You Don’t Need a Financial Advisor. You Need the Truth.
The Brutally Honest Guide to Building Wealth
Let’s cut the crap and talk about money like adults. No financial jargon, no sales pitch — just the unfiltered truth about how to build wealth without getting screwed over.
Key Principles for Financial Success
Asset Allocation Drives Returns: Over 90% of your investment performance comes from boring asset allocation — not from your brother-in-law’s hot crypto tip or whatever CNBC is screaming about this week. Research confirms this repeatedly, yet most people spend their time obsessively tracking individual stocks instead of getting their overall mix right.
Your Brain Is Your Biggest Risk: The average investor earns only about 2–3% annually while the market returns 8–10% — all because of emotional decisions. If you can’t watch your $10,000 shrink to $7,000 on paper without freaking out, you either shouldn’t be in stocks or you need to train yourself to chill out. The market has downturns; it’s the price of admission for the high returns.
Diversification Is Your Safety Net: Diversification isn’t sexy, but it’s effective. When one basket drops, the other’s intact. Don’t be the idiot with 50% of your portfolio in your employer’s stock — if your company goes under, you lose your job and your savings. True diversification means different industries, geographies, and asset classes.
Fees Silently Kill Your Wealth: A 1% annual fee might sound small, but over 30 years on a $100,000 investment, it devours nearly $187,000 of your potential wealth. Fees are like termites eating away at your money quietly. Every dollar in fees is a dollar not compounding for you — and over decades, that’s a massive difference.
Time Is Your Greatest Ally: To reach $1 million by age 65 (at 7% returns):
Start at 25: Save $380/month
Start at 35: Save $820/month
Start at 45: Save $1,900/month
Delay is brutal. Time and compounding are magic. Putting off investing isn’t just procrastination — it’s literally costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Building Your No-BS Investment Strategy
Step 1: Set Your Asset Mix
Most people spend 95% of their time worrying about the wrong things. They obsess over picking “the next Amazon” or when to jump in and out of the market. That’s a sucker’s game. The truth is, if you just set a sensible allocation and regularly invest in those buckets, you’re already ahead of the majority.
Young with time to recover from downturns? Try 80–90% stocks, 10–20% bonds.
Middle-aged? Consider 60% stocks, 40% bonds.
Near retirement? Perhaps 50–60% stocks, rest in bonds and cash.
Whatever percentages you choose, write them down in an Investment Policy Statement. This helps you stick to the plan when emotions flare and markets crash. It’s your anchor in the storm.
Step 2: Diversify Properly
Don’t overthink this: You do not need to analyze the correlation matrix of every asset. Just avoid concentration in any one thing. A super-effective portfolio needs just 3–5 low-cost funds:
U.S. stock index fund (covers hundreds of companies)
International stock index fund (covers the world outside the U.S.)
Bond index fund (covers government and corporate bonds)
(Optional) Real estate fund for diversification beyond stocks and bonds
(Optional) Small-cap or emerging markets fund if you want extra spice
That combo can have thousands of securities inside, meaning you’re ultra-diversified. If any one company or even country falters, it barely dents you. Boom, done.
Step 3: Use Tax-Advantaged Accounts
If your job offers a 401k match and you’re not contributing enough to get the full match — correct that yesterday. It’s free money. Not taking it is like leaving cash on the sidewalk.
The government will tax your investment gains differently depending on where you hold them. Use this to your advantage:
401(k)/IRA: Get your employer match first, then max out what you can.
Choose Roth (pay tax now) if you’re young or expect higher income later.
Choose Traditional (tax break now) if you’re in high tax brackets and expect lower income in retirement.
Put tax-heavy assets (REITs, high-yield bonds) in tax-sheltered accounts.
Put tax-efficient investments (broad stock index funds) in taxable accounts.
Step 4: Automate and Forget
During turbulent times, checking your balance five times a day is pouring gasoline on the fire of anxiety. Set it and forget it — maybe review monthly or quarterly. Your future self will thank you.
Set up automatic monthly contributions to your investment accounts.
Rebalance annually to maintain your target allocation.
Ignore financial news that’s designed to trigger your fear and greed.
Avoiding Common Wealth-Killers
The Emotional Trap
Blunt truth: If you cannot manage your emotions, you cannot manage your money. I don’t care if you have the greatest investing strategy on paper; the second you panic-sell everything in a crash, it’s game over — you’ve locked in losses and likely will miss the rebound.
The market is positive most of the time over long stretches. In 96 years of history, about 73% of one-year periods were positive, and a whopping 94% of 10-year periods were positive. The losers are the ones who bail out during the 6% of bad decades and miss the recovery.
Reframe how you see downturns: Instead of “OMG I’m losing money,” think “stocks are on sale!” If a pair of shoes goes 30% off, you get excited to buy cheaper. Do the same with your investments.
The Fee Trap
Paying 1% for a mutual fund when an equivalent index is 0.03% is basically donating money to the fund manager’s yacht fund. Always ask advisors, “How do you get paid?” If the answer is murky or they get defensive, watch out.
Warning signs to watch for:
Whole life insurance pitched as an “investment”
Front-loaded mutual funds with 3–5% upfront fees
“Free” advisors at your bank (they’re paid through product commissions)
Variable annuities inside retirement accounts
Advisors who won’t put in writing that they’re fiduciaries 100% of the time
The Complexity Trap
Wall Street loves to make simple things sound complicated to justify their fees. Don’t fall for it. If you can’t explain how an investment works to a 10-year-old, don’t buy it.
