I first came across the Humble Dollar website and signed up for newsletters in March 2023. I looked forward to Jonathan’s newsletters and read them religiously with my first cup of coffee. Why did I arrive at Humble Dollar? My wife and I first started having discussions about when to retire in the fall of 2022, I was 59 at the time, during our first post-COVID international trip to the UK. Our retirement planning to that point had been no more than to make contributions to our 401ks to build retirement savings. We also lived within our means and worked towards paying off our mortgage before we retired. Not because we had received good financial advice, I think mostly because of our modest upbringings and we both seem to be hard-wired that way. Upon our return from the UK, we arranged a discussion with a Financial Adviser. The initial and subsequent meetings with the adviser were OK, but I had a sense that the meetings were a little rushed, my questions were not always answered very well and the adviser did not seem organized/well prepared. I guess that can happen when advisers have multiple clients and maybe our net worth didn’t garner the same level of attention as wealthier clients? Either way, I didn’t have comfort that our life’s savings were his first priority. Add the cost of management fees and I thought there had to be a better way? My internet research over time distilled to Humble Dollar and The Paul Merriman Foundation. Paul Merriman refers to Jonathan Clements as one of his “Truth Tellers” which is so true. I have found both of these websites to be educational, they contain tremendous resources and I recommend them without reservation. Who knew retirement can be so complicated? Humble Dollar has helped me to make sense of it all, provided a ‘vocabulary’ if you will and has helped broaden my overall understanding. I am from England originally and have lived in the USA the past 31 years. The initial conversation in the fall of 2022 was motivated by the fact that and I wanted to see if we could spend more time with my mother who had just turned 85. Unfortunately, our “best laid plans” were curtailed when my mother passed a few months later, after a brief illness in January 2023. This certainly brought my own mortality into sharp focus, as did Jonathan’s article “The C Word” in June 2024 describing his cancer diagnosis. His article started quite simply “On Sunday Morning, May 19”. I did not know Jonathan personally, but as others have stated he felt like a friend to me. I also felt a connection because we were both Brits, educated in England and very close in age, just a few months apart. My birthday is May 19, the same as that fateful day for Jonathan. Over the past two and half years since I found Humble Dollar Jonathan also helped me understand the emotions and human side of finances and retirement planning. My wife is now retired and engaged volunteering for several community organizations. I work on a part time basis for the same company I have worked for nearly 30 years and feel I still have something to offer. This past year we have had the opportunity to make extended trips to the UK and Europe and taken advantage of the opportunity to connect with family I have not seen very much of the past three decades. Our trips to visit family and friends in the USA are also now longer and more meaningful. We hope to continue to do more of the same. Jonathan and his Humble Dollar community have given us:
The confidence to manage our retirement finances.
An understanding of the many facets of retirement planning from Investing to Social Security to Medicare to Long Term Care to Insurance and much more.
An understanding that the decision to ‘retire’ does not necessarily need to be a onetime light switch off moment. Having purpose in retirement is important.
The insight to enjoy life’s experiences, it’s not all about money.
Jonathan’s work, and the many contributions made by the Humble Dollar community he built, have been foundational and helped us to be intentional charting our course. Thank you Jonathan and Godspeed.
I suggest the following traits (thinking about how I would advise my daughter in her career) some are duplicates from other comments below:
Integrity / Respectful - trumps everything else.
Embrace Challenges or Difficult Work - while there may be more opportunity for failure, there is also more opportunity to get noticed and advance your career and be successful.
Ability to Pivot - the ability to be self-critical, understand when your ideas may not be the best path or something isn't working.
Is Committed and Dependable -speaks for itself
Has High Standards - hold yourself and others to high standards. Consistently produce quality and accurate work.
Takes Advantage of Luck/Good Fortune - sometimes you get lucky, run with it and work hard to make the most of those opportunities.
In Dan's original post he offers to share his knowledge of Bitcoin (BTC) to those who are interested. I believe his offer admirable and in keeping with the educational spirit of Humble Dollar.
