Just How Loco Exactly?

Posted on September 1, 2025 by Ron Byrnes

After my last musing, SW, a close friend, texted me, “Please be more specific. I’m curious just how crazy you are.” Which made me smile.

The return text, “Where to begin?”

But then, I pressed pause. And thought about self compassion. And how I need to muster more of it given this most challenging chapter of my life.

And so I started to think about both sides of the ledger, the “irrational” and “rational”. The irrational mostly consists of what most objective observers would conclude is poor time/money decision-making. Meaning, I regularly do things that I could pay others to do for far less money than my increasingly limited time is worth.

But sometimes I just like popping the AirPods in, cranking up the Biebs, and washing my car in the driveway. Or washing the windows. Or cleaning the house. Which brings a documentary to mind about Japanese elementary schooling. When asked why young Japanese students clean their school at the end of each day, one Headmaster said, “Cleaning creates a calm and gentle spirit.” Love that. Sometimes there are less obvious, less tangible benefits to laboring yourself.

Without detailing the “rational” side of the ledger, suffice to say, there would be many more entries. In retrospect, I think I’ve done an extremely good job picking my parents, picking my in-laws, earning, saving, and investing. The first two highlight the role LUCK has played in my life. I wasn’t anywhere near perfect with respect to the other three, but I have made disproportionately more thoughtful decisions than thoughtless ones.

In my early twenties, when I was gifted some money from my parents for the first time, I had this deep-seated impulse to make the most of it. As an educator, I knew I’d never make bank. As a result, I educated myself about investing, and as our assets grew, we assiduously avoided lifestyle creep.

So much so, that family and friends get infinite amusement from teasing me about being too frugal for my own good. Yeah, I admit, often I am, but we still have lived posh lives, even by Western, late 21st century standards. And what my “friends” always fail to mention is that I’ve done a very good job growing our assets and taking the long view.

Which means now, we can pay for 24 hour care for The Good Wife without losing sleep. Which is a real blessing and one of the clearest indicators that my rational side has more than compensated for my irrational quirks.

For SW, here’s a lil’, lil’, on the quirk front. Yesterday, I traded in the Elonmobile for a new rig. I concede, I have a car prob, specifically, churning through them. The new rig comes in eight colors. I ended up with only my fifth or sixth fave color because it was the best deal I could find in Western Washington. By about $3k. I consciously told myself, configure the rig in whatever way will increase the odds of keeping it longer than my sad (sick) average. So I got the top trim, points for that. But deduct the same points for settling for a bottom-half color.

Also, SW, I spent way too many hours watching reviews, thinking about alternatives, and alternatives to alternatives, and then ultimately, interacting with dealerships.

Now, my “friends” are ripping me for being an ICE ICE Baby again. Mr. Fossil Fuel. A retrograde. To my many critics, take a number. Two of my fave “new car” texts today were, “He is milquetoast and has completely given up.” And “Your car matches UCLA’s performance” which was just mean.

Shifting gears, pun intended, I aspire to be more like my mom and wife, meaning way more generous. I took a baby step two weeks ago when I gave Olga a $3,000 (the money saved on the dud color?) bonus for being such an amazing help with Lynn over the last year. Because she lives check-to-check, it was like I had given her $30,000. As tough a Russian-Ukrainian woman as you’ll ever meet, at least on the surface, she broke down in tears.

So, forgive me if I cut myself some slack. Savings to soften the devastating blow of MSA. Savings to help the hijas and lighten others’ burdens. Savings to enable Olga to breath a little easier for a few months.

Just not enough savings for a bitchin’ colored rig.

Un Poco Loco

Posted on August 31, 2025 by Ron Byrnes

I need help testing out the idea that I’m unique in that I’m keenly aware of the fact that a lot of my behavior around saving money is irrational. And yet, despite that keen awareness, the same irrational behaviors endure.

Most people, I think, are resistant to labeling any of their behavior irrational. They are convinced they’re entirely rational. Right?

I also have a strong suspicion that the outliers like me who are in touch with their irrationality are better at remedying their behavioral quirks. Correct?

Why, I wonder, does my money saving lunacy endure despite its obvious irrationality?

Do This Before Retiring

Posted on July 27, 2025 by Ron Byrnes

I don’t care that my personal finance posts never resonate, I will continue to write about it when the spirit moves me. Deal with it.

Nick Maggiulli could teach me a lot about how to write about personal finance. His first book, Just Keep Buying, sold 400,000 copies. And his brand new book, The Wealth Ladder, is getting tons of attention on several of the pods I listen to.

