Rule #1 Finance Blog
retirement planning
Tax-Free Ways to Grow Your Retirement
Posted in retirement planning
One of the key strategies for growing wealth is to minimize taxes on your money. When it comes to saving for retirement, the more capital you have, the more interest you gain. The following are some tips on how you can save on taxes and grow your retirement at the same time. Read more.
InvestED: Ep. 29- What’s Your Plan For Retirement?
Posted in retirement planning
By 2030, nearly all baby boomers will have passed retirement age, but how many of them are actually prepared to retire comfortably? We discuss the most common ways people save their money for retirement, how different generations have different views of saving, and how much you’ll need to save to retire in the future. Read more.

What Your Mutual Fund Manager Doesn’t Want You To Know About Your Retirement
Posted in retirement planning
Let me ask you a question…
Are you confident that your retirement will last?
The truth is, for millions of people approaching retirement, it won’t…and that’s a scary thought. Fortunately, there is a way to make your retirement fund work for you and have enough to retire in 20 years, even if you think that it’s too late to start. Read more.
I GOT YOU A SORT OF FREE BOOK FROM MY FRIEND BRENDON BURCHARD
Posted in retirement planning
Brendon Burchard is a good friend of mine. He's clearer about how to create a a great business and a great lifestyle and how to use internet marketing than anyone I know. And he's just written a new book that he's letting me get out to you guys for free so you can report to Read more.
Posted in retirement planning
A lot of people spend all their income on living expenses and, as a result, don’t have enough to retire today and won’t have enough to retire tomorrow, either. Read more.
Posted in retirement planning
There is a common belief amongst many financial pundits that all you need to do to get rich is look at the small things you spend your money on every day and see whether you could redirect that spending to yourself. Putting aside as little as a few dollars a day for your future rather than spending it on little purchases such as lattes, bottled water, magazines and so on, can really make a difference between accumulating wealth and living paycheck to paycheck. Read more.
What’s Your Retirement Number?
Posted in retirement planning
In his book The Number, Lee Eisenberg tells us that, “the Number represents the amount of money people will need to enjoy the active life they desire, especially post-career.” Read more.
Posted in retirement planning
I love a thoughtful email and this is a good one (see below). John has been doing some thinking and digging and wants to know why we shouldn't buy and hold a wonderful business we buy on sale instead of trading it. Its such a good Rule #1 question, John, that I wrote a whole new book about it. The book is called Payback Time and comes out in March 2010 from Random House.
The short answer is that you are right. Its better to hold a wonderful business that you bought on sale than to trade it. Trading has a transaction cost, can be inaccurate in the short run and will certainly cost you some of your profit. It also has the advantage of getting you out of a stock that is about to take a huge nose-dive. Trading is insurance against screwing up. Its not perfect but it is pretty good insurance and it reduces the amount of effort you have to put into determining whether the business is a good one and whether you got the price/value thing right.
Payback Time presents the buy and hold strategy in a whole new light with step by step instructions for implementation. It starts with the same requirement to get a wonderful business at a great price. But since we're holding, we're not trading, we HAVE to get the price right. So I bring in the concept of pricing from Private Equity that I call the Payback Time Price. Its the price of the business that will be repaid in a very short number of years out of earnings. The Payback Time Price keeps you from screwing up badly.
Imagine you were going to buy a private business for $1 million. The business earns $200,000 a year after tax. It isn't growing. Therefore, in 5 years you have your money back (assuming you don't need any additional working capital to keep it going). Notice that from that point on, you don't have any money in this deal. You are playing with house money. Your money is off the table. Now, if the business goes south, you can't lose money. Once you've got your money out, you are golden.
Posted in retirement planning
Here's another recent comment from the Phil Town blog, dated July 22: I am a real rookie, and novice and have a quick question. With an income trust (YPO.Un) is distributable cash per share (payments made monthly per share -dividends?) the same thing as earnings per share? Thanks Mitch Phil Town's answer: Mitch, Cash flow Read more.
SLOWING DOWN THE TOOLS FOR MUTUAL FUNDS
Posted in retirement planning
For those of you managing your funds with long-term tools:
Hi Phil,
I'm using Rule #1 charting on our Mutual Funds because we are not allowed to transfer our 401k to a self-directed IRA unless we quit our jobs. My question is, what do you do when the indicators still say buy but you are watching the markets falling? This is very confusing and has happened several times over the last 2 months. Please help me understand.
Thank you,
Tom T.
My response:
Hi Tom,
I'd say you are using the wrong indicators if the markets are falling and what you are seeing for your mutual fund says to buy it. To use the indicators properly for mutual funds you have to slow down the data input to mutual fund speed.