When advising our clients to stay the course (i.e. stay fully invested), our advice is not based on wishful thinking about the markets. The advice is grounded in historical reality, and in a hope for the future.

These past few weeks have seen extreme stock market volatility, the WHO declaring a pandemic, and the U.S. implementing travel restrictions and many other measures (with more to come, assuredly) to help combat the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

Our thoughts on the current stock market malaise -- and accompanying Coronavirus fears.

There is no shortage of discount cell service providers these days. It's to the point where The Paradox of Choice and inertia set in, leading most folks to simply stick with the same cell provider they have always used. My wife and I switched from Verizon to Consumer Cellular in October 2017. The main only reason we switched was to save money. The tl:dr version of this post is that we really like Consumer Cellular.

I won’t tell you that skipping lattes will make you a millionaire (because I don’t believe that). I’m not going to spend-shame anyone in this post. But I will forever maintain that frugality is a darn-near surefire way of building wealth. If you spend meaningfully less money than you make (that is, saving 15% or more of your income), it necessarily follows that you will build wealth. That’s not an opinion; it’s math. If you can only save 10%, then start there. But ultimately, work up toward a 20% savings rate…and then move higher from there. We have multiple clients saving more than 50% of their after-tax income.

Statements you will hear outside TWG’s walls, but not inside them: “Money is really cheap right now.” “I get a tax deduction on this, so it’s a good deal.” “The dealership is providing interest-free financing on the new model, so I’ll buy new.” “We refinanced and are saving $300/month on our payments.”