Your Survival Guy

Preparing your investments and family for when disaster strikes.

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Happy New Year! Are You Getting the Advice You Deserve?

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Did you make last year a good year? If you subscribed to my monthly Survive & Thrive letter, we got to know each other better and gained some perspective. This year will be no different. As my father-in-law, Dick Young, would write in his monthly newsletter Richard C. Young’s Intelligence Report, “make it a good month” is a philosophy. Because this is an emotional time of year, I want you to keep your head about you. As I’ve written to you before, stock prices are qualitative. They’re opinions. Dividends are not. They are quantitative. They’re cold, hard cash. You can see them being … [Read more...]

Cato’s Chris Edwards on Economists’ Predictions

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Your Survival Guy’s had the pleasure of speaking with Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute at various benefactor gatherings. This is a good read from Chris per usual. Contrary to the confident‐​sounding claims of experts in the media, economists cannot accurately predict the macroeconomy. Economists have an awful record at forecasting inflation, interest rates, gross domestic product, and other macro variables. Below I excerpt from a Wall Street Journal column summarizing the failed record of forecasting 2022’s inflation, interest rates, and stock market. This is important for public policy … [Read more...]

UPDATE: New Rules for Required Minimum Distributions

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As reported in the WSJ: New legislation raises the age taxpayers generally have to start taking required minimum distributions, known as RMDs, from their retirement accounts from 72 to 73 years old, beginning in 2023. That means if you turned 72 in 2022, you have until April 1, 2023, to take your first RMD, the one for 2022, and you’ll have to take another for 2023 by Dec. 31, 2023. If you turn 72 in 2023, your first RMD will be for 2024, the year you turn 73, due on April 1, 2025. Unfortunately, the legislation doesn’t do anything to address the confusion surrounding the new 10-year payout … [Read more...]

Europe Suffers from Manmade Power Shortages

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Europe's dogged adherence to the green agenda of the Great Reset has wound up coming back to bite the continent. After shutting down most of its coal and a good portion of its nuclear power capacity and coming to rely heavily on Russian natural gas, Europe now finds itself in an unstable power supply situation. Jenny Strasburg reports for The Wall Street Journal: Europe’s energy-squeezed winter has sent power operators and businesses into high alert for blackout risks, heightened by Russia’s war in Ukraine. In a control room in Glasgow, dozens of engineers and supervisors for months have … [Read more...]

New Jersey Attacks Gun Rights

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New Jersey already has some of the nation's strictest gun laws, but that's not enough for Governor Phil Murphy. He wants to harass gun owners with layers of regulations that will make exercising their rights nearly unbearable. The Wall Street Journal's Editorial Board writes: Politicians these days don’t have the respect they once did for the Bill of Rights, and some are defying courts that enforce those rights. That’s the story in New Jersey, where last week Gov. Phil Murphy signed a new law that makes getting a gun carry permit more difficult and expensive and sharply limits the public … [Read more...]

Survive and Thrive January 2023: Stacking Wood and Compounding Money

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Dear Survivor, With Your Survival Guy’s kids home for the weekend, it was the perfect opportunity to stack another cord of wood. Living in New England, you never know when the next natural gas outage will come. I don’t like the chances it will be smooth sailing, and the thought of being without a source of heat while it’s snowing outside (got a dusting of snow last night) isn’t my idea of fun. “Mornin’,” I said to my son. “I got a cord of wood delivered. Do you want to help stack it after breakfast?” If you recall, after a summer of work a couple years ago, I helped him set up a Roth … [Read more...]

Invest with Your Survival Guy and Don’t Miss the Boat in the New Year

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Your Survival Guy wants to work with you. If you’re not already a customer and have half a million in savings and investments, then you’re good to go. Half a million sounds like a lot, and it is, especially when it comes to trusting someone you’ve never met to handle it for you. But that’s not us. We know each other, or at least you know me from YourSurvivalGuy.com and my monthly letter to you, Survive and Thrive. (If you’re not already a subscriber, sign up here to get to know me better.) We all have some lazy cash hanging around doing nothing, just taking up space. Look, when banks are … [Read more...]

Your Survival Guy’s 4 Ways to YOUR Wealth

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Originally posted September 15, 2022. Your Survival Guy’s four ways to your wealth are: Let your money hibernate Work for as long as you can You are most valuable Get your lazy cash off the couch Look, I want you to be a compounding machine. I’ve spent most of my life compounding money beginning with a passport savings account my dad helped my sister, and I set up at the local bank when we were kids. Back then, interest rates were something you could sink your teeth into, and if you kept the money invested long enough, you saw interest on interest work its magic. I … [Read more...]

Your Survival Guy’s Number One Recommendation in Times Like These

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Originally posted October 27, 2022. OK, what’s Your Survival Guy’s number one recommendation in times like these--when inflation is running hot and interest rates are going up? Well, it’s this: Don’t believe the hype. Inflation isn’t anything new, and interest rates need to be higher. But don’t bank on recommendations to play the market. That these two I’s are going higher is baked into the cake. That doesn’t mean they’ll be higher a year from now. You know Your Survival Guy doesn’t like playing the prediction game, especially when it’s hard enough to understand what’s really going on … [Read more...]