step 1: Know What You Own and Why

Panic selling almost always happens when people don’t fully understand what they’re invested in.

So let’s fix that right now.

Open your brokerage account. Look at every single position you hold.

For each one, write down the answer to this question in one sentence: “Why do I own this and when would I sell it?”

If you can’t answer that question, that’s your problem — not the market.

Here’s what it looks like in practice:

“I own VOO because it tracks the 500 largest US companies and has returned an average of 10% annually for decades. I will sell it when I actually need the money in retirement — not before.”

“I own SCHD because it pays a growing dividend that increases every year regardless of what the market does, and I’m building a passive income stream for the future.”

That’s it.

One sentence per position. Written down somewhere you can actually find it.

Now here’s the important part: save it somewhere you’ll see it when fear hits. Put it in your notes app. Email it to yourself. Tape it to your monitor if you have to.

Because when the market drops 20% and your stomach is in knots, you won’t be thinking logically. You need the version of yourself that wasn’t panicking to talk you off the ledge.

That written note is that version of you.

Step 2: Build a Portfolio You Can Emotionally Survive

Here’s something most people overlook:

The best investment strategy is the one you can actually stick to.

A portfolio that’s 100% stocks might mathematically outperform over 30 years.

But if a 40% drawdown causes you to panic-sell at the bottom, it will actually underperform a more conservative portfolio that you stayed in.

Know your real risk tolerance — not the one you claim when markets are up, but the one that shows up at 2am when your portfolio is down 30%.

If a 20% drop keeps you up at night, build a portfolio with some bonds or defensive ETFs that smooth out the volatility.

You might sacrifice a little upside. But you’ll gain something more valuable: the ability to stay the course.

Subscribe now

Step 3: Have a Written Investment Plan

This sounds almost too simple. But it works.

Here’s exactly how to build one in the next 20 minutes:

Open a Google Doc, Notes app, or good ole’ piece of paper.

Answer these five questions. Write in complete sentences — not bullet points. The act of writing forces you to actually think it through.

Question 1: What am I invested in and why?

Use the one-sentence framework from Step 1 for each position.

Question 2: What is my time horizon?

Be specific. Not “long-term.”

Write: “I am not touching this money for 15 years. I will begin drawing from it at age 65.”

A specific date makes it real.

Question 3: How much volatility can I actually handle?

Not the version of you in a bull market. The 2am version.

Write down the dollar amount — not the percentage — that would cause you to lose sleep. “If my portfolio dropped by $40,000 I would start to feel real panic.”

Now make sure your asset allocation reflects that number.

Question 4: What would have to be true for me to sell?

This is the most important question most investors never answer.

Write your actual criteria:

“I will sell if I need the money within 3 years, if a company I own misses its earnings mark for more than 3 consecutive quarters, or if my personal financial situation fundamentally changes.”

A war, a rate hike, a bad jobs report, a scary headline — none of those make the list.

Question 5: What will I do when the market drops 20% or more?

Write your answer before it happens. Mine is simple:

“I will increase my monthly contribution by at least 20% and I will not sell anything.”

Having a pre-committed action plan replaces panic with purpose.

Once you’ve answered all five, save it somewhere permanent. Google Drive. A printed copy in your desk drawer. Wherever you’ll actually find it.

Then the next time markets are in free fall and your brain is screaming at you to do something — open the document. Read it. Follow it.

That document is your financial immune system. Build it before you get sick.

Step 4: Use Volatility as a System — Not a Signal to Exit

Here’s the mindset shift that separates long-term wealth builders from everyone else:

Volatility is not a threat. It’s a feature.

Market drops are the mechanism that creates long-term returns. Without them, everyone would invest and the returns would disappear.

The drops are the price of admission for the gains.

When the market falls 20%, that’s not a warning sign. It’s a sale.

The same companies you wanted to own last month are now available at a 20% discount.

A simple rule that has worked historically: when the market drops 20% or more below its 52-week high, increase your regular contribution — even if it’s by 1%. You don’t have to go all-in.

Even bumping your monthly investment from $500 to $600 during a drawdown puts you in a better position when the recovery inevitably comes.

The people who built serious wealth through the 2008 crisis and the COVID crash weren’t the ones who predicted the bottom…

They were the ones who kept buying while everyone else was selling.

The Bottom Line

The market will crash again. Probably multiple times in your investing lifetime.

The headlines will make it feel like the end of the world. Your brain will tell you to sell. Everyone around you will be shouting it’s the financial apocolypse.

And in that moment, the most important thing you can do is go back to your written plan and do absolutely nothing.

Because here’s what history tells us with remarkable consistency:

The crisis always feels permanent. The recovery comes anyway.

The S&P 500 has a perfect record (yes, 100%) of recovering from every single crash in its history.

Every. Single. One.

Your only job is to still be invested when it does.

That’s quiet wealth.

— Charlie

📌 P.S. — If market volatility has you second-guessing your investment strategy and you want help building a plan you can actually stick to, book a private 1:1 strategy session with me. Let’s build something that works in bull markets and bear markets alike.

Building Quiet Wealth
Helping 8,000+ smart people learn purposeful investing
Advertise with me
Follow me on YouTube & TikTok

Disclaimer: this content is for educational and informational purposes only, and is not legal, financial or investment advice. Always do your own research before investing, and consult a licensed professional. Charlie and OJD LLC are not responsible for any losses or decisions made based on this content.

Leave a comment

There’s an email in my inbox I haven’t stopped thinking about.

A subscriber — 65 years old, money saved, no debt — wrote me this:

“My biggest fear is where to put my money now that I’m 65. I don’t want it to go backwards!! I’m pretty much all CDs, money market funds, and settlement funds at Vanguard paying an average of 4%. I don’t need to draw from any accounts.”

Read that again.

She has money. She doesn’t need to touch it. She’s earning 4%.

And she’s still scared.

Two points here before we dive in:

1. That fear is completely valid

2. It’s pointing her in the entirely wrong direction

The Real Money Risk Nobody’s Talking About

Everyone talks about losing money in the stock market.

Yet almost no one is talking about the bigger issue affecting the vast majority of people…

…losing money to inflation and dollar devaluation.

Here’s the math my subscriber needs to see:

• Inflation averages ~ 3% per year

• She’s earning 4% in CDs and money market accounts

• Her real return: about 1%

That doesn’t sound like a crisis. Until you zoom out.

Over 20 years at 1% real return, $500,000 becomes roughly $610,000.

Over 20 years at 8% return — what a simple S&P 500 index fund has historically delivered? That $500,000 becomes $2,330,000.

That’s not a rounding error.

That’s the difference between a stressful retirement, and one where you can take the dream vacations, leave money for the kids, and give back to your favorite causes — all 100% worry-free.

You probably have 20+ years ahead of you.

Today, the average 65-year-old woman lives to 87. The average man to 84.

Your money needs to last as long as you do.

Keeping everything in cash or cash-equivalents feels safe.

But over two decades, inflation doesn’t negotiate. It just quietly erodes everything you worked so hard to build.

That’s the risk no one’s talking about. And it should scare the hell outta you.

WAY more than any market crash.

“But What If the Market Crashes?”

No matter how many times I try to explain it to people, I always get the same question:

“But Charlie, what if the market crashes?”

And look I get it. Watching your balance drop is gut-wrenching.

So let me show you the other side of that fear:

• The 2008 financial crisis — one of the worst in history. Fully recovered in 4 years.

• The COVID crash of 2020 — brutal and fast. Recovered in 6 months.

• The dot-com bust of 2000-2002 — painful. Recovered within 5 years.

Every single crash in history has eventually recovered. Here’s the data to prove it:

The overall trend? Up and to the right.

The people who got wiped out weren’t the ones who invested and left their money alone. They were the ones who panicked and sold at the bottom.

If you have 20 years and you stay the course, history is overwhelmingly on your side.

The Simple 3-Bucket Framework To Preserve Your Wealth

Here’s how I’d think about that 65-year old’s money. Not as one pile. As three.

Bucket 1 — Peace of Mind Money (0-3 years of expenses)

Keep this exactly where she already has it.

CDs. Money market funds. High-yield savings accounts. This money doesn’t go backwards. It’s there when she needs it. She sleeps soundly because of it.

She’s already doing this. ✅

Bucket 2 — Steady Growth Money (3-10 years)

This money can (and should) handle some movement.

Think dividend-focused ETFs like SCHD — which has grown its dividend for 14 straight years — or a balanced fund like Vanguard’s Wellington (VWELX), which has quietly compounded wealth through every market cycle for over 90 years.

This isn’t exciting. It’s not supposed to be. It just steadily grows while Bucket 1 covers her expenses.

Bucket 3 — Long-Term Growth Money (10+ years)

This is her wealth engine.

A simple S&P 500 index fund like VOO. She mentally labels it: “money I’m not touching for a decade.”

It’ll go up and down. That’s normal.

But over 10-20 years, the trajectory of the market has never pointed anywhere but up.

The key insight that unlocks all of this:

When the market drops, she never has to sell Bucket 3.

• Bucket 1 covers her expenses

• Bucket 2 keeps growing

• Bucket 3 recovers on its own timeline

This is how you take the fear out of investing and wealth preservation at 65.

📌 If you need help tracking your three money buckets in a no-frills, anyone-can-do-this way, check out my Investment Tracker & Portfolio Balancer Template. It’s what I’ve personally used to take my portfolio from literal zero to multiple 6-figures.

Subscribe now

One More Thing She Needs to Know

Her 4% rate on CDs and money markets?

It’s not going to last.

The Fed has been cutting rates and is predicted to keep doing so in 2026.

When short-term rates fall — and they will — her CDs renew at 2%. Maybe 2.5% if she’s lucky.

Meanwhile, inflation keeps moving.

Dividend ETFs (exchange-traded funds) like SCHD don’t work that way.

The dividend grows over time. It doesn’t reset lower when the Fed changes its mind. Its income actually tends to rise alongside inflation — not fall away from it.

The window to lock in a long-term income strategy is now. Not when rates drop and everyone panics.

What I’d Actually Tell Her

She doesn’t need to overhaul everything.

She doesn’t need to go all-in on the stock market overnight.

She just needs to stop treating all her money the same way.

A simple starting point:

• Keep 2-3 years of expenses in money market funds (already done ✅)

• Move 20-30% into a dividend ETF like SCHD or a balanced fund like VWELX

• Put the rest in VOO and mentally lock it away for 10 years

Three simple decisions.

No complexity. No daily monitoring. No panic-selling.

Her goal isn’t to get rich quick.

Her goal is to make sure her money outlasts her.

