Life After Full-time Work Blog

Learn about preparing for life after full-time work through posts from Don's upcoming book.

#40 Broaden The Discussion Framework

After all the analysis, you still have to decide: active or passive. This post lays out precise reasons that tilt you in one direction or the other — or both.

#39 Is There Investment Skill? If So, What Is It Worth?

If we make enough choices, some will work out and some won’t. How do we distinguish luck from skill? Is there skill? What is it worth? This post looks at those questions.

#38 Unbundle The Fees

What do we pay for the privilege of asking someone else to manage our investments? This post lists many forms of payment.

#37 Active Or Passive: Three Separate Issues

One of the most heated (and therefore potentially confusing) topics in investing is whether to be active (try to choose winners) or passive (just “go with the flow”). In this post we’ll see that one reason for the confusion is that “active versus passive” really encompasses many different questions.

#36 Historical Investment Return Patterns

How have different kinds of investments performed in the past? Let’s take a look, because history, even though it doesn’t predict the future, is still a good basis for adding to our understanding of investments.

#15: How To Think About Different Kinds of Investments

A continuation of #14. If you think about playing cards or tossing a coin, you can learn a lot about fundamental investment principles, and how to think about different kinds of investments.

#14: Four Commonsense But Profound Investment Principles

Have you ever been to a casino? Wouldn’t it be nice if the odds were in your favor, so that you’re more likely to win than to lose? How would you behave, if you were in that position? Aha, hold that thought, because it can teach a lot about investing, as this post shows.

#6: Thoughts About Investing

All that’s necessary is to understand a couple of very basic things: why people invest, and what sort of general goals they have for their investments.