Momentum Wealth Management

Stuff We Like: The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel.

If you've ever made a financial decision you knew wasn't quite right — sold something when you shouldn't have, avoided looking at your statements for a few months, let a scary headline change what you were doing — this book explains why that happens and why it happens to almost everyone.

Housel's argument is simple: managing money well has less to do with how smart you are and more to do with how you behave when things get uncomfortable. The math of investing is actually pretty straightforward. The hard part is the human part.

It's one of the most readable books written about money in the last decade. No jargon, no complicated strategies — just an honest look at why people do what they do with their finances and what it actually takes to do better.

Something worth knowing if you work with a financial advisor at a large brokerage firm.

A number of major firms have quietly started drawing a line around which clients get a personal advisor and which ones get routed to a call center. If your account falls below a certain balance, the relationship you've built — sometimes over many years — can get reassigned. You call in and whoever answers is your advisor now.

Some of those same firms are rolling out AI tools to handle the financial planning for clients who don't meet a certain threshold. The pitch is that it's more efficient. What it actually means is that your financial life gets managed by software instead of a person who knows your name, understands your situation, and remembers the conversation you had three years ago about what you were trying to build.

This isn't a criticism for its own sake. It's just worth knowing. Large institutions make decisions based on what's profitable at scale. That's not the same as what's right for your specific situation.

An independent firm works differently. The relationship doesn't come with a balance requirement attached to it. You get the same attention whether your account is $200,000 or $2 million — because the whole business is built around the relationship, not the size of the account.

The industry is changing. It's worth knowing which kind of firm you're sitting across from.

Generational wealth sounds like something only certain families have. Old money. Big estates. Trusts with lawyers attached to them.

That's not what it actually is for most people.

Generational wealth is just the financial head start you give to the people who come after you. It can be a house that's paid off. A life insurance policy that keeps your family from starting from zero if something happens to you. A retirement account you helped your kid open when they got their first job. An estate plan that makes sure what you built actually gets to the people you intended — without a bigger tax bill than necessary.

The families that build real financial momentum across generations usually aren't doing anything extraordinary. They spend a little less than they earn. They invest the difference consistently. They protect what they build. And they talk about money in a way that makes the next generation smarter about it than they were.

What tends to break the cycle isn't bad luck. It's the absence of a plan. Money that was there and then wasn't, because nobody sat down and had the conversation about what to do with it.

You don't need a lot to start. You need a direction and some consistency. The rest compounds. 💡

If you bought a home or refinanced in the last few years, rates dropping last week is worth a second look.

Here's the thing nobody tells you clearly: refinancing isn't just about getting a lower rate. It's about whether the savings are big enough to justify what it costs to get there. And it does cost something — closing costs on a refinance typically run between 2% and 5% of the loan amount. On most mortgages that's several thousand dollars out of pocket before you save a single dollar on your payment.

So the question isn't "is the new rate lower?" The question is "how long until I actually come out ahead?"

There's one calculation that answers it. Take what the refinance costs you. Divide it by how much you'd save each month. That tells you how many months until you break even. If you're planning to stay in the home longer than that — the refinance makes sense. If you're thinking about moving in a year or two — it probably doesn't.

That's it. That's the whole framework. Know that number before you talk to a lender and you'll walk into the conversation with a lot more clarity.

If you want to hear the longer version — we got into the full breakdown on Good Returns last week. 🎙️

Nine weeks of gains. All-time highs almost every day. And the word "stagflation" showing up in financial commentary for the first time in this cycle.

Matt and Garrett explain what stagflation actually is, why we're not there yet, and what to watch to know if that changes. They also break down why yields reversed lower this week and what it means for the rate outlook.

In the Planning Room: the yields just moved. If you have a mortgage, this is the framework for figuring out whether a refinance actually makes sense for you right now.

New episode of Good Returns is live. Link in comments. 👇

Here's an honest answer to a question a lot of people Google but don't ask out loud: do I actually need a financial advisor?

Maybe not. If your finances are genuinely simple — a straightforward job, a 401(k) you're contributing to, no major complexity on the horizon — you can probably manage with good habits and some basic education.

But here's where it gets interesting. The people who benefit most from working with an advisor aren't always the ones with the most complicated finances. They're often the ones at a transition point — changing jobs, approaching retirement, selling a business, coming into money they didn't plan for, or just realizing that the decisions they're making now will compound for the next 30 years and they'd like to get them right.

The value of a good advisor isn't stock picks. It's the conversation you didn't know you needed. The question that surfaces a tax problem you didn't see coming. The plan that holds together when something changes.

The real question isn't "do I need an advisor." It's "is what I'm doing right now as good as it could be, and would I know if it wasn't?"

Most people can't answer that confidently. That's usually the sign.

Most people treat Social Security like a finish line. Hit 62, start collecting, done.

Here's what that decision actually costs.

The full retirement age for most people right now is 67. Claim at 62 and your monthly benefit gets permanently reduced — roughly 30% less than if you'd waited. That reduction doesn't go away. It compounds across every year of retirement.

Wait until 70 and your benefit grows by about 8% for every year past full retirement age. That's a guaranteed return on patience that's hard to find anywhere else.

The break-even math usually works out somewhere in the mid-70s — meaning if you live past that point, waiting wins financially. And with life expectancy where it is, a lot of people live well past it.

None of this means waiting is always right. Health matters. Whether you need the income matters. Whether your spouse's benefit is tied to yours matters. But walking into that decision without running the numbers first is one of the more expensive things a pre-retiree can do.

One conversation about timing can be worth tens of thousands of dollars over a retirement. That's not an exaggeration.

We're almost halfway through the year. A good time to ask a few questions you probably haven't asked yet.

Are you on track with what you said you wanted to do financially this year? Not in a vague way — actually on track. Contributions where you planned them. Debt moving the direction you wanted. Savings rate where it needs to be.

Has anything changed that your financial plan doesn't know about yet? A new job. A raise. A big expense that's coming. A goal that shifted. Plans don't update themselves.

If you have kids heading to college in the next few years, summer is one of the better windows to look at what you've saved versus what you'll need. The gap between those two numbers is easier to close with time than without it.

None of this requires a full financial overhaul. It's more like checking in with the version of yourself from January and seeing if that person's priorities still match today's reality.

For most people, a mid-year check takes an hour. The cost of skipping it tends to show up later, in decisions made with outdated information.

You've probably heard the 4% rule. Retire with a million dollars, pull out $40,000 a year, and you'll be fine.

Here's what that advice leaves out.

The original research behind it was done in 1994, using historical market data from a specific 30-year window. It assumed a mix of stocks and bonds, a 30-year retirement, and no major changes to your spending over time. Change any of those variables and the math shifts.

Retire at 55 instead of 65 and you might need the money to last 40 years, not 30. Retire into a down market and the sequence of early withdrawals can do real damage that later recoveries don't fully fix. Add in healthcare costs that tend to climb faster than general inflation and $40,000 a year starts looking different by year 15 than it did on day one.

None of this means the 4% rule is useless. It's a reasonable rough estimate for a starting conversation. The problem is when people treat it as a finished plan.

A real withdrawal strategy looks at your specific accounts, your specific tax situation, your Social Security timing, your actual expenses, and builds from there. The rule gives you a number. The plan gives you a reason to trust it.