And with a little growth added to her already-solid foundation — it absolutely can.

The Bottom Line

“Not going backwards“ sounds like a safe goal.

But over 20 years, staying all-cash is going backwards — slowly, quietly, and in a way that doesn’t raise alarm bells on your statement until it’s too late.

It’s like the frog sitting in a pot of water that you slowly turn up to boil. He doesn’t realize he’s (literally) cooked until it’s too late.

The question at 65 isn’t “how do I protect what I have?”

It’s “how do I make sure what I have is enough for the next 20+ years?”

Those are two entirely different questions. And they lead to two very different outcomes.

She’s already doing a lot right.

She just needs to give her money permission to grow.

That’s quiet wealth.

-Charlie

📌 P.S. — If you’re 60+ and trying to figure out how to position your money for the next chapter, book a private 1:1 strategy session with me. Let’s build a plan that fits your actual life — not just a spreadsheet.

Building Quiet Wealth
Helping 5,000+ smart people learn purposeful investing
Advertise with me
Follow me on YouTube & TikTok

Leave a comment

Not by picking hot dividend stocks.

Not by timing the market.

And not by constantly trading in and out of positions.

Just five strategic ETFs, tax-free compounding, and patience.

But here’s what most people don’t understand about Roth IRAs:

Every dollar that grows inside this account is 100% tax-free forever.

• You could start with $100 and watch it grow to $100,000. That entire $99,900 gain? Never taxed.

• You could build a $50,000/year dividend paycheck. Completely tax-free.

• And you can pass that cash-flowing machine to your kids or a charity when you’re gone.

As someone whose built a multi 6-figure investment portfolio from nothing — with no prior knowledge and without an expensive financial advisor, I can tell you this: the one thing that’s helped build my wealth more than anything else?

Nailing my Roth IRA strategy.

Why Your Roth IRA Changes Everything

Before we dive into specific ETFs, you need to understand why the Roth is so incredibly powerful.

In a traditional IRA, 401k and regular taxable brokerage account, dividends are taxed every single year - even if you reinvest them automatically. That tax drag slowly erodes your wealth over decades.

But in a Roth IRA?

• No taxes on dividends. Ever.

• No taxes on capital gains. Ever.

• No taxes when you withdraw. Ever.

This is the closest thing to a legal wealth hack that exists in the US tax code.

And if you’re building a dividend-focused portfolio, the Roth amplifies your results exponentially.

Let me show you the five ETFs I’d buy and hold forever in a Roth.

ETF #1: Target Date Funds (for people who think finance is too complicated)

My mom is one of these people.

She’s 64, was never taught anything about investing, and at her age thinks this whole investing thing is just way too complicated.

All the ticker symbols, earnings reports, PE ratios, and market volatility - she finds it all too overwhelming.

And you know what? That’s OK.

It’s like taking your car to the mechanic.

You don’t know who’s best at oil changes vs. tire changes vs. repairing your transmission. You just want a one-stop shop that handles everything for you.

And that one-stop-shop in the ETF and index fund world are called Target Date Funds.

They start aggressive when you’re young (more stocks = more growth potential), then automatically get more conservative as you approach retirement (more bonds = less risk).

You don’t do anything. The fund does it all for you.

How they work:

Let’s say you want to retire in 35 years, so you’d choose a 2060 fund.

Right now, it’s roughly 90% stocks (US and international) and 10% bonds. Maximum growth potential while you’re young.

As you get closer to 2060, the fund automatically reduces stock exposure and increases bonds. By retirement, it’s maybe 40% stocks and 60% bonds. Way less risky when you actually need the money.

Where to find them:

Fidelity: Freedom Funds (ex. FFFGX - Freedom Fund 2045)

Vanguard: Target Retirement Funds (ex. VFIFX - 2050)

Charles Schwab: Target Date Funds (ex. SWYOX - Schwab Target 2065 Index Fund)

Why I like these:

Perfect for people who want zero involvement. Pick one fund, set up automatic contributions, forget it exists for 30 years.

Already diversified across thousands of companies and multiple asset classes.

Automatically rebalances without you lifting a finger.

Why I don’t love these:

Lower upside potential compared to a portfolio you have more control over.

You’re paying for convenience with higher expense ratios and slightly lower returns.

Here’s the thing: most people already have a target date fund in their company 401(k).

That’s usually the default. So if you roll over a 401(k) into a Roth IRA, you can keep it in that target date fund or switch to the next four ETFs I’m about to show you.

If you’re someone who wants more control (and potentially higher returns), keep reading.

ETF #2: Your Foundational Fund (40% of Portfolio) S&P 500 Index Fund

If I could only hold ONE fund for the rest of my life, this would be it.

The S&P 500 has survived the Great Depression, countless recessions, the 2008 financial crisis, the early 2000’s dot-com bubble, the 2020 COVID crash - and it just keeps growing.

Over the life of the stock market, this fund has returned roughly 10% annually. That’s wealth-building power you can count on.

My top picks:

• VOO (Vanguard)

• SPLG (SPDR)

• SPY (SPDR)

Or mutual fund versions depending on your brokerage:

• FXAIX (Fidelity)

• SWPPX (Schwab)

• VFIAX (Vanguard)

They’re all basically identical.

Pick one. Check the expense ratio (should be under 0.10%). And don’t overthink it.

Why this is your foundation:

• Instant exposure to the 500 best performing U.S. companies.

• Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla, Nvidia - all in one fund.

• Historically proven to generate consistent long-term returns.

Here’s where I see some people run into trouble — they have more than one of these in their portfolio.

You definitely don’t need multiple S&P 500 funds. That’s like paying for the same oil change twice in one day. Research them, pick one and move on.

ETF #3: Your Tax-Free Paycheck Machine (30% of Portfolio) Dividend (Value) Fund

This is where the Roth IRA becomes absolutely magical.

Dividend stocks are cool in a taxable account. But you pay taxes every single year on those dividends - even if you reinvest them.

In a Roth? Those dividends compound completely tax-free.

You’re building a passive income machine that generates cash flow forever without ever paying a dollar to Uncle Sam.

Let me show you the numbers:

Say you have $1 million in a dividend fund generating 4% annually. That’s $40,000 per year in dividends.

In a taxable account: You pay roughly $6,000-$9,600 in taxes annually (depending on your bracket).

In a Roth IRA: you keep all $40,000.

Tax-free. Forever.

And here’s the best part: you never have to sell the principal. That million dollars stays intact, compounds over time, and you can pass it to your kids.

That’s a win-win-win in my book.

My favorite dividend ETF:

SCHD (Charles Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF)

Alternatives: VYM, VIG, DGRO

Let me show you what’s possible with SCHD:

The Real Numbers Behind Dividend Investing

I ran the numbers using actual historical data from SCHD:

Historic dividend growth of SCHD. SeekingAlpha.com

• Starting point: $10,000

• Monthly contribution: $1,000 ($12,000 annually)

• Initial dividend yield: 4%

• Expected dividend growth: 8% annually (conservative - historical average is 11.6%)

• Expected share price growth: 8% annually

• Time horizon: 20 years

Here’s what happens:

After 20 years:

• Ending balance: ~$900,000

• Annual dividend income: ~$36,000 (that’s $3,000/month)

• Total dividends received over 20 years: $225,000

• Yield on cost: 13.3%

Read that again.

You’d be earning $36,000 per year in tax-free passive income while your principal is worth $900,000.

That’s a total return over 250%!!

And remember - in a Roth IRA, you pay ZERO taxes on any of this.

Why 30% of your portfolio?

You want meaningful passive income without overexposing yourself to one sector. This allocation gives you steady cash flow while maintaining diversification.

ETF #4: Your Wildcard Position (10-20% of Portfolio) Safe or Risky - You Choose

This is where you customize based on your own personality and risk tolerance.

Do you want to be more conservative and safe? Or more aggressive with higher upside potential?

Option A: Conservative Wildcard

If you want safety, you need something close to cash or bonds that won’t lose value when the market crashes.

Most people default to BND (Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF).

Personally, I don’t love BND. It’s down 15% over the past five years. That’s not what I want from my “safe” position.

My current favorite:

SGOV (iShares 0-3 Month Treasury Bond ETF)

This is a short-term treasury fund. Way more stable than BND, generates a decent dividend yield, and doesn’t drop dramatically when interest rates change.

Option B: Aggressive Wildcard

If you want higher growth potential, you need exposure to something outside the traditional stock market.

My personal pick: VGT

This is Vanguard’s Information Technology ETF. It’s pure tech exposure which often means aggressive growth potential.

Other options include:

• SMH (VanEck Semiconductor ETF) - AI and chip companies

• IBIT (iShares BitCoin Trust ETF) - crypto

The most important thing with this position is that it should be something you research heavily yourself before jumping in.

Do NOT just blindly listen to advice from anyone without doing your own due diligence.

The key with your wildcard position:

It should be either significantly MORE risky or significantly LESS risky than the rest of your portfolio.

If the rest of your portfolio is moderate risk, your wildcard should pull you toward higher upside OR more safety - not just more of the same.

ETF #5: Your Growth Accelerator (20% of Portfolio) Broad Growth Fund

This is your aggressive growth position - but not as wild as Bitcoin or sector-specific bets.

You want companies that can outperform the S&P 500, but you still want broad diversification across multiple sectors.

My top picks:

• VUG (Vanguard Growth ETF)

• QQQM (Invesco NASDAQ 100 ETF)

• SCHG (Schwab US Large-Cap Growth ETF)

Let’s look at SCHG specifically:

• Current price: $30.43 per share (on sale - down 0.26% year-to-date)

• 10-year average return: Over 18%

• Expense ratio: 0.04%

• Holdings: Mostly tech (Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia), but also includes communications, consumer discretionary, healthcare, and financials

This fund is more aggressive than VOO, but still diversified enough that you’re not betting everything on one sector.

Why 20% of your portfolio?

You want meaningful growth exposure without the sleepless nights that come with concentrated sector bets. This allocation lets you capture outsized growth while your other holdings provide stability.

Subscribe now

BONUS: The Secret Weapon That Acts Like an ETF - Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B)

Okay, this isn’t technically an ETF. It’s a stock.

But it functions like an ETF because it holds dozens of different companies inside one ticker.

What makes it special:

• Owned and managed by Warren Buffett - arguably one of the greatest investors of our time

• Holds massive positions in Apple, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, American Express, and 40+ other companies

• Has beaten the S&P 500 consistently for decades

• More stable than the S&P 500 during market crashes

It’s basically a diversified fund disguised as a single stock.

And in a Roth IRA, Berkshire is particularly powerful because you never pay taxes on Buffett’s brilliant capital allocation decisions.