There are indeed many pitfalls in the wider ‘crypto’ space, some of which have been noted in the comments below. I believe Dan’s intent is to share resources for those looking to learn more and I hope this will help them avoid those pitfalls.
Dan references only BTC and not ‘crypto’ in his post. I believe this was an intentional distinction, Dan feel free to correct me if I am wrong. BTC adoption is increasing rapidly, and publicly traded companies (currently 140) include BTC holdings as part of their treasury strategy. Future adoption by S&P 500 companies is predicted to increase significantly (currently Tesla, Coinbase and Block are the only BTC holders). The BTC distinction in Dan’s post is important because I personally would advise against investing in the ‘crypto’ world of alternative currencies, coins, tokens etc. and leveraged proxies for BTC, such as Strategy (MSTR) referenced in a comment below.
In Dan’s post he is not suggesting that BTC become a primary investment strategy. Over the years I have been visiting the HD website I have noted that many readers have indicated they do not follow the guiding principles of low cost diversified indexing and bonds for their entire portfolio construction. They also participate, in limited fashion, in alternative investing strategies in order to add alpha to their portfolios, for the fun of investing, or other personal circumstances. I personally recommend to friends and acquaintances the investing strategy of low cost diversified index funds and bonds advocated by Jonathan Clements, and other ‘truth tellers’ for the vast majority, if not all, the value of one’s retirement portfolio. I also recommend that if risky assets or strategies are adopted, then to make sure that potential losses will not significantly impact your retirement plans should the risky investment(s) in fact go to $0.
The vast majority of BTC holders are not criminals. BTC is increasingly being avoided by criminals because of its public, traceable ledger, which is monitored by financial intelligence services and gives law enforcement the ability to trace transactions. Criminal BTC transaction volumes have shifted significantly to other forms of ‘crypto’ where transactions are untraceable, which is also the ‘crypto’ space I personally recommend avoiding.
It is rumored that Vanguard is considering launching a BTC ETF. Vanguard CEO Salim Ramji oversaw the launch of BlackRock’s bitcoin ETF (IBIT) in 2024. (Disclosure: IBIT is the vehicle I use for my limited BTC holdings. I do so for simplicity and tax reporting purposes).
This is not a sales pitch for BTC and is in fact a warning against ‘crypto’ at large. If one is considering entering this space heed the warnings and be prepared to walk away. If you don’t walk away, do your homework (take advantage of an offer like Dan’s above to ask questions), limit your exposure, be disciplined and expect volatility.
I agree with Patrick that curiosity, research and educating oneself is a critical part of investing. I assume this is one of the reasons we visit the HD site. As I have posted elsewhere I was a bitcoin (BTC) naysayer for years but I do currently have a limited holding within a Roth IRA, utilizing IBIT ETF and a disciplined approach to harvesting gains. This approach sits within an otherwise conservative retirement portfolio that is essentially 50:50 bonds and diversified low cost index funds. I understand BTC is a highly volatile and speculative investment, and that many will stay away. Just as many will stay away for individual stocks, private equity or underperforming ‘managed’ mutual funds (I do also). If I recall correctly, when John Bogle launched his first index fund another Wall Street investment firm took out a full page advert in the WSJ calling his index fund “unAmerican”. I say this because the early index fund adopters acted on their own research and judgment, helped by the writings of the likes of Jonathan Clements, in the face of the prevalent Wall St ‘advice’ to the contrary. It took a number years for the real world results to show the outperformance of index funds or should I say underperformance of managed mutual funds? This comment is not an attempt to compare bitcoin with index funds but to support Patrick’s comment and encourage staying curious and educating oneself. I try to do this even if the research more often than not results in me not voting with my wallet.
