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AT LEAST ONCE A YEAR, I watch the hilarious short YouTube clip by personal-finance author JL Collins. If you aren’t around small children and can handle liberal use of America’s favorite four-letter word, check it out. Some may recognize it as a parody of actor John Goodman’s soliloquy from the film The Gambler starring Mark Wahlberg.
The clip, however, is more than just entertaining. Its content is what keeps me and, judging from the half-million views, others coming back. In the video, Collins argues that amassing $2.5 million gives the possessor—er, shall we say—“forget-you money.” To Collins, that means no one can tell you what to do. Not your boss, not your girlfriend, nobody, because you can shine them off with, “Forget you. I’ve got [a lot of] money.”
Collins advocates an 80-20 portfolio. Put 80% in Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (symbol: VTSAX), which holds every publicly traded U.S. company. With the remaining 20%, buy a broad-based bond fund (VBTLX) to “smooth the ride,” he says.
He’s not done dispensing advice to Wahlberg’s character. Collins says not to buy a house (rent, let the landlord worry about it) and drive an “indestructible” economy car. Once you’ve done all that, you’re in your “Fortress of Solitude.” I’m sure we could all quibble with the details, but overall I’ve heard worse money wisdom.
What’s he getting at with all of this advice? If you have $2.5 million and use the 4% rule, you could pull out $100,000 a year from your nest egg to live on. Nowhere in the video does it say you have to, or even should, quit working or bringing in additional money. It’s just that an 80-20 portfolio of that size gives you the comfort of knowing you have a potentially healthy income stream. From your “fortress,” you’re protected from all of the horrible things that can happen in this crazy world.
After hearing that speech, who wouldn’t want forget-you money? I know I did, and I think that’s the reason the idea stayed with me all these years. This year, upon rewatching the clip, I realized that I’m not too far from Collins’s unforgettable figure. Then it hit me that the video was released many years ago—in 2016. With inflation on everyone’s mind, I knew $2.5 million during the Obama administration didn’t have the same buying power today.
I visited the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator to see how Collins’s advice translates to today’s dollars. According to the calculator, to equal $2.5 million in 2016 dollars, you’d need almost $3.3 million in 2024. While that took some wind out of my sails, I already instinctively knew that I couldn’t be that close to forget-you status.
As I previously wrote, my wife and I are 10 to 12 years from retirement. By then, to keep pace with inflation, the forget-you amount will be higher still. Even before tracking the forget-you index, I knew from my mentor that I had to invest in things that—at a minimum—kept pace with inflation. Being in my 30s and 40s, that meant stocks.
Even today, our portfolio has very little in bonds. It’s almost exclusively in low-cost stock-index funds. Another sizable portion is in my wife’s employer’s publicly traded stock, which is outside our control. While we’d prefer to invest that money in mutual funds, the company stock has done fine and is a dividend aristocrat.
So, will I ever be able to say “forget you” to my boss or Mark Wahlberg or anyone else? I think so. As currently designed, our portfolio should outpace inflation and allow us to achieve a comfortable retirement. I might never use the same colorful language that Collins did. Still, if you find yourself asking me to do something 10 years from now and I say “no,” just know that in the back of my mind are two words I recall hearing from JL Collins.
Licensed in both Ohio and Kentucky, Ben Rodriguez practices real estate law in Cincinnati, where he lives with his wife and daughters. Since 2009, Ben’s made a hobby out of personal finance by reading books and articles on the subject, and also listening to podcasts. Check out his earlier articles.
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Hi all! This is a lovely post.
One thing I love to do with these posts on HD is to click the ads. I let it load, then just hit the back button and in back at the post. I figure I’m directing money to JC. Just my good deed each time I’m here at HD
Thanks for this. In the last day I’ve gone back to watch the YouTube clip numerous times. I’m still laughing. Also – sage advice.
Well, I figured I could swing forgetting my bosses (non-profit boards, ugh). When my brother died with two ex-wives and no children. I’ve got a 99% success number with less than $1m. We have been f-t travelers now for over 4 years and loving every border crossing.
Live your life. Live your life.