My Complete Roth IRA Portfolio

If I started over today, here’s exactly how I’d allocate my Roth:

• 30% - SCHD (dividend growth, passive income)

• 25% - VOO (S&P 500 foundation)

• 20% - VUG or SCHG (growth acceleration)

• 15% - Wildcard (SGOV for safety OR IBIT for aggressive growth)

• 10% - Berkshire Hathaway (Buffett’s diversified empire)

This gives you:

• Exposure to thousands of companies globally

• A mix of dividend income and capital appreciation

• Both conservative stability and aggressive growth

• Tax-free compounding on everything

Why Starting NOW Matters More Than How Much You Invest

Let me show you the math that changed my life.

Scenario 1: Start today

• Contribute $500/month for 30 years

• Average 10% annual return

• Result: $1,130,000

Scenario 2: Wait 10 years

• Contribute $500/month for 20 years

• Same 10% return

• Result: $375,000

By waiting just 10 years, you lose $755,000.

That’s the brutal truth about compound interest. Time in the market destroys timing the market.

The best time to start was 10 years ago. The second best time is today.

Your Step-by-Step Action Plan 🎯

Ready to build your tax-free wealth machine? Here’s exactly what to do:

Step 1: Open a Roth IRA

Choose a brokerage:

• Fidelity (my personal favorite)

• Vanguard (great for index fund investors)

• Charles Schwab (excellent customer service)

All three are solid. You can’t go wrong.

Step 2: Set up automatic monthly contributions

Don’t rely on willpower. Automate it.

Start with whatever you can afford - even $50/month split across these ETFs is infinitely better than $0.

Step 3: Buy these ETFs in your target allocation

Don’t overcomplicate it. If you’re investing $100:

• $30 → SCHD

• $25 → VOO

• $20 → VUG

• $15 → SGOV or IBIT

• $10 → Berkshire

Step 4: Stop checking it constantly

Seriously. Checking daily will drive you insane and tempt you to make emotional decisions.

Check quarterly at most. Preferably annually.

Step 5: Increase contributions as you earn more

Got a raise? Bump your automatic investment by 50% of that raise.

Your lifestyle still improves, but your wealth accelerates exponentially.

The Simple Truth About Roth IRAs

You don’t need 47 different funds.

You don’t need to trade constantly or chase hot stocks.

You don’t need perfect timing or complex strategies.

You need five solid ETFs, consistent contributions, and the discipline to let tax-free compounding work its magic.

These five funds give you:

• Thousands of companies across every sector

• Both dividend income and capital appreciation

• Geographic and asset class diversification

• Professional management without high fees

• 100% tax-free growth forever

Start today. Even if it’s just $10.

Open that Roth IRA. Set up automatic contributions. Then get back to living your life while your money compounds tax-free.

Your future self will thank you,

-Charlie

📌P.S. - if you’re serious about wanting to build your portfolio, and you’re serious about actually taking steps to become the type of investor you know you can be and want some accountability and some help, book a private 1:1 financial strategy session with me.

Building Quiet Wealth
Helping 4,600+ smart people learn purposeful investing
Advertise with me
Follow me on YouTube & TikTok

Disclaimer: this content is for educational and informational purposes only, and is not legal, financial or investment advice. Always do your own research before investing, and consult a licensed professional. Charlie and OJD LLC are not responsible for any losses or decisions made based on this content.

Tech and AI are down, Bitcoin is in a free fall, gold and silver crashed, and even foundational indices like the S&P 500 are down nearly 1% YTD.

Don’t believe me? Here’s some more stats from other heavy-hitters:

• QQQM - down 1.08%

• VGT - down 2.83%

• Amazon - down 9.39%

• Microsoft - down 16%

• Palantir - down 18.5%

But one ETF has been silently crushing it, and in my opinion, what we’re seeing now is actually a golden opportunity you need to take advantage of.

So why does it feel like the whole market is crashing, and even more importantly, how can you get ahead of it?

Let’s dive in...

I believe this “flash crash” we’re having is actually a gift.

It’s letting people know where their portfolios have too much risk, and that maybe they can’t handle as much risk as they thought they could.

But why is the market falling like it is?

We have these things called market cycles and they’re actually very predictable if you look at the data.

I’ll give you the highlights of what’s been happening first, and then we’ll get into why it’s important for you to understand so you can know how to get ahead of it.

5 Reasons the Market is Down

1️⃣ Tech/AI sell-off

A major theme the last two weeks has been a major tech decline - especially in the AI and software sectors.

The S&P 500 software and services index has lost roughly $1 trillion dollars in market value since late January as investors reassess pricey tech valuations and future growth expectations.

2️⃣ AI spending concerns

It’s not necessarily that these tech and AI stocks are bad or don’t hold value, but when companies like Meta, Amazon, Google and Microsoft announce hundreds of billions of dollars in new capital expenditures in 2026, some investors get spooked, and fear this spending may not produce returns quick enough.

3️⃣ Job Market & Economic Weakness

Recent reports have shown worse-than-expected job cuts and a weakening labor market, which intensifies fears that economic growth is slowing faster than expected.

Rising unemployment claims and mass layoffs at Amazon due to replacement with AI workers, have put pressure on investor confidence and increased sell offs.

Which leads directly into number four...

4️⃣ Risk Assets Tanking

Crypto and other risk assets are crashing like crazy!

Bitcoin is down over 60% from just a few weeks ago. This has led to a major emotional selling spree and plays into the idea of people taking their money out of more riskier assets and putting them back into safer ones like value and dividends.

5️⃣ Earnings & Macro Headlines

The ongoing earnings season has brought mixed results, and markets often react more strongly when earnings valuations are high.

Investors are de-risking after extended tech and AI gains.

How You Can Still Win

So where can you put your money to take advantage of this market rotation?

Well, it’s time to really start focusing and learning about these value and dividend-style assets, because not only is it going to keep your portfolio safer and more stable, I believe it’s going to have more growth, appreciation, and of course cash flow than anything else this year.

And I don’t see this as a crash...yet.

At least not in the classic sense like the ones in 1929 or 2008. But this is a significant drawdown, and has a lot of volatility - especially in the tech and speculative sectors (ie. crypto).

But traditional safe havens and defensive stocks aren’t signaling panic in the same way as a full-blown market meltdown.

This is very important to understand because in a true crash, everything is going to dip. What we’re seeing right now is more of market rotation, which happens every few years.

So what’s the answer to the test?

In my opinion, it’s our good ole’ friend SCHD.

Why I ❤️ SCHD

SCHD is the Charles Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF.

Taking language directly from its Prospectus:

“To pursue its goal, the fund generally invests in stocks that are included in the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 Index. The Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 Index is designed to measure the performance of high dividend yielding stocks issued by U.S. companies that have a record of consistently paying dividends, selected for fundamental strength relative to their peers, based on financial ratios.”

But we need to address the elephant in the room.

SCHD hasn’t had a stellar few years.

Some investors even gave up on it completely and jumped ship for other ETFs like VTV and QQQI.

But over the life of the fund, even during the past few years when it’s been struggling, SCHD has had an average appreciation of over 12.5% per year since 2011.

Over the last 15 years, it’s consistently paid out a dividend averaging 3.8%. And the dividend has grown every single year, usually by double digits.

So let me show you what this means for you and your actual portfolio, and why I’m so big on SCHD.

I’m using MarketBeat.com’s dividend calculator and making the following assumptions:

• SCHD investment: $100,000

• DRIP dividends (ie. reinvest them back into buying more shares)

• Quarterly dividend payout

• Dividend yield - 3.33%

• Dividend growth - 7% (conservative)

• Share appreciation - 10% (very conservative)

• Recurring investment - $0

• Account held - Roth IRA (ie. no tax)

In 20 years, your $100,000 will have grown to over $1.1M and your dividends at that point would be over $25,000/year.

Now, let’s take it one step further.

Let’s say you add $1,000 every month for those 20 years.

You’d have over $2M and an annual dividend of $4,000/month. That’s 100% passive income for LIFE! And you’d be able to start living off of this without ever having to touch your principal.

What This Means for You

I’m not telling you to flee tech completely. Ultimately, I think that would be a mistake as everything in the market goes in cycles.

What I’m saying is for the past few years, SCHD wasn’t necessarily ‘down’ either, it was just underperforming the rest of the market.

The whole point is to have a balanced portfolio - whatever that looks like for you and makes sense in your own investment strategy.

I fully understand and appreciate that some of us are working with millions of dollars, while some of us are working with hundreds of dollars.

It’s all relative.

Even if your portfolio is $10,000 total - having 40-50% of that in SCHD or another value ETF right now is probably a good idea. The other 50-60% can be in growth and foundational ETFs.

I wanted to show you that even having just a portion of your portfolio in SCHD can absolutely get you to a point where you can live off those dividends and the other parts of your portfolio can continue to work for you.

In my mind, that’s a win-win.

Subscribe now

Do This Today...

Take a look at your own portfolio. Is it all red right now?

If it’s too tech-heavy and you don’t like all that red, and you’ve realized you may be taking on more risk than you’re comfortable with, what can you do?

Well, first you have to figure out what type of portfolio you actually want.

• What type of investor are you?

• What’s your risk tolerance?

These are so important and are tough answers to figure out all by yourself. Everyone’s different, and there’s no cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all portfolio that’s going to work for everybody.

So if you’re serious about wanting to build your portfolio, and you’re serious about actually taking steps to become the type of investor you know you can be and want some accountability and some help, book a private 1:1 financial strategy session with me.

I’ll take a deep dive into your portfolio, offer real-time recommendations and walk you through how to build the best portfolio for you.

But if you want to figure this out on your own, the main thing right now is not to sell out of tech completely. If you do, you’re probably going to be selling at a loss and that’s never fun (unless you need to save some $ on taxes).

If you look at your portfolio and your gut tells you it’s too risky, I recommend just watching and waiting. Never make investment decisions based on emotions.

The tech side of things will likely come back up.

When it does, that’s going to be your best time to sell a portion of those assets, or whatever is making you too risky, and move that over to some more value-based investments like SCHD, VTV etc.

If we do end up going into a crash, then just keep dollar cost averaging (DCA) and add every new dollar into your value section.

And remember...

Progress > Perfection

Your bank account will thank you later,

Charlie

📌P.S. - if you’re serious about wanting to build your portfolio, and you’re serious about actually taking steps to become the type of investor you know you can be and want some accountability and some help, book a private 1:1 financial strategy session with me.