Bogdan, it must be daunting following in the footsteps of a giant. I often refer friends and acquaintances to HD as a ‘source of truth’ in a complex financial world. But where to start when a newcomer visits the HD Site. I have bookmarked this as a good place to start, thank you for this article.🙏 🇬🇧 👓
Nobel prize winning economist Harry Markowitz said "I should have computed the historical covariances of the asset classes and drawn an efficient frontier. Instead, I visualized my grief if the stock market went way up and I wasn't in it—or if it went way down and I was completely in it. My intention was to minimize my future regret. So I split my contributions 50/50 between bonds and equities". He said this after the 1987 stock market crash. While this is about portfolio allocation it reveals he made investment decisions based on minimizing personal regret and ability to sleep at night……I believe if you can sleep at night then you made the right decision. Maybe Harry would have gone with 50% lump sum and 50% DCA? My wife and I have also been making financial plans for future retirement, transferring from 401k’s to IRAs and the process does indeed present a conundrum that you have outlined. My wife introduces a healthy dose of skepticism into the conversation and while I was quick to move my 401k back into the market, we only recently completed hers, so I guess we inadvertently ended up closer to the ‘posthumous’ Markowitz approach. Indeed, our portfolio allocation has by design (not based on Markowitz) now shifted to 50% bonds, 45% stocks and 5% Bitcoin with a goal of being overall quite defensive but with a risk asset within Roth IRAs that can potentially add outsize gains. To date we have harvested Bitcoin gains so that we stay within 5% and our original investment has been returned to our stock portfolio of diversified, low cost index funds. I know the Bitcoin approach may garner some down votes but it has worked so far for us (and I too was a BTC naysayer for years).
RIP Jonathan and my heat felt condolences to Elaine and your family. In an effort to not be sad, I like to think Jonathan is now sitting shoulder to shoulder with to the likes of John Bogle, who is smiling and giving an approving nod and wink.
From my non-expert perspective I agree that BTC is the ‘gold standard’. Once BTC ETFs became ‘legal’ I moved my bitcoin related holdings to IBIT. Some additional thoughts / comments:
I have been following ’crypto’ for a few years now. For all the reading on BTC and NFTs etc, I would say I still have a limited understanding. I vowed years ago that I would never go there from an investment perspective. Never say never.
I also have limited understanding of the businesses in the S&P 500. A good number of the companies I have a reasonable understanding, some not so much, but it doesn’t stop me from including a low cost S&P 500 ETF in my retirement account.
I have a very conservative mix of ETFs and US Treasuries in my retirement accounts. A couple of years ago I was looking to take on a little more risk, specifically to ‘spice-up’ my Roth IRA, and started investing in BTC with the idea that the total holding would be less than 2% of my total portfolio. I have since ‘cashed-in’ the original 2% dollar value and the remaining BTC holdings sit at around 8% of the portfolio.
It has been a volatile ride to this point. As a guiding light I generally look at global money supply. There is a strong correlation between global money supply and BTC, with the valuation of BTC tracking generally a few months behind money supply.
I have seen my initial investment show red ink on a number of occasions. I expected that and was prepared to live with that as I knew it was risky. The question for those interested in BTC is once (if) your initial investment creates a meaningful return, then what?
From my perspective BTC adoption is still in its infancy and with moves afoot to allow 401Ks to invest in BTC I still see more upside potential. But the volatility drawdowns will be more painful if the % dollar value of BTC in my portfolio increases. That being said I have found the long term US Treasuries bonds I invested in Oct ‘24 to act as a foundation in my portfolio do a good job at keeping things in balance.
I will not venture into the wild west of ‘crypto’ with NFT tokens etc. Other mainstream currencies such as ETH and SOL I have small investments in.
