How To Really Ruin Your Financial Life and Portfolio

Preface

It has only been the wink of an eye since I wrote How to Really Ruin Your Financial Life. Nevertheless, I have had endless rushes of additional admonitions I would respectfully add to the list of do’s and don’ts.

The first that comes to mind is that I may have, over the course of my life, been too zealous in urging men and women to save for their old age. Naturally, it is sensible, even mandatory, to have enough for a decent old age. To be old and in penury is misery in amber.

But as I have grown old much faster than I ever dreamed possible, it also occurs to me that life should be lived and enjoyed as it’s happening. To postpone your joy and happiness and even material consumption to leave more for yourself when you are too feeble to enjoy it or more for your heirs is—it seems to me—often a mistake. Let them fend for themselves once a comfortable level of inheritance is reached. Let you enjoy your life while you are still young enough to do so.

A delicate balance is required, but sometimes spending is better than saving. My parents offered me the best example. They were too frugal (although wildly generous with my sister and me). They should have lived a life of more first-class travel. I wish they had lived it up more themselves and left less to the IRS, which feasted mightily on their remains.

No foolish extravagance, but some extravagance, is a decent rule.

I have spent most of my life in the company of hounds, first Weimaraners and then German Short-Haired Pointers. ...