Building Quiet Wealth
Helping 3,000+ smart people learn purposeful investing
Advertise with me
Follow me on YouTube & TikTok

Leave a comment

“I have $15K sitting in my savings account earning basically nothing. I know I should invest it, but I don’t understand the stock market and I’m scared I’ll lose it all 😩.”

Her age: 36
Her savings interest rate: 0.25%
Her fear: Totally valid.

Here’s what I told her, and what I wish someone had told me 15 years ago:

You don’t need to understand the stock market to invest in it.

Hear me out...

And the people who’ve convinced you otherwise?

They’re either trying to sell you something, or they’re gatekeeping knowledge that’s actually free.

The Lie You’ve Been Sold

Here’s the story Wall Street wants you to believe:

Investing is complicated. You need to understand charts, read financial statements, track earnings reports, know when to buy and sell, watch CNBC all day, and basically become a part-time trader.

That’s complete BS.

The truth? Most professional fund managers who DO understand all that stuff still don’t beat the market.

In fact, over the last 15 years, 90% of actively managed funds underperformed a simple S&P 500 index fund.

Read that again: 90% of the “experts” lose to a basic, boring investment that requires zero knowledge of the stock market.

The Real Reason You’re Scared

Let’s address the elephant in the room.

You’re afraid you’ll:

• Pick the wrong stock and lose everything

• Invest right before a market crash

• Make some rookie mistake that wipes out your savings

• Not know when to sell

• Look stupid for trying

I get it. I’ve been there.

When I first started investing, I had $10,000 saved up. As a 24-year old that was a LOT of money. Still is.

I sat on it for six months because I was afraid if it wasn’t sitting in my bank I’d lose it.

You know what happened during those six months?

The S&P 500 went up 12%. If I had invested that $10,000, I would’ve made $1,200 doing absolutely nothing.

Instead, I made $5 in my savings account.

My fear didn’t protect my money. It cost me $1,195.

The truth nobody tells you?

The biggest investment risk isn’t losing money in the market.

It’s keeping your money in savings and watching inflation destroy its value while everyone else gets rich.

What You Actually Need To Know

Forget everything you think you need to learn about investing.

Here’s literally the only thing you need to understand:

When you invest in a low-cost index fund or ETF that tracks well-established companies, you’re not betting on one company. You’re betting on an entire economy.

That’s it. That’s the whole concept.

Think about it this way:

Would you bet that Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Tesla, Nvidia, Walmart, and 492 other massive companies will ALL go to zero at the same time?

No?

Then you don’t need to worry about “losing it all.”

Because that’s what you’re investing in when you buy an S&P 500 index fund for example — the 500 most successful companies in America.

The Investment Strategy That Requires Zero Market Knowledge

Here’s the exact strategy that’s built my $600K+ portfolio, and it requires understanding exactly ZERO about the stock market:

Step 1: Buy low-cost index funds and ETFs

Forget picking individual stocks. Forget trying to time the market. Forget watching the news.

Just buy funds that track:

• The S&P 500 (like VOO or SPY)

• The total U.S. stock market (like VTI)

• Growth/tech sectors (like QQQM or SCHG)

These are baskets of stocks that automatically own hundreds or thousands of companies for you.

Step 2: Invest the same amount regularly

Put in $100, $500, $1,000 — whatever you can afford — on the same day every month or every week.

This is called dollar-cost averaging, and it’s your secret weapon against market timing anxiety.

When the market is up? ➡️ You buy.
When the market is down? ➡️ You buy.
When the market is sideways? ➡️ You buy.
When you’re scared? ➡️ You buy.

When you’re excited? ➡️ You buy.

There’s a theme here...

You just keep buying, regardless of what the market is doing.

Step 3: Don’t look at it for at least 6 months

Seriously.

The people who panic and sell are the ones checking their accounts every day and freaking out over normal market fluctuations.

Set it, forget it, and let time do the work.

Let me make this even simpler with a few examples. Here’s your exact playbook:

If You Have $1,000 - $5,000 To Invest Right Now

1. Open a free brokerage account (I use Fidelity, but Vanguard and Schwab work too)

2. Transfer your money from your bank

3. Buy VTI (Vanguard’s Total U.S. Stock Market ETF)

4. Set up automatic monthly investments of whatever you can afford

5. Check back in 3 years

That’s it. You’re done.

If You’re Starting With < $1,000 To Invest

Same exact process, but maybe start with $100 or $500.

The amount doesn’t matter. What matters is that you start.

I know people who started with $50/month and now have six-figure portfolios.

If You Have > $10,000 To Invest

Split it across three funds for a bit more diversification:

• 50% in VOO or VTI (broad market foundation)

• 30% in QQQM or SCHG (growth/tech exposure)

• 20% in SCHD (dividend income)

Then automate monthly contributions and walk away.

Subscribe now

The Questions You’re Probably Still Asking

“But what if I invest and the market crashes tomorrow?”

Then you keep investing.

Every market crash in history has recovered. That’s a 100% recovery rate. I’ll take those odds any day.

The people who lost money weren’t the ones who stayed invested — they were the ones who panicked and sold at the bottom.

If the market crashes after you invest, that just means everything goes on sale. Keep buying.

“What if I’m buying at the top?”

You might be. And that’s fine.

Because in 10 years, today’s “top” will look like a bargain.

The S&P 500 has averaged 10% returns annually over the last 30 years. That includes multiple crashes, recessions, and “tops.”

Time in the market beats timing the market. Every time.

“Why these specific funds?”

Because they’re:

• Low cost (expense ratios under 0.10%)

• Incredibly diversified (hundreds to thousands of companies)

• Tracking proven indexes with decades of data

• Liquid (easy to buy and sell)

• Tax efficient

You’re not trying to get rich overnight. You’re building wealth slowly and safely by owning tiny pieces of the entire U.S. economy.

“What about crypto? Or day trading? Or that hot stock my friend told me about?”

Go ahead and throw 5-10% of your money at that stuff if you really want to.

But keep 90% in boring index funds that actually build wealth.

Because here’s the truth: Your friend probably lost money on that “hot tip,” crypto is speculation not investing, and day traders mostly just make their brokers rich.

What Nobody Tells You About Market Crashes

Since 1928, the stock market has crashed or corrected more than 20 times.

And every single time, it recovered and went higher.

The average bear market (downturn) lasts 9 months. The average bull market lasts 4.5 years.

Translation: The market spends 5x more time going up than going down.

But here’s what really blew my mind:

If you invested $10,000 in the S&P 500 in 2000 — right before the dot-com crash — and just held it through:

• The dot-com crash (lost 49%)

• The 2008 financial crisis (lost 57%)

• The 2020 COVID crash (lost 34%)

You’d have over $50,000 today.

You didn’t need to understand WHY those crashes happened. You didn’t need to know when to sell and when to buy back in. You didn’t need to do anything except NOT PANIC.

That’s the entire game.

The Truth About “Losing It All”

You know what actually causes people to lose everything?

Not investing in index funds and watching the market.

It’s:

• Putting all their money in one stock or asset class (ex. crypto)

• Panic selling during crashes

• Trying to time the market

• Investing in things they don’t understand (I’m looking at you, NFTs)

• Paying someone 1-2% annually to “manage” their basic index fund portfolio

When you invest in funds that track 500+ of the biggest companies in America, you’re not going to “lose it all” unless the entire U.S. economy collapses.

And if that happens? Your savings account won’t save you either.

The Real Cost of Waiting

Let’s talk about what fear is actually costing you.

Say you have $10,000 sitting in a savings account earning 0.5% interest.

If you keep it there for 10 years:

You’ll have $10,511.

If you invest it in an S&P 500 index fund averaging 10% annually:

You’ll have $25,937.

That’s $15,426 you’re losing by playing it “safe.”

And that’s not even counting the money you could be adding monthly.

If you invested that $10K PLUS $500/month for 10 years at 10% average returns, you’d have $128,000.

The same strategy in a savings account? $71,000.

Fear isn’t protecting your money. It’s robbing you of $57,000.

My Friend’s Decision

Remember my friend with $15K in savings?

After our conversation, she opened a Fidelity account, moved $10K into VTI, kept $5K as her emergency fund in a high-yield savings account like SoFi, and set up $300/month automatic investments.

That was three months ago.

Her portfolio is already up $800, and she’s only looked at it once (to tell me what she’s made 😉).

❌ She didn’t read a single book about the stock market.
❌ She didn’t watch YouTube videos about technical analysis.
❌ She didn’t learn what P/E ratios are.

She just decided that fear was more expensive than action.

Subscribe now

Your Next Step…

Stop waiting to understand the stock market.

You don’t need to understand how your car engine works to drive it. You don’t need to understand how your phone works to use it. And you don’t need to understand the stock market to invest in it.

Here’s what you actually need:

• A free brokerage account

• A low-cost index fund or ETF

• The discipline to not panic

• Time

That’s it.

The knowledge will come later if you want it. But you don’t need it to start.

And starting is the only thing that matters.

Because in 10 years, you’ll either wish you had started today, or you’ll be grateful that you did.

The market doesn’t care if you understand it.

But it will absolutely reward you for participating in it.

You got this,

-Charlie

📌P.S. - That $10,000 I was too scared to invest 15 years ago? If I had just bought VTI and held it, it would be worth over $55,000 today. My fear didn’t protect me from loss. It guaranteed it.

📌P.P.S. - Still have questions? Reply to this email or leave a comment. I read every single one and I’m happy to help you take that first step.

Building Quiet Wealth
Helping 3,000+ smart people learn purposeful investing
Advertise with me
Follow me on YouTube & TikTok

Leave a comment

It could set the tone for not only your investing this year, but for the next decade!

What the Heck is Happening?

We ended 2025 with a couple of interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve Bank, and we’re expecting current Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to be ousted from his position later this year (let’s just say President Trump and him aren’t BFFs).

Those lower interest rates are exactly why we saw the stock market rally at the end of last year. But for now, it doesn’t look like we’re going to see additional cuts due to inflation and the concerns over the job market. Which has us investors looking at a completely different reality than just last month.

Whiplash anyone?😵‍💫

The ongoing inflation pressure, coupled with the cooling labor market are putting the Fed in quite a pickle.

They can either raise interest rates - which causes lower inflation but more unemployment.

Or they can lower them - which causes more inflation but typically more job creation.

See the problem?

What This Means for Your Growth Stocks/ETFs:

So what specifically happens in the stock market when this kind of “will they, won’t they?” occurs?

If we DO see interest rates hold steady, with just a few cuts in 2026, the first thing to keep in mind are the rate-sensitive growth stocks like tech and AI.

In the short term, expect volatility.

Why?

Because high rates:

• keep pressure on valuations

• discount future company earnings

So any signal that cuts are coming later in 2026 may spark rallies of these industries.