Comments
I first came across the Humble Dollar website and signed up for newsletters in March 2023. I looked forward to Jonathan’s newsletters and read them religiously with my first cup of coffee. Why did I arrive at Humble Dollar? My wife and I first started having discussions about when to retire in the fall of 2022, I was 59 at the time, during our first post-COVID international trip to the UK. Our retirement planning to that point had been no more than to make contributions to our 401ks to build retirement savings. We also lived within our means and worked towards paying off our mortgage before we retired. Not because we had received good financial advice, I think mostly because of our modest upbringings and we both seem to be hard-wired that way. Upon our return from the UK, we arranged a discussion with a Financial Adviser. The initial and subsequent meetings with the adviser were OK, but I had a sense that the meetings were a little rushed, my questions were not always answered very well and the adviser did not seem organized/well prepared. I guess that can happen when advisers have multiple clients and maybe our net worth didn’t garner the same level of attention as wealthier clients? Either way, I didn’t have comfort that our life’s savings were his first priority. Add the cost of management fees and I thought there had to be a better way? My internet research over time distilled to Humble Dollar and The Paul Merriman Foundation. Paul Merriman refers to Jonathan Clements as one of his “Truth Tellers” which is so true. I have found both of these websites to be educational, they contain tremendous resources and I recommend them without reservation. Who knew retirement can be so complicated? Humble Dollar has helped me to make sense of it all, provided a ‘vocabulary’ if you will and has helped broaden my overall understanding. I am from England originally and have lived in the USA the past 31 years. The initial conversation in the fall of 2022 was motivated by the fact that and I wanted to see if we could spend more time with my mother who had just turned 85. Unfortunately, our “best laid plans” were curtailed when my mother passed a few months later, after a brief illness in January 2023. This certainly brought my own mortality into sharp focus, as did Jonathan’s article “The C Word” in June 2024 describing his cancer diagnosis. His article started quite simply “On Sunday Morning, May 19”. I did not know Jonathan personally, but as others have stated he felt like a friend to me. I also felt a connection because we were both Brits, educated in England and very close in age, just a few months apart. My birthday is May 19, the same as that fateful day for Jonathan. Over the past two and half years since I found Humble Dollar Jonathan also helped me understand the emotions and human side of finances and retirement planning. My wife is now retired and engaged volunteering for several community organizations. I work on a part time basis for the same company I have worked for nearly 30 years and feel I still have something to offer. This past year we have had the opportunity to make extended trips to the UK and Europe and taken advantage of the opportunity to connect with family I have not seen very much of the past three decades. Our trips to visit family and friends in the USA are also now longer and more meaningful. We hope to continue to do more of the same. Jonathan and his Humble Dollar community have given us:
- The confidence to manage our retirement finances.
- An understanding of the many facets of retirement planning from Investing to Social Security to Medicare to Long Term Care to Insurance and much more.
- An understanding that the decision to ‘retire’ does not necessarily need to be a onetime light switch off moment. Having purpose in retirement is important.
- The insight to enjoy life’s experiences, it’s not all about money.
Jonathan’s work, and the many contributions made by the Humble Dollar community he built, have been foundational and helped us to be intentional charting our course. Thank you Jonathan and Godspeed.Post: Thank you, Jonathan
Link to comment from September 30, 2025
I suggest the following traits (thinking about how I would advise my daughter in her career) some are duplicates from other comments below:
Post: Traits of “successful” people
Link to comment from September 30, 2025
Some thoughts to add to the conversation:
Post: Why Bitcoin?
Link to comment from September 29, 2025
I agree with Patrick that curiosity, research and educating oneself is a critical part of investing. I assume this is one of the reasons we visit the HD site. As I have posted elsewhere I was a bitcoin (BTC) naysayer for years but I do currently have a limited holding within a Roth IRA, utilizing IBIT ETF and a disciplined approach to harvesting gains. This approach sits within an otherwise conservative retirement portfolio that is essentially 50:50 bonds and diversified low cost index funds. I understand BTC is a highly volatile and speculative investment, and that many will stay away. Just as many will stay away for individual stocks, private equity or underperforming ‘managed’ mutual funds (I do also). If I recall correctly, when John Bogle launched his first index fund another Wall Street investment firm took out a full page advert in the WSJ calling his index fund “unAmerican”. I say this because the early index fund adopters acted on their own research and judgment, helped by the writings of the likes of Jonathan Clements, in the face of the prevalent Wall St ‘advice’ to the contrary. It took a number years for the real world results to show the outperformance of index funds or should I say underperformance of managed mutual funds? This comment is not an attempt to compare bitcoin with index funds but to support Patrick’s comment and encourage staying curious and educating oneself. I try to do this even if the research more often than not results in me not voting with my wallet.