The inspiration for this post is a friend, let’s call him, IE. IE is planning to retire in the spring of 2027. He appears to have his personal finance shit together. Good paying job. Lots of passive income. And he’s been riding equities up.

On the downside, he’s showing signs of irrational exuberance. He seems to think the stock market, near all-time highs, will continue its run. Or maybe he’s just trolling us in the group text?

His target retirement date was carefully determined based upon his normal “spend rate” combined with lots of planned post-retirement traveling.

I’m guessing he hasn’t modeled exactly what a market worst case scenario might do to his plan. Before retiring, model exactly what a market worst case scenario might do to your total net worth. Put differently, don’t tip-toe around “sequence of returns” risk, dive head-first into it.

How to do that? Calculate your net worth, excluding your residence(s)* because as the saying goes, you have to live somewhere. Adding in any home equity only makes sense if you plan to seriously downsize upon retiring.

Next, take the total amount of money you have invested in equities and divide it by two as if there was a 50% correction. So, in IE’s case, let’s make a wild ass guess and say he has a net worth of $3m, $2m in equities, $800k in fixed income, and $200k in cash.

IE would create a second spreadsheet showing his adjusted net worth after a 50% correction in the stock market. He’s “post-market correction” net worth would be $2m or one-third less than today. Print the “Bear Market spreadsheet” and let it sink in.

Only then can can IE determine 1) whether his asset allocation makes sense and 2) whether the spring 2027 timeline still makes sense.

Because he’s a friend, I will not be charging him for this advice. Some, no doubt will say, my advice is worth what I’m charging for it.

*plural if your DDTTM and have an extensive real estate portfolio

Keep It Simple

Posted on April 15, 2021 by Ron Byrnes

When my dad’s business career took off, I was studying history with mostly Marxist professors; consequently, I didn’t fully appreciate his world. Fast forward four decades. As a member of the bourgeoisie (externally at least), I often think of him when I’m running or cycling and listening to an interview with an interesting businessperson. Now I wish I could talk business with him.

A lot of the podcasts I listen to alternate between business topics and trends and how to invest in light of those trends.

Tons of attention is being paid to new investment vehicles like NFTs (non fungible tokens) and blockchain-based cryptocurrencies (BitCoin, Ethereum, etc.). And let’s not forget trading stocks on commission-free apps like Robinhood. For home run hitters, fast changing personal finance-related technologies are alluring, but for singles hitters like me they are a distraction from what matters most when trying to build wealth slowly and steadily.

What does matter most? How much you are able to save and invest, if anything, at the end of a typical month. Until it’s consistently a positive figure, any energy expended thinking about all the shiny new investments that everyone is (seemingly) getting rich from is a complete waste of time.

Most importantly, remember, good mental and physical health is the best kind of wealth.

Paragraph to Ponder

Posted on August 19, 2020 by Ron Byrnes

From MacRumors.

“Warren Buffett held 245 million Apple shares as of the end of June, representing a 5.7% stake in Apple as a whole. The stock price of Apple has soared by over 57% to an all-time high this year, boosting the value of Berkshire’s Apple holdings by more than $40 billion to around $113 billion as of yesterday. Apple is by far the largest investment held in Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio, worth more than four times as much as its second-largest holding, a $25 billion stake in Bank of America.”

Try connecting these “dots”. Because individual companies inevitably go through boom and bust cycles, conventional wisdom is that you should never have more than 5% of your total wealth tied to any individual stock. Conventional wisdom is that Warren Buffett is one of the most successful investors of all time. Buffett’s AAPL holdings represent nearly 25% of his Berkshire Hathaway portfolio or 5x more than “experts” recommend.

I’m guessing Buffett has no regrets, which begs a question, when have you benefitted in life from consciously ignoring expert opinion?

Sentence to Ponder

Posted on July 17, 2020 by Ron Byrnes

“Nine months, 400 job applications, and 17 interviews later, I landed a part-time minimum wage job at the local Macy’s working on the loading dock.”

From “What It’s Like to Be Single in Your 60s With $233,921 in Student Debt”.

I need to muster some strength before reading the whole, mind blowing story.

Addendum: Something doesn’t add up. A full-time (I assume) fifth year teacher making $30,000? Ah, private Catholic school that apparently doesn’t have any qualms with not paying a livable wage.

Books That Change Lives

Posted on January 21, 2020 by Ron Byrnes

Several submissions from readers of the New York Times.

Two standout write-ups.