But the big takeaway here is that growth stocks tend to move more on expectations than actual cuts.

What This Means for Your Value Stocks/ETFs:

These types of companies include those that provide steady cash flow and dividends, and are (typically) up when tech and AI are down.

Things like utilities, consumer staples, healthcare etc. In the short-term, they are more stable and often favored because strong cash flow today matters more than future growth (ie. the complete opposite of tech).

But the dividends are still attractive if rate cuts are delayed.

The big takeaway for these is they act like a “wait-it-out” position when interest rates are high.

Which ETFs Are Poised to Benefit?

Before I give you my predictions, the most important thing to understand from this week’s newsletter is not necessarily if or when a Fed rate cut will happen...but more so what to do NOW and how to think about your investments today.

This could literally be the biggest decision that affects your portfolio for the next ten years.

When we look at Investing.com’s Fed Rate Watch Tool, you can see where the majority of analysts predict the rate to be:

Over 95% of them think we will NOT see a rate cut next week which is huge!

The question then is: what ETF is a good investment in 2026?

As always, I’m not a financial advisor, and I can’t tell you what to invest in. But here’s my reasoning behind my predictions below:

Rising rates hurt a company’s ability to borrow money for cheap. Therefore, companies that already have great cash flow and don’t need money in the short-term are going to come out ahead. They’re the ones that are going to have the pricing power and stable demand others without access to lots of capital won’t.

In this case, I personally would want to look at two separate types of ETFs in order to effectively spread out my risk.

Both types would still be broad, offering me exposure to a wide range of industries, but the first one would definitely focus on value companies.

And the best part is...if rates stay higher for longer, this is the perfect time for us as investors to buy more of these value ETFs!

Because with Fed rates higher, that means your high-yield savings account (HYSA) or money market is probably getting decent returns (3-4%), and you’re not really looking for a new home for that money.

BUT...

There are also a lot of very wealthy people who are also getting 3.5% in those same accounts, and as soon as rates come down and they’re getting closer to 1.5% in those accounts - you can BET they’re going to move their money from that very safe asset class to another (relatively) safe one in the form of value, recession-proof companies in the stock market.

My two favorite value ETFs are SCHD and VTV.

SCHD has the higher dividend at around 4%, but VTV has the higher overall price right now.

VTV is invested in a lot more financial companies including Berkshire Hathaway, which has historically always done a great job at riding out recessions and market corrections.

SCHD invests more in those traditional dividend-earning companies like Coca-Cola, Merck, and Cisco.

Both ETFs contain high percentages of companies that are recession-proof, have lots of liquidity (cash on hand), and are thus less volatile.

That’s why I believe both of these stand to profit dramatically in 2026 - especially if the Fed rates get brought down, which we expect if a new, Trump-approved Fed Chairman gets selected.

Which Stocks Are Poised to Benefit?

I believe three growth stocks poised to benefit the most from future rate cuts.

1. Broadcom (AVGO) - which is a major player in the semiconductor sector that rallies during rate cut optimism. Especially that tied to cloud and AI infrastructure spending.

2. Nvidia (NVDA) - one of the largest and most rate-sensitive tech companies, particularly when it comes to AI chips and data center demand. Lower rates boost its long duration earnings value.

3. Snowflake (SNW) - this is a cloud data platform with heavy future growth expectations. Again, lower rates makes its earnings more valuable.

But remember, a stock’s performance depends on lots of things including earnings, competition, economic growth, and consumer sentiment. Not just Fed policy.

Bottom Line...

It’s VERY tough to pick absolute winners in the stock market.

If you could, everyone would do it and we’d have a lot more wealthy people than we do now!

Which is why for the vast majority of investors, especially beginners, I would stick to the broad, solid ETFs.

And specifically if we’re talking about growth, you’re going to have all the big names in there anyway - Google, Tesla, Microsoft, Amazon etc.

But you’re also going to get a bunch of other sectors that can help keep your portfolio going if the others go down a bit. These will keep you moderately safe, decrease your overall risk, while still keeping your potential growth ceiling very high so you can benefit from all the gains.

It’s why I personally love ETF investing so much - I feel like it lets me have my cake and eat it too!

If you want my Top 10 online stock broker recommendations to start researching for yourself, click here.

Always rooting for you,

Charlie

📌P.S. In just a few days, I’m opening up enrollment for my next small group investing program, Quiet Wealth Academy. I only do these a few times a year, so join the waitlist if you want first dibs on the (very) limited # of spots.

~

Building Quiet Wealth
Helping 3,000+ smart people learn purposeful investing
Advertise with me
Follow me on YouTube & TikTok

Leave a comment

We went to high school together and still keep in touch via Facebook Messenger (I know…I’m such a millennial).

We also started investing in our retirement accounts at the same time, and contribute the same amount of money per month.

In the fifteen years since, my 401K account is pushing $430K.

Hers?

$190K.

Don’t get me wrong, that’s still a heck of a lot of money. But so is an extra $240K!!

And the compound interest we’re both earning off our paycheck contributions? The longer we’re invested, the larger that gap is going to get.

But how could hers be so different than mine?

It’s because up until a year ago, she was making the No. 1 mistake people make when it comes to their retirement accounts.

The money got transferred from her paycheck but it never got INVESTED.

That’s right.

Just because money comes out of your paycheck or your bank account and goes into your retirement account, doesn’t mean it’s actually invested in a stock, ETF, bond etc.

If you don’t tell your employer or your brokerage what to do with that money, it simply goes into what’s called a settlement fund (i.e. where retirement funds go to die).

A settlement fund is basically a glorified money market or high-yield savings account (HYSA). You’re going to get paid a little interest on your money, but that’s it.

So while I was making an average of 12% on my money the last 15 years, my friend was averaging around 3-4%.

Ouch.

But around here we don’t talk about problems without talking about solutions — so let me show you how to 1) make sure you’re not in the same boat as my friend, and 2) fix it today!

How to Fix It

Step 1: Log into your retirement account

Step 2: Navigate to your brokerage’s cash management section. If you’re with Fidelity like me, you’re going to go to the Accounts & Trade tab, then scroll down to “Cash Management”.

If you’re not with Fidelity you can either Google how to get to the right spot or reach out to your brokerage’s customer service.

Step 3: See if you have money sitting in a settlement fund (sometimes also called a cash fund) — with Fidelity it’s ticker symbol SPAXX.

If you have a number other than $0 in the highlighted area above, move to Step 4 BECAUSE…you have money just sitting in your brokerage’s cash account.

And around here we don’t let our money slack off. It has to work for us, and it has to work hard!

You can also see the current rate you’re earning on that cash to the right — as of the date of this writing, 3.39%.

If you don’t have a balance, congratulations! The money in your account(s) is properly invested.

Step 4: Navigate to the area of your account where you can make trades (ie. buy assets), and pick an investment to buy. Below is an example of Fidelity’s trade menu — fill in the highlighted parts and click “Preview Order”.

Side note: you won’t be able to trade more than you have cash available. So just keep that in mind when you’re selecting the quantity. For example, if you have $100 in cash, and the ETF you want to buy is $50/share, your maximum quantity is going to be “2”.

Step 5: Preview your order, and if it looks good, hit “Purchase”

Congratulations!!🥳

Your money is now properly invested, and you have the potential to earn WAY more on it than before. Nicely done!

Set It And Forget It

To make sure you don’t continuously have cash sitting in your settlement fund, AND to not have to check your account religiously (because quite frankly, no one has time for that nonsense), you’ll also want to set up automatic investments.

If you’re not sure how to do that, hit reply to this email and I’ll send you some screenshots.

Doing this gives you peace of mind that future paycheck contributions or bank transfers will always go into the market by buying whatever investment you want (or that your employer offers).

So you can get back to living your life, knowing your money is hard at work.

Ahhh! Sweet success.

That’s all for today!

Your friend,

Charlie | Your Wealth Hype Girl

📌P.S. I’m getting ready to open up enrollment for my next Quiet Wealth Small Group Investing program. I only run these a few times a year and spots are limited to keep things super personal. Join the waitlist so you’ll be first to know when doors open.

This article provides educational information about investment strategies, not personalized financial advice. Consult with qualified financial professionals before making investment decisions. Charlie Dice and OJD LLC are not responsible for any investment gains or losses as a result of following advice given here.

Leave a comment

Whether it’s my Spotify most-played list or my credit card expense breakdown (ok let’s me honest, that was isn’t near as fun), I love looking back and seeing everything that’s happened in the last 12 months.

So I figured it was time to do that with my investments.

The Good…

2025 was another record bull year for the U.S. stock market.

Since it’s low in April, the S&P 500 has rallied over 30%. And its risen an amazing 90-96% (depending on your source), since it’s last really bad year in 2022.

Personally, I think we’re going to keep seeing upward trends — especially within the S&P and the NASDAQ 100 at least a few more years.

My investments in the U.S. stock market did very well this year.

Starting in my smallest investment account by volume, my taxable brokerage account with Fidelity — my returns in U.S. equities are all well in the green for 2025:

And if we look at the indices I invest in my account, they’re all solid, well-established sectors of the U.S. market that have trended up and to the right over the last 10+ years:

My biggest movers in this account were:

• VTSAX (Vanguard Total Stock Market Fund) → +34.01%

  

• GLTR (Abrdn Precious Metals Basket ETF) → 14.31%

  

• AIQ (Global X FDS Artificial ETF) → 12.75%

  

There’s no doubt the stock market darling this year was tech and AI.

And while VTSAX has companies in these sectors, AIQ is by far my current asset most heavily invested in tech and AI (that’s basically the entire fund). So it’s no surprise it’s doing well.

In fact, this fund has 2/5 top performing stocks of 2025 in it.

And no, it’s not Nvidia or Tesla.

It’s Seagate Technology (a data storage company - ticker symbol STX), and Micron Technology (ticker symbol MU).

As of today, year-to-date (YTD) returns on these two were:

• STX → 223%

• MU → 181%

🤯🤯

This is why I love ETFs so much!

Unless you had time to do crazy amounts of research, you’d probably never know these companies existed, let alone invested in them (I wouldn’t!). But because I own AIQ, I’m able to share in these gains.

In my retirement accounts, I saw the same trends when it came to my stock investments, although one thing SHOCKED me!

Overall, between my traditional and Roth TSP (same thing as non-government employee IRAs), my portfolio is up over 16% for the year:

Given that I’m 38, I like to keep most of my allocations in riskier investments because I still have plenty of time before I’d need a fixed income.

