The Ten Most Important Years of Your Financial Life
Wednesday, September 19, 2007 | Dylan JovineRating:
I HEARD AN ADVERTISEMENT ON LOCAL RADIO MONDAY THAT REALLY MADE ME THINK.I forget exactly what the company was selling, but there's no question it was finance-related.
What caught my attention was that the pitchman argued that the "red zone" — the ten most important years in a person's financial life — were the five years before and the five years after retirement.
In all my years of finance, I'd never really thought about it like that before. I have to admit, it really made me think.
And the first thing that popped into my mind was Daryl Readman.
Let me explain.
Last year, we were contacted by Tycoon Report reader Daryl Readman, who also was a member of both Fallen Angel Stocks and The Trend Rider.
(Yes, this is the same Daryl Readman who published his first article in this Monday's Tycoon Report which you can view here.)
(AND FOR THE RECORD, BEN WOULD LIKE TO PUBLISH A LOT MORE OF YOUR STORIES, SO PLEASE KEEP SUBMITTING ARTICLES ON THE WEBSITE. GOING FORWARD, WE'D LIKE TO PUBLISH AT LEAST ONE OF YOUR ARTICLES EACH WEEK. HECK, WE'D LOVE TO PUBLISH ONE A DAY IF YOU GIVE US THAT KIND OF QUANTITY.)
He contacted Chris Rowe, with whom I believe he had been exchanging emails for some time (one of the best features of The Trend Rider is just how good Chris is at answering emails from members - he definitely sets the tone for the rest of us.)
Anyway, Daryl told us that he had just taken a $5,000 "soup to nuts" investment course that was supposed to teach him everything there was to know about investing.
But he was calling to let us know that he honestly felt he learned more just from reading THE TYCOON REPORT during the past two years than he did at the investing course.
I'm not saying this to self-promote here. I think by now you all know me better than that. But obviously we were very flattered to hear this. Whenever anybody thanks us for helping to improve his or her life, it REALLY puts a big smile on all of our faces.
(FYI: Every positive comment you send us or post on the website, we email to everyone at the firm. Likewise, any constructive criticism you send us on how to make any of our products or services better, we also email to everyone at the firm — so please keep them both coming!)
So, what does this have to do with the ten most important financial years in your life?
After reading Daryl's article Monday, it occurred to me that the advertisement had it all wrong ...
The ten most important financial years of your life ARE NOT the five years before and the five years after you retire!
The ten most important financial years of your life are the NEXT TEN YEARS.
That's right — by the time you retire you won't have much wiggle room to change any of the bad financial decisions you've made.
Seriously folks, how many of you here in America are really counting on Social Security when you retire? I know I'm not.
It's really the decisions that you begin making RIGHT NOW that will determine how you live for the rest of your life and certainly in retirement.
Another thing Daryl pointed out in his article on Monday was that an article I wrote about how I lost my net worth overnight immediately caught his attention.
(It seems that my honesty about losing all of my money really made an impression on him. What a sad commentary on the state of world affairs when honesty really stands out, huh?)
Well, I've got some news for you: going forward, I'm going to open up a lot more about other situations in my life where I've made bad financial decisions that really cost me dearly. That's how I learned to become a better investor — from analyzing all of my mistakes.
I am making a new commitment to all of you to continue sharing my financial horror stories with the rest of you — no matter how embarrassing they are — because that's the best way I can help ensure that you begin making good financial decisions from this point forward.
I don't know about you, but my brother Jason and I didn't grow up with a silver spoon in our mouths. Far from it: we grew up with a single mother who worked during the day and went to school at night.
And you know what that means. It means that ...
We grew up on welfare and food stamps, LITERALLY.
We grew up on Macaroni and Cheese dinners, LITERALLY.
We grew up shopping at K-Mart for clothing, LITERALLY.
And I know that Teeka Tiwari, Chris Rowe, Wayne Mulligan and many other key people here at Tycoon grew up under very similar circumstances.
(Growing up poor is almost a pre-requisite for working here at Tycoon. It's much easier to be a true "believer" in our crusade if you know first-hand how it feels to start from nothing and have to LITERALLY fight for every single inch of your financial life.)
I'm not saying this to gain your sympathy — many of you reading this right now grew up under very similar circumstances.
The reason I'm saying this is because no matter who you are or where you are, you know that you can really do this.
You really do have it within your power to become a good investor. You really do have it within your power to make money on 70%, 80% or even 85% of all of your trades.
You really do have it within your power to take the reins of your financial life right now, BEGINNING TODAY.
I'm not just saying that to motivate you today, ladies and gentlemen. I'm not Tony Robbins, and as a general rule, I want to shoot people who are perpetually positive.
(I don't know about you, but I just can't seem to trust people who are happy all of the time. They're either selling me something I'm quite sure I don't want, high on some drug I don't want, or part of the same cult Tom Cruise is into.)
I'm saying this because I think investing is simply the best business in the entire world!
You don't have to break your back every day to make decent money doing it. And you don't need a high I.Q. to make decent money doing it.
All you REALLY need is a sound intellectual framework for making investment decisions, which is what each of us here at Tycoon really tries to hammer home to you every day.
Why is having a sound framework for making investment decisions the most important thing you can learn from reading The Tycoon Report?
Because making money in the markets is a BY-PRODUCT of a sound framework.
Sure, you can pick stocks here and there that make you money. But to do it consistently over time, through good markets and bad, you need the framework first.
It doesn't matter which investment style you use. Whether you tend to gravitate toward Teeka, Jason, Chris or myself isn't important really — each style can make you consistent money.
(Investing is kind of like martial arts that way: whether you become an expert in Judo, Kung-Fu, Tae Kwon Do or Karate isn't really as important as how hard you work to learn the style. Once you become a master at any of the styles you'll be able to kick butt/make money on a regular basis.)
Keep that in mind, because the next ten years are the most important years of your financial life.
And that doesn't start next week or next year. That starts right now.
So for those of you who comment on today's article, please help me help you ...
If we were having lunch together, what are the top two investing questions you would want answered?
I'll start with the most popular questions and work my way down the list.
Once again, thanks for reading The Tycoon Report each day. In exchange for giving us a few minutes of your attention each day, I promise we'll all do our very best to give you actionable investment advice as often as possible.
(Please let us know what you think about Dylan Jovine's article.)
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Dylan Jovine
Chief Investment Officer
The Tycoon Report