1. Go, Dog. Go!

“Go, Dog. Go!” — that epic by P.D. Eastman — has it all: Drama — where are those dogs going? Humor — dogs on scooters, flying helicopters and driving cars! Existential angst — why doesn’t he like her hat? It’s multicultural — blue dogs and red dogs and green dogs! It’s a love story — why yes, he does end up liking her hat!

From “Go, Dog. Go!” — my first book way back in prekindergarten — it was only a short skip to the poems of William Butler Yeats; “The Myth of Sisyphus,” by Albert Camus; the guerrilla ontology of Robert Anton Wilson; and the 10,000 mostly nonfiction books in my home library on Irish history, African-American history, my Pagan spiritual path, world religions and metaphysical matters, the Middle East, quantum physics, the Beatles and rock music. . . .

O.K., maybe that wasn’t a short hop. But my love of reading — as a way to have adventures, explore life, lives and ideas, and satiate my curiosity about the world — began with dogs driving fast cars. I still reread “Go, Dog. Go!” to this day.

Rick de Yampert
Palm Coast, Fla.

2. Atlas Shrugged

When I first read “Atlas Shrugged” for a high school assignment, I was so impressed with Ayn Rand’s philosophy of strength, independence and forging through life on one’s own that I reread the book a few more times in the next few years. The final time I was a young mother and as I read, I realized that there were no children in Rand’s cast of characters, no old people; no one was sick or disabled. Where were they? How were they supposed to manage on their own?

That’s when I became a Democrat, even a socialist. It finally dawned on me that total self-reliance is fine, as long as you’re young, healthy and strong. But no one gets through this life on her own. It takes a village to support a community, to raise and educate children, to care for the sick and elderly. Who wants to live in a world where the weak are thrust aside and forgotten? Rand’s philosophy could never be mine. Her words allowed me to crystallize my own thinking. I grew up.

Barbara Lipkin
Naperville, Ill.

My pick? Maybe John Bogle’s Common Sense on Mutual Funds which has helped me invest more wisely than I otherwise would’ve. Or Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart for similar reasons as to Rick. It was the first of many Achebe, and other, African novels. They have been incredible windows into places and people the West pays little attention to and does not understand or appreciate. My life is richer because of their artistry.

And you?

On New Year’s Resolutions

Posted on January 6, 2020 by Ron Byrnes

New Year’s resolutions are a weird example of social contagion because the refreshing of the calendar is an odd catalyst for self-improvement. If anyone’s serious about self-improvement, why wait until such an arbitrary starting point? You shoulda got started yesterday.

Despite that cynicism, I’m all-in on alternative types of resolutions—ones grounded in greater self-acceptance. Maybe people should resolve the following types of things:

To accept that I will not eat as healthily as I probably should.
To be okay with the fact that I will not exercise as much as I probably should.
To not beat myself up for not saving as much money as I probably should.

The Slate staff has taken this one step further by advising that you mark the New Year by embracing vices instead of resolutions—whether sleeping in on weekends, driving when you can walk, or having a cigarette.

Count me in on Slate’s contrarian, probably tongue-in-check thinking, as another viable alternative to most people’s constant striving for some sort of idealized perfection.

Wouldn’t our mental health be better if this year we dedicated ourselves to trying to accept our limits, our insecurities, our imperfections?

I’ll lead the way with this overarching resolution—I resolve to expect less from myself this year. “Friends” will wonder how that’s possible, but they no doubt mean well.

If you think I’ve finally totally lost it, knock yourself out trying this.

Postscript: Via email, a PressingPause loyalist replied thusly:

“I agree the goal of embracing ones imperfections is one of the most valuable, but how does having a goal in general mean someone is striving for idealized perfection? Also, I like having society wide markers like holidays. I think it makes us feel more like a community. And some people may stress over breaking their resolutions, but not everyone. I just think it’s just the idea of new beginnings. Like baptism or new growth in Spring.”

Forget Stock Market Forecasts

Posted on January 2, 2020 by Ron Byrnes

They’re less than worthless.

“. . . the forecasts were often off by staggering amounts, especially when an accurate forecast would have mattered most. In 2008, for example, when stocks fell 38.5 percent, the median forecast was typically cheery, calling for an 11.1 percent stock market rise. That Wall Street consensus forecast was wrong by 49.6 percentage points, and it had disastrous consequences for anyone who relied on it.”

What to do?

“Investing over the long run through low-cost index funds in a broadly diversified portfolio is a reasonable approach for most people.”

The article is concise, clear, cogent, and highly recommended for anyone wanting to strengthen their investing game in the new year.

Pressing Pause

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Tag Archives: personal finance