Over 85% of my portfolio is invested in stocks. Here’s how they did:

• C-Fund (tracks the S&P 500): +17.63%

• S-fund (tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Completion Total Stock Market): +13.04%

• I-fund (tracks the MSCI ACWI IMI ex USA ex China ex Hong Kong Index): +30.73%

That I-fund one SHOCKED me!

There’s an expression in economics:

“When the U.S. sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.”

It’s an idiom used by economists and political analysts to describe the significant influence the U.S. has on the global economy and international affairs.

The strength of the I-fund this year shows us that when the U.S. has an above-average year, the global economy does just as well, if not better in some areas.

This is why I personally think if you’re only invested in domestic markets, you’re losing out on a LOT of potential growth.

Subscribe now

The Bad…

2025 wasn’t all sunshine and roses. Nothing in life every is right?

My accounts took a serious hit in April like every other investor when Trump announced his first round of tariffs.

And this month has actually been my worst month of 2025 — Merry Christmas! LOL

My taxable brokerage account is down 0.97% this month, and December is the only month this quarter that I’ve had an overall loss.

My worst performing stock of 2025 is CCCX — Churchill Capital Corp X USD CL A ORD SHS. It’s down over 23%:

But for me, this is just a speculative stock — ie. something I took a chance on. It makes up <1% of my portfolio and isn’t something that’s gonna make or break me.

I’m going to hold onto it for awhile longer and see how things play out. If it does bad again next year, I might consider selling it for a loss and use some of that to tax loss harvest (offset) any realized gains next year.

The worst performer in my retirement was the G-fund, up only 4.3%. But this shouldn’t be surprising to anyone.

The investment objective of the G Fund is to basically preserve your wealth, and generate modest returns above those of short-term U.S. Treasury securities (ie. bonds).

As long as it’s outperforming inflation (which it’s close this year), I’m ok. But again, given my age, I keep a very small amount of my portfolio invested in this as well as the F-fund.

The F-fund (fixed income) seeks to match the performance of the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, a broad index representing the U.S. investment-grade bond market.

The new year…

So what is my investment strategy going into 2026?

First, I’m working on reallocating my taxable brokerage account to my preferred 45/40/15 split between dividend/value ETFs, foundational ETFs and growth ETFs.

Right now, I’m heavily skewed towards growth (which is great for returns!). But because I don’t want to sell and pay capital gains tax, the only way for me to “return to normal” is to invest more money into the areas that need a boost.

I’m also looking at possibly upping my growth ETF percentage to at least 20-25% in 2026. I’m waiting to see how the first quarter of the year goes and then might pull the trigger.

I plan on also selling more covered call ETFs next year — something I’m going to be diving into more in the newsletter as well. It’s a way to make more passive income while (hopefully) also keep your investment and making money of it in the form of profits.

Stay tuned!

If all these year-in-review wraps up teach us anything, it shows us how much we’ve accomplished, learned, and grown in such a short period of time.

And when it comes to investing, it shows us that no one has a crystal ball. If anyone tells you they can predict what markets will do in the future — run the other way as FAST as you can!

And maybe that’s the lesson: investing isn’t about knowing all the answers, but about staying in the game long enough to see how your unique story unfolds.

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Your friend,

Charlie | Your Wealth Hype Girl

This article provides educational information about investment strategies, not personalized financial advice. Consult with qualified financial professionals before making investment decisions. Charlie Dice and OJD LLC are not responsible for any investment gains or losses as a result of following advice given here.

Leave a comment

It consisted of a portfolio comprised of 60% US stocks, 20% international stocks and 20% US or government bonds.

And this worked well…until it didn’t.

Nowadays, this investing strategy gets CRUSHED by a new 3 ETF portfolio.

It’s a simple way to invest for financial freedom, and can be adjusted for any age group or life stage.

So if you’re looking for:

• A long-term investment strategy that’s optimized for appreciation and massive cash flow

• That you can manage by yourself

• So you get very rich without paying fees

You’re gonna want to read this.

If you’re like most people, your retirement account is likely still following the old-school method that worked 40-50 years ago.

In 1980, Jack Bogle’s perfect portfolio allocation was 60% US stocks or equities, 20% international stocks and 20% bonds. The whole point was to diversify in case of a market crash.

And while that’s a solid strategy in theory…

If you’re still following this today, you’re essentially setting yourself up for protection against that one year of bad, while missing out on the next 10 years of good.

Why This Doesn’t Work Anymore

The whole point of having bonds was that if the market crashed, at least a portion of your portfolio would be safe and stabilized. And this worked well until 2022.

That year, the S&P 500 dropped around 18%.

And against that big drop, you would’ve expected the bond market to hedge well. But in fact, it hedged terribly — dropping a whopping 13%!

That’s supposed to be the safest, most sustainable part of your portfolio?

No thanks.

If we then look at international stocks, the purpose of them in the portfolio was to provide a safety net if things in U.S. markets went south.

Many investors incorrectly believe that this portion is just there so you’re invested in something outside the U.S., and that somehow makes your portfolio safer.

But there’s a saying out there:

“If the U.S. sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.”

The truth is, if the U.S. really does have a downturn, the rest of the world is likely to as well.

The fact of the matter is, international ETF’s simply underperform. Average appreciation of VXUS is around 5%. You can almost get that kind of growth with your money sitting in your high-yield savings account.

New 3 Fund ETF Strategy for 2026

This new 3-fund portfolio takes the same strategy as Jack, but updates it with the correct funds for 2026.

Fund No. 1 - Foundation

Starting off with the 60% U.S. stock portion — we’re keeping this the same.

Because I still strongly believe that everyone should have a foundational, broad U.S. index that tracks the S&P 500 in their portfolio. You can go with ETF’s like VOO, SPY, or SPMO. Or you can trade this out for a total U.S. stock market ETF like Vanguard’s VTI.

Fund No. 2 - Value

This is where we start to change things up a bit.

This is the section all about providing safety — it needs to be less volatile then the S&P 500.

Where the old portfolio had BND here, with today’s inflation, this is all but losing you money.

Photo: Fidelity .com

For most of us still building our portfolios, I highly recommend something that produces a good cash flow, but still has high upside and low volatility. For this I want a dividend fund.

And even though it’s been getting a lot of hate recently, I’m sticking with Charles Schwab’s SCHD for this.

It has a nice solid dividend of 3.5%, and other than the past year, has been growing steadily for the past decade.

Fund No. 3 - Growth

The third part of the portfolio is supposed to be a little higher risk, but (hopefully) much more upside than the S&P.

Nowadays, the biggest powerhouse and money maker in the market is tech and AI.

But you want to take advantage of not just these two sectors, but all the sectors currently in a growth phase. And there’s a bunch of ETF’s that fall into this category for you to choose from.

Me personally, I’m going with broad growth ETF’s over a more specialized sector ETF. My current favorites are QQQM, SCHG or VUG.

If you compare the old strategy of VXUS (approx. 5.09% return) vs. the new of SCHG (approx. 16.54% return)…

If you invested $500/month for the next 30 years, you would have:

VXUS: $398,000
SCHG: $3,500,000

That’s a hell of a difference!

Subscribe now

Now moving on to the age categories. And to caveat this part — for any age, I would be very comfortable with recommending this style of portfolio.

But I completely understand it’s nerve-wracking to try and do this alone.

I walk people through this all the time in my private financial coaching where we do about a 1-hour Zoom. We figure out the optimal portfolio for you based on your specific goals.

I can also help you simplify your portfolio all for a flat fee, rather than taking a percentage of your portfolio forever like a financial advisor.

If that’s something you’re interested in, simply email me to get started.

Retirement Age

I’m going to start with the oldest age group, so that if you’re younger and you’re reading this, you can see how things switch as you get older.

Because while this is a semi- “set it and forget it” strategy, you do want to be aware and adjust your allocations as you hit different life stages.

In this stage, you’re likely living solely off your investments without a regular income coming in. The key here is you should only be taking out what you actually need to live on, and leaving the rest invested so it continues to grow and make you more money.

At this stage, we’re mostly concerned with safety and preserving the money we do have.

First, I recommend having at least three years’ worth of living expenses saved up in a high-yield savings (HYSA) or money market (MM) account. Something completely outside the market.

Also, make sure to deduct any Social Security, pensions and other income off your monthly expenses you need to make up with investments.

Here’s my recommended breakdown for this age group:

5 Years from Retirement

In this stage, you should be getting very serious about building your 3-years’ worth of cash reserve.

You also don’t want to take your foot off the pedal when it comes to building your portfolio. By this stage, you should have at least one year’s worth of living expenses saved in your HYSA or MM account.

Here’s my recommended breakdown for this age group:

10 Years from Retirement (approx. 50-60 years old)

At this stage, you don’t want to go too conservative, because you’ll likely still have time to experience another bull market cycle before you retire. So you want to make sure you get every piece of profit from your investments as you can.

Here’s my recommended breakdown for this age group:

20 Years from Retirement (approx. 40-45 years old)

You’re in your prime earning potential period. You can still weather any storm the market throws at you, but you definitely want to be smart and take advantage of all the ups, while not dropping too low in the downs.

You’re also probably making a pretty good income, so you don’t want to have too much money in dividend ETFs — especially in a taxable brokerage account. This will help lessen your tax liability.

Make sure by now you have at least 6 months of living expenses saved in your HYSA or MM account.

Here’s my recommended breakdown for this age group:

Ages 30-45

You’ve got a BUNCH of breathing room here, but this isn’t the time to fall into the YOLO (you only live once) mindset by investing all your money into crypto, meme stocks, or get-rich-quick schemes.

The bulk of your portfolio should still be these 3 ETFs. Though if you really want, you can add a small portion (I recommend no more than 10%) into more riskier bets like individual stocks or speculative assets.

Here’s my recommended breakdown for this age group:

Beginners/Just Starting Out

For those just starting out, no matter if you’re 18 or 80, I recommend an even 33/33/33 split for at least one year, and just watch how the market moves, and how simple you can make your investment strategy.

After a couple years, change it up however you see fit, based on your life stage and financial goals.

Hope this helps, and remember to email me if you’d like to sign up for my private financial coaching!

Your friend,

Charlie | Your Wealth Hype Girl

This article provides educational information about investment strategies, not personalized financial advice. Consult with qualified financial professionals before making investment decisions. Charlie Dice and OJD LLC are not responsible for any investment gains or losses as a result of following advice given here.

Leave a comment

And while I’m not there yet, here’s my plan on how I’m going to do that.

Spoiler: it’s stuff most people aren’t doing.

Most dividend stocks worth holding long-term are giving a dividend of about 2.5-4% as of the date of this article.