The finance industry pushes fear to justify fees. Ever hear an advisor say, “You need us to navigate these uncertain markets” or “Don’t try this at home, you’ll lose money”? If an advisor primarily sells you on your own incompetence as the reason to pay them, they’re selling fear, not value.
Essential Financial Shields
Insurance: What You Actually Need
Health insurance isn’t a place to be cheap — a $200/month premium sucks until you consider the alternative of a $200,000 medical debt because you thought you didn’t need coverage.
Term life insurance is the way to go for 99% of people. It’s cheap for a lot of coverage when you’re young and healthy. Whole life costs maybe 10–20x more in premium for the same death benefit. Why? Because part of your premium is funding that cash account (and hefty commissions). Life insurance isn’t an investment, it’s a safety net. Keep those purposes separate.
Disability insurance is hugely important and often overlooked. You are far more likely to become disabled during your working years than to die. If you couldn’t work for an extended period, how screwed would you be? Focus on long-term disability with an “own-occupation” definition (it pays if you can’t do your job, even if you could do some other work).
Other essentials:
Property Insurance: Homeowners/renters + auto with liability limits at least equal to your net worth.
Umbrella Insurance: If you have decent assets, this gives you extra liability protection for a few hundred bucks a year. Great value.
Skip these likely wastes of money:
Extended warranties on electronics
Cancer-specific insurance policies
Accidental death insurance
Credit card payment protection
Most phone insurance
Insure against financial ruin, not against stuff you can budget for. You insure your house because it burning down would be a financial catastrophe; you don’t insure your toaster because you can buy a new toaster.
Emergency Fund
Have an emergency fund in cash for life’s surprises. This way, when crap hits the fan (job loss, medical bill, your car’s transmission dies), you’re not forced to sell investments at the worst time. A good rule of thumb is 3–6 months of expenses in a savings account. It’s an insurance policy against raiding your 401(k) or panic selling.
Estate Planning Basics
Dying without a plan is basically the most disorganized (and selfish) financial move you can make — it dumps stress on your grieving family and might distribute your assets in ways you wouldn’t be happy about.
The majority of Americans don’t have even a basic will. Only about 1 in 4 Americans currently has a will in place — which means 3 out of 4 are essentially gambling that nothing bad will happen or leaving a mess if it does. Don’t be that person.
At minimum, you need:
A Will: Specifies who gets what and who cares for minor children.
Beneficiary Designations: Keep these updated on all accounts and insurance policies.
Power of Attorney: Allows someone to handle your finances if you’re alive but can’t act.
Healthcare Directive: Who makes medical decisions if you can’t? What are your wishes?
Handle your shit now, so others won’t have to handle it for you later.
When You Actually Need Professional Help
Worth It When: If you have a complicated financial life — think multiple goals, a business, a family, tricky tax situations, etc. — a CFP can create a coordinated plan. It’s like having a financial quarterback. For many folks, this holistic planning is worth a few thousand bucks because it can save you far more in mistakes avoided and opportunities seized.
A good advisor acts as a behavioral coach, preventing you from making panic-driven decisions during market extremes. Vanguard research quantified that a good advisor’s behavioral coaching can add about 1.5% per year to clients’ returns by keeping them on track. In total, advisors following best practices can add around 3% in value through various services.
Not Worth It When: If your situation is straightforward — say you’re 30, single, decent job, just want to invest in a retirement account and maybe save for a house — you likely do not need to pay 1% of your growing assets for 30 years to someone. Many advisors love to scoop up young clients and charge them indefinitely for pretty minimal work after the initial setup.
Be cautious of anyone pushing the idea that you can’t possibly navigate basic financial decisions without them, especially if their solution is a product they conveniently can sell you.
If meetings with them feel like timeshare presentations, run. If they recommend products before fully understanding your situation, run faster. If they dismiss your questions or pressure you to sign something quickly, show them the door. A relationship with an advisor should feel like a partnership, not a sales pitch.
No advisor can reliably beat the market net of fees. If someone claims they’ll outperform with clever stock picks or market timing, they’re selling you a fantasy. A legit advisor focuses on planning and appropriate investing, not magical outperforming prowess.
Final Truth: You Can Do This
Ultimately, becoming a successful investor isn’t about being the smartest person in the room or having some secret insight. It’s about consistently doing the right, simple things, and avoiding the stupid mistakes that derail others. It’s about playing the long game, managing risk, and keeping your costs low and your discipline high.
It’s somewhat anticlimactic — there’s no magic formula, just a lot of brutally honest, proven principles. But these principles work. They’ve worked for decades for those who follow them.
So next time a fancy advisor in a suit (or a slick TikTok finance “guru”) talks down to you or tries to sell you something that doesn’t smell right, you’ll have the knowledge to call out the BS. You’ll know what truly matters for your financial success and what’s just noise or salesmanship.
Remember: It’s your money and your future. Take charge of it. No advisor, broker, or pundit will care as much as you do about reaching your goals. The path to financial freedom is long but straightforward: spend less than you earn, invest the rest wisely, and let time and compound interest do their magic. You got this. No crap, no fear — just steady, informed moves toward the life you want.
If you need me. I’m here.
— Cody Taymore
Kill The Silence Isn’t Just a Newsletter. It’s a Survival System.
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Go Cody! GO!!!!!
This is really an important reminder!