Post: Why Bitcoin?
Link to comment from September 27, 2025
Bogdan, it must be daunting following in the footsteps of a giant. I often refer friends and acquaintances to HD as a ‘source of truth’ in a complex financial world. But where to start when a newcomer visits the HD Site. I have bookmarked this as a good place to start, thank you for this article. 🙏 🇬🇧 👓
Post: Best of Jonathan’s HumbleDollar Posts
Link to comment from September 27, 2025
Thank you Dan. So far ^1, which begs the question, is it one upvote or 10 downvotes and 11 upvotes or …..😊
Post: Told Ya So Big Dummy
Link to comment from September 27, 2025
Nobel prize winning economist Harry Markowitz said "I should have computed the historical covariances of the asset classes and drawn an efficient frontier. Instead, I visualized my grief if the stock market went way up and I wasn't in it—or if it went way down and I was completely in it. My intention was to minimize my future regret. So I split my contributions 50/50 between bonds and equities". He said this after the 1987 stock market crash. While this is about portfolio allocation it reveals he made investment decisions based on minimizing personal regret and ability to sleep at night……I believe if you can sleep at night then you made the right decision. Maybe Harry would have gone with 50% lump sum and 50% DCA? My wife and I have also been making financial plans for future retirement, transferring from 401k’s to IRAs and the process does indeed present a conundrum that you have outlined. My wife introduces a healthy dose of skepticism into the conversation and while I was quick to move my 401k back into the market, we only recently completed hers, so I guess we inadvertently ended up closer to the ‘posthumous’ Markowitz approach. Indeed, our portfolio allocation has by design (not based on Markowitz) now shifted to 50% bonds, 45% stocks and 5% Bitcoin with a goal of being overall quite defensive but with a risk asset within Roth IRAs that can potentially add outsize gains. To date we have harvested Bitcoin gains so that we stay within 5% and our original investment has been returned to our stock portfolio of diversified, low cost index funds. I know the Bitcoin approach may garner some down votes but it has worked so far for us (and I too was a BTC naysayer for years).
Post: Told Ya So Big Dummy
Link to comment from September 27, 2025
RIP Jonathan and my heat felt condolences to Elaine and your family. In an effort to not be sad, I like to think Jonathan is now sitting shoulder to shoulder with to the likes of John Bogle, who is smiling and giving an approving nod and wink.
Post: Farewell Friends
Link to comment from September 22, 2025
From my non-expert perspective I agree that BTC is the ‘gold standard’. Once BTC ETFs became ‘legal’ I moved my bitcoin related holdings to IBIT. Some additional thoughts / comments:
Post: Supercharging Your Retirement with Crypto: A Wise Move, or a Risky Bet?
Link to comment from August 9, 2025
Stay the course, per Barron's, S&P 500 returns by president 1953-1957 Eisenhower (R) 71% 1957-1961 Eisenhower (R) 34% 1961-1965 Kennedy/Johnson (D) 45% 1965-1969 Johnson (D) 18% 1969-1973 Nixon (R) 17% 1973-1977 Nixon/Ford (R) -13% 1977-1981 Carter (D) 31% 1981-1985 Reagan (R) 30% 1985-1989 Reagan (R) 68% 1989-1993 Bush (R) 52% 1993-1997 Clinton (D) 79% 1997-2001 Clinton (D) 73% 2001-2005 Bush (R) -12% 2005-2009 Bush (R) -28% 2009-2013 Obama (D) 85% 2013-2017 Obama (D) 52% 2017-2021 Trump (R) 67% 2021-2025 Biden (D) 56% Average 40% per term or 10%/year no mystery there
Post: Limits of Power
Link to comment from January 20, 2025