Let’s say you need about $60,000/year to cover your living expenses.

Step 1: Budget for taxes

For a traditional dividend stock or ETF, the taxes on dividends will be taxed at the long-term capital gains rate, which for most of us is 15%.

If you need $60,000/year to live off of, you actually need about $72,000 in dividends.

$60,000 x 0.15 = $72,000

Step 2: Figure out how much you need invested

To figure out how much you need invested to hit the number in Step 1, take 100 and divide it by the stock or ETF’s dividend yield.

On a 4% dividend yield stock or ETF, you’d divide 100 / 4 = 25.

Then multiply that number by the number you’re hoping to receive in total dividend income from Step 1.

$72,000 x 25 = $1.8M

Now that sounds like a big number — and it is. But what if I told you you could live off $500,000. That sounds a lot more doable right?

Understanding how to do this is the only way you’re going to be able to understand how to get to your Step 2 number FAST!

Here’s the exact funds I’m using in this strategy…

I love the consistency, reliability and stability of blue chip stocks and ETFs.

These also tend to have qualified dividends which is really important as well from a tax efficiency consideration.

You can find 5-10 high paying blue chip dividend stocks from the Dividend Kings List, or you can piece together 2-3 solid ETFs like I’m doing.

My three favorite: SCHD, VYM, and FDVV.

Let’s say you have $500,000 to invest.

For this, I’d want three different categories of ETF:

Value, Foundational and Growth.

For my Value ETF, I’m going with SCHD.

I’d put 33%, or $150,000 into SCHD, at a 3.5% dividend yield, that gives me $5,250 in dividend income per year.

For Growth ETFs, I’m picking a REIT (real estate investment trust).

I’d put 15% into this category, or $75,000. $75,000 invested with an average dividend yield of 7% — another $5,250 in dividend income per year.

In my Foundational ETF category, I’d want the most solid covered call ETFs as possible.

Hope that helps!

If you’re still unsure, or have questions — reply to this email. I read and do my best to respond to every one.

Your friend,

Charlie | Your Wealth Hype Girl

This article provides educational information about investment strategies, not personalized financial advice. Consult with qualified financial professionals before making investment decisions.

An extra $500 in your Roth for 2026.

Why?

Because that extra $500 can make you an extra $120,000+ in retirement.

Don’t believe me? Let’s break it down.

Every year, the IRS evaluates the annual limits you can contribute to a Roth IRA (or backdoor Roth IRA). In 2025, that limit was $7,000.

But a few weeks ago, the IRS announced they’re increasing that limit to $7,500 in 2026.

That means, to max out your Roth IRA in 2026, you’d need to contribute $625/month ($7,500 / 12). Which I highly recommend you do if you’re able to.

If you invest that extra $500 over the entire year — if you do that for the next 30 years, you’d have an extra $120,000+ in your account.

That breaks down to just $41.67/month!🤯

We can prove this by running the numbers in a compound interest calculator like the one at Investor.gov.

In this example, we’re going to assume a very conservative annual rate of return of 8%. For context, over the last 100 years, the S&P 500 has averaged 10.6% in annual returns.

Investor.gov Compound Interest Calculator

And the results are IN…!

Investor.gov Compound Interest Calculator

And the icing on the cake? You’ll only have contributed $21,760 of your own money to get $126K+!

This is why I absolutely LOVE investing and how it’s the easiest way for every day people to build incredible wealth.

So, if you haven’t started planning yet, I hope this article gives you the push you need to make sure you find an extra $42/month to invest in your Roth IRA next year. That’s literally one tank of gas, a couple trips to Starbucks, or less than three months of Netflix.

Worth it?

Hell yeah!

If you don’t yet have a Roth IRA, I’d highly recommend opening one for free today. I personally use Fidelity for most of my investments, but Vanguard and Charles Schwab are also solid choices with decades of reputable service.

You might also be able to open one through your employer — be sure to ask!

Action Items

1. Open a free Roth IRA (or backdoor Roth IRA if you exceed the regular income limits)

2. Contribute $583/month to ensure you hit $7,000 in annual contributions

3. Adjust your budget now so you can put in an extra $42/month ($500/year)

Hope that helps!

If you’re still unsure, or have questions — reply to this email. I read and do my best to respond to every one.

Your friend,

Charlie | Your Wealth Hype Girl

Disclaimer: Not financial advice. For educational purposes only.

Leave a comment

This was me when I first started my government job and they told me I could invest in a retirement account.

Where do I start? Invest in WHAT!? How and how often?

Why was this stuff so confusing!?😭

After 20+ years investing in the stock market, I’ve learned some things, made a lot of mistakes, and generated a portfolio of over $600K by age 38.

If I had to start all over again at age 35, knew literally nothing about investing, had a portfolio balance of $0, and still wanted to retire a multi-millionaire — here’s exactly what I’d do.

Step 1: Open a free investment account

I personally use Fidelity, but other reputable companies are Vanguard and Charles Schwab — pick whichever one you like.

I chose Fidelity because their customer service is great (you can talk to a real, live person!), they allow you to buy shares in dollars which means you can buy less than 1 share if you need/want to, and they’ve been around for awhile which means they must at least know a little about what they’re doing.

If you care about taxes in retirement, I would open up a traditional or Roth IRA (individual retirement account). How do you choose?

If you think you’re going to make more money and be in a higher income tax bracket when you retire = pick a Roth.

If you think you’re going to make less money and be in a lower income tax bracket when you retire = pick a traditional.

If you’re not that worried about tax efficiency, or you want access to your money penalty-free before you turn age 59 1/2, open up an individual brokerage account (IBA).

They’re all free.

Step 2: Connect a bank account to your investment account

Next, I would connect my bank account to my new investment account.

I would do this by going to my “Account” tab and selecting “Transfers”, then “Send money from my bank” and follow the prompts on the screens.

Step 3: Buy an investment

Now it’s time to buy your first investment!

If you’re not sure what to buy, I would recommend a low-cost index fund or ETF (exchange traded fund) like VOO — which tracks the S&P 500, or VTI — which tracks the total U.S. stock market. These are both baskets of stocks that allow you to instantly diversity your portfolio with reputable, well-established companies that offer decent returns.

And even though these are both Vanguard funds, you can purchase them through Fidelity.

For this example, I’m going to buy VTI — the Vanguard Total U.S. Stock Market Index Fund ETF.

To do this, I’m going to go to the top of my Fidelity account and select “Quote”. I’m then going to search by the 3 or 4-letter ticker symbol for the investment I want to buy — in this case “VTI”. Then I’m going to select the one I want from the dropdown.

Once you select the investment you want to buy, it’s going to bring up a screen that has information about the investment on it. If you already know you want to buy it, just scroll to the bottom and hit “Trade”.

If this is a new investment for you, or you’re curious about what’s in the fund, scroll down and click on “Research”.

This will bring up a screen where you can deep dive into tons of data and analytics about the investment.

What I find most helpful, especially if you’re buying anything other than single company stocks, is to look at the “Composition” tab. Scroll down until you see a small blue hyperlink that says “View All Holdings By Weight.”

This will tell you the number of companies held within the fund, the names of those companies, and the weight of shares that company holds within the fund.

The higher the weight, the more of that fund is made up of that company.

As of the date of this article, we can see that VTI is an ETF made up of 1,172 companies.

Now, I don’t know about you, but buying 1,172 individual companies would not only be tedious, it’d also be expensive.

That’s why I love ETF’s so much for beginner investors — you can buy 1,172 companies with a single click!

Now that we know we want to buy VTI, click on “Trade” or “Buy”. The following screen will pop up and you’ll need to fill out the highlighted sections:

Once you have it set up the way you want, hit “Preview Order” and then “Buy”.

Congratulations — you’re now officially an investor!🥳

Step 4: Set up recurring transfers to grow your portfolio

It’s awesome that you bought your first investment, but if you’re age 35 and never invest another penny after this initial first $1,000 — I’m sorry to say, but you won’t retire a millionaire, even with the help of compound interest.

So we need to set up what’s called a recurring transfer. This allows us to buy regular, recurring shares of any stock we want, at the frequency we want.

You can do this within your Fidelity account by going to the “Accounts” tab at the top again, click “Transfers” → “Set up recurring transfer” → “Create New Activity” → “Investment” → and select the investment you want to buy, the amount you want to regularly buy, and the frequency (weekly, biweekly, monthly etc.)

You can change or cancel these at any time using the same process.

Step 5: Repeat for 30 years

It’s little more nuanced than that, but seriously — if you wanted to — you could do just “set it and forget it” and you’d be further ahead than 90% of people out there.

But, if you’re 35, starting from 0, and want to retire a multi-millionaire by age 65, you’d need to invest $1,500/month for the next 30 years.

The best part is, of that say $2 million — over 30 years, you’d only have contributed $540,000 of your own money. The other $1.46 million? That’s all free money from compound interest!

Key Takeaways

Now you might be sitting here reading this saying, “but Charlie, I don’t have $1,500/month to invest. Can I still do this?”

Absolutely!

Start with whatever amount you recommend and work your way up from there. Know you won’t have as much money as someone who started younger, or can contribute more, more often…but some free money is better than no free money right?

Hope that helps!

If you’re still unsure, or have questions — reply to this email or leave them in the comments if you’re reading this on Substack.

Your friend,

Charlie | Your Wealth Hype Girl

📌P.S. I’m working on something really cool for Black Friday! It’s a tool that will pour rocket fuel on your investing journey. It’s pretty much like having me in your back pocket!

Because we’re email friends, you get first access and a special discount. Reply “DISCOUNT” and I’ll add you to the waitlist.

Leave a comment

Disclaimer: Not financial advice. For educational purposes only.

Today’s goal is simple:

Explain the stock market so clearly you’ll never feel dumb about it again.

Ready?

Here we go:

👉 The stock market is a giant farmers’ market for businesses.

Every “booth” is a company.
Every “item” they sell is a tiny slice of the company (called a stock).

When you buy one?

You become a co-owner in that company or companies.

That’s it.

Owning great businesses → long-term wealth.

You don’t need:

❌ day trading
❌ crypto gambling
❌ Wall Street jargon
❌ perfect timing (it doesn’t exist)

You just need simple ownership and time.

The Secret Ingredient: Compounding

Your money earns money.
Then that money earns money.
Then that money earns money.

And the snowball grows.

This is why people who start young — even with tiny amounts — lap people who wait for “the right time.”

Let’s look at at two different scenarios:

Scenario 1:

• You’re 25 years old

• Open a Roth IRA

• Invest an initial $1,000 into a low-cost ETF (exchange traded fund) that tracks the S&P 500

• Monthly contribution: $500

• Rate of return - 9%

When you’re ready to retire at age 65 you would have…

Over $2 MILLION dollars! 🤯

And the even more exciting part?

Of that $2M, you’d only have put in $241,000 of your own money — the other $1,817,704? All free money from compound interest.

It’s not magic.

It’s just math and time.

Scenario 2:

• You’re 45 years old

• Open a Roth IRA

• Invest an initial $5,000 into a low-cost ETF (exchange traded fund) that tracks the S&P 500

• Monthly contribution: $1,000

• Rate of return - 9%

At age 65, you would have:

It’s still a nice chunk of change to retire with. But even with a larger initial investment and double the monthly contributions…those 20 years you missed out on?

They cost you over $1.4 million dollars.

Ouch.

Now, this isn’t meant to shame you (we don’t do that here).

It’s meant to show you how powerful compound interest is, and how time is your best friend when it comes to building wealth in the market.

So what do you do if you started later?

Don’t beat yourself up, and don’t think you’re “too late”.

Throw as much money as you can into (safe and responsible) investments and take advantage of the time you do have.

The only way you lose?

Never getting in the game in the first place.

If you want to play around with your own numbers, you can use the same compound interest calculator HERE.

The Takeaway:

The stock market = ownership.

Compounding = acceleration.

You = 100% capable.

Hope that helps!

Your friend,

Charlie | Your Wealth Hype Girl

Leave a comment

Last week, someone replied to my email with a question that stopped me cold:

“I have $5,000 saved. I know I should invest it, but every time I start researching, I end up paralyzed. How do you know what’s actually worth buying?”

I sat there staring at my screen because I remembered that exact feeling.

That overwhelming sense of, “What if I choose wrong and lose everything?” or, “I’m too old to start all over, I just need this to work!”

And look I get it — when you first start your investing journey, it feels like everyone is speaking a foreign language.

But you won’t reap any rewards if you never take action, so we have to get over those faulty beliefs and just START!

To help you, today I’m sharing the stupidly simple 3-step framework I use every single time I consider buying an asset.

Whether it’s a stock, ETF, index fund, real estate, or anything else — it works whether it’s your first time or your 10,000th.

It’s the same framework that helped me go from “terrified of losing money” to confidently building a 7-figure portfolio by the age of 35.

Step 1: If I don’t understand it, I don’t buy it

This one has saved me from so many bad calls!

A few years ago, my brother got real into buying and selling crypto. He’d talk my ear off at family gatherings about what coin I should buy, or why this block chain was going to skyrocket soon.

He’d say to me: “Charlie, this is going to 100X in like 30 days. I’m telling you. Get in now!”

To me it all sounded like gibberish (still does).

Yet, I still felt that familiar pull.

That FOMO (fear of missing out) whisper of “What if he’s right and I miss out?”

But here’s the question I always ask myself in these situations:

“Do I understand how this company or asset makes money? Can I explain their business model to my 8-year old niece and have her ‘get it’?”

Nope. Not even close.

So I passed.

(Spoiler: The coin tanked within two months. My brother doesn’t bring it up anymore.)

Here’s what I DO understand:

Do I use a credit card?

Yes. I have Visa, Mastercard and AMEX. All three are publicly traded companies in the stock market.

Do I shop somewhere regularly?

I’m at Costco every other weekend (don’t judge me). Amazon packages show up at my door like clockwork. Giant fills my prescriptions. All are on the stock market.

Do I wear specific brands?

I have way too many Target-brand yoga pants and OnCloud walking shoes.

✅Stock market.
✅Stock market.

These aren’t sexy picks. Nobody’s posting screenshots of their Costco stock gains with rocket emojis.

But I understand how these businesses work. I can see their value in my everyday life. I know why people keep using them.

And that understanding gives me confidence to hold through the inevitable dips.

THE RULE: If you can’t explain to a friend how a company makes money in under 2 minutes, you don’t understand it well enough to invest in it.

Step 2: Ride the waves with dollar-cost averaging

I’m warning you right now — your brain is going to try to sabotage you.

The market dropped 3% today? Your brain: “IT’S A CRASH! SELL EVERYTHING!”

The market jumped 5%? Your brain: “It’s too expensive to buy right now, wait for a dip!”

This is where most new investors lose money.

Not because they picked bad assets, but because they let their emotions drive the bus.

I learned this the hard way in 2020.

March hits, pandemic panic everywhere, and I watched my portfolio drop 30% in a matter of weeks. Every news headline screamed doom. Every Reddit thread predicted total collapse.

I almost pulled everything out.

But then I remembered something Warren Buffett said:

“Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”

So I kept buying.

Same amount, every two weeks out of my paycheck, like clockwork. Whether the market was up or down.

That’s dollar-cost averaging.

You’re essentially training your brain like a muscle to ignore the noise.

Some weeks you’re buying when prices are high. Some weeks you’re getting a discount. Over time, it averages out.

And here’s what the actual data shows:

Over the last 100 years, the U.S. stock market has averaged 10-12% annual returns over the long term. Not every year - some years it’s down, some it’s up 20% - but the long-term trend is reliably up and to the right.

I don’t know about you, but I like those odds.

Those shares I kept buying during the 2020 crash? They’re up over 70% now.

THE RULE: Pick an amount you can invest consistently (weekly, biweekly, monthly) and stick to it. Market up? Buy. Market down? Buy. Market sideways? You guessed it - buy.

Subscribe now

Step 3: “ABB” - Always be buyin’ and have a long-term plan

I learned this phrase from entrepreneur and investor Jaspreet Singh.

He has a YouTube channel called The Minority Mindset, which is all about thinking differently than the majority of people. He calls this “ABB”.

Here’s where I see so many people trip up.

They buy something on Tuesday with the plan to sell it Thursday when it (hopefully) goes up 5%.

That’s not investing. That’s trading.

And unless you’re a full-time day trader with sophisticated tools and years of experience, you’re (probably) going to lose money. Maybe even lots of it.

Meanwhile, the boring index funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) I’m buying every two weeks? They’ve quietly increased my individual brokerage account by 22% this year.

In addition, over the last 15 years they’ve taken my retirement account from a total of $717 to over $400K. And I’ve got the receipts to prove it:

Notice how when I started I contributed a total of $342 the ENTIRE year!?

That’s literally all I could afford at the time. But I did it, and I kept doing it, and as I made more money, I slowly increased those contributions.

Investing is about continually buying net assets and holding them for the long haul.

You’re buying pieces of real businesses that generate real value over time.

Think of it like planting a tree.🌳

You don’t plant an oak tree on Monday and check Tuesday to see if it’s tall enough to sell for lumber.

You plant it, water it consistently, and let time do its thing.

THE RULE: When you buy an asset, ask yourself “Would I be comfortable holding this for at least 10 years?” If the answer is no, don’t buy it.

The Framework In Action💥

Let me show you how this actually works with a real-life example.

Last month, I was looking to add some AI to my individual brokerage account. I considered a few options:

Option A: A friend’s recommendation for some AI startup stock that “could be the next NVIDIA”

• Do I understand it? Barely. I can’t explain their tech or revenue model.

• Verdict: PASS

Option B: An AI ETF - AIQ

• Do I understand it? When I looked at what companies were in the fund - Yes. I recognized household names like Apple, Tesla, Google, Broadcom and Samsung.

  

• Can I dollar-cost average? Absolutely.

• Long-term hold? That’s literally the strategy.

• Verdict: BUY

I bought Option B. Not exciting, but I can sleep at night.

What this framework won’t do

Full transparency — this is not a get-rich-quick framework.

It won’t give you a story to brag about at upcoming Christmas parties.

It won’t lead to screenshots of 300% gains in four weeks.

What it will do is keep you from making catastrophic mistakes that wipe out your progress and jeopardize your financial future.

It will help you build real, lasting wealth slowly and steadily.

And it will let you stop obsessing over every market fluctuation and let you go live your life.

Now It’s Your Turn!

If you’re sitting on cash right now, unsure where to start, don’t overthink it.

Ask yourself the 3 questions:

1. Do I understand how this “thing” (stock, index fund, bond etc.) makes money?

2. Can I commit to buying it consistently, regardless of market conditions?

3. Am I willing to hold this for years, not weeks?

If you get three Yes’s, you’ve probably found a good investment.

Pull the trigger and let it ride.

If you get any No’s, keep looking.

There’s no shortage of quality assets that meet all three criteria.

The wealth you’re building doesn’t need to be complicated. It just needs to be consistent.

Hope that helps!

Your friend,

Charlie | Your Wealth Hype Girl

📌P.S. - Want help figuring out where to start?

I know this framework makes sense in theory, but applying it to your specific situation? That’s where people get stuck.

So I built something to help.

I’ve created a custom GPT that walks you through this exact framework based on your situation, risk tolerance, and goals. It’s like having me in your pocket, asking you the right questions to figure out your next move.

I’m looking for a handful of people to beta test it and give me honest feedback. If you’re interested, hit Reply and let me know. I’ll send you access.

No catch, no cost - I genuinely want to make this tool as helpful as possible, and that means hearing from real people trying to figure this stuff out. I will eventually charge for it so I can recoup some of my costs to build it, but for those beta testers it’s completely free!

--

Also, please be careful with any suspicious people who try to impersonate me and ask you to send them money, so they can “invest” for you. There are tons of scammers out there. If you follow me on social media, I will NEVER DM you first. If someone does, it’s a fake account using my profile picture and IP. Please report and block them. Always check their credentials in their profile and if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Stay safe!

Disclaimer: Not financial advice. For educational purposes only.

If you’re on the internet and have ever searched anything related to investing, you’ve probably seen or heard someone this.

But you’re looking at ETF’s (exchange-traded funds) like VOO — Vanguard’s S&P ETF — and it costs $600+ for one freakin’ share!

And maybe the brokerage you’re using doesn’t let you buy fractional shares. Meaning, you can only buy whole shares, which means you’re shelling out that $600.

And you’re saying to me, “Charlie — I don’t have the money to do that!”

Don’t worry, I got you.

Enter SPLG.

It’s SPDR’s version of an S&P 500 ETF and as of the date of this article, it’s currently trading at around $79/share.

It also has a really low expense ratio of just 0.02%.

So if you’ve been looking for a way to get started in, or buy more of the S&P 500, this stock is a great option, for a fraction of the price!

If you want more information about these or any positions, head to MarketWatch.com or Yahoo Finance.

Never finance your joy,
- Charlie

📌P.S. If you found this helpful, consider sharing it with a friend. We don’t have to stay stuck in the debt cycle.

Leave a comment