Happy New Year! In a strange turn of events, we didn’t all get the plague this year and are somehow all healthy and well-rested. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that we already paid the price by getting multiple disease back in the fall from putting LMS in international daycares in Spain. This was the year we tested out nomadic family life for 3 months in Europe, and it surprised us in […]

Our en bloc journey has yet another twist in the tale before the final conclusion. It’s been a pretty crazy ride, one that lasted 3 attempts over 8 years, but there’s one last fight in this aging estate yet. Loyang Valley will relaunch for tender on 8 January 2026 at the same Reserve Price of S$880,000,000. What’s changed since the last tender closed? Well, there’s been a lot of correspondence between the CSC, our marketing […]

Tiffany “The Budgetnista” Aliche, New York Times bestselling author, once told a story about how she was on a long walk around Central Park when she saw the most perfect leaf she had ever seen in her life. It was fall in New York City and many of the leaves were now a bold mix of red, yellow, and orange. This particular leaf had a brilliant fusion of all three as it lay bare on the gray sidewalk.  As she gazed upon the leaf, Aliche began to wonder, “How many other people had noticed this perfect leaf while walking by? In the busyness of their big city lives, had anyone seen it at all?” Aliche went on to explain that she was probably the only person in the entire city who had really witnessed this leaf and its flawless beauty. But then she turned to think about the perspective of the leaf. Had the leaf “decided” to be perfect because people would notice it? Of course not. There was no conscious decision by the leaf to turn out the way it did. The leaf existed without knowing whether it would be noticed at all. It became this version of itself simply because that’s what leaves do. As Aliche concluded, “The leaf leafs anyway.” It might sound a bit cheesy, but Aliche’s observation highlights one of the key tensions many of us face in our careers—should we do something because we will get rewarded for it or because it’s fundamental to who we are? Unlike leaves, humans often do things because those things could get them noticed. Unfortunately, while we all want to be recognized for our accomplishments, chasing external validation like money, status, or fame can eventually leave us unfulfilled. This is why the better path toward long-term behavior change is intrinsic motivation, or pursuing a behavior because it is inherently rewarding or personally satisfying. In other words, do something primarily because it’s who you are, not because others are rewarding you for it. The academic research overwhelmingly supports this notion. Individuals with more intrinsic motivation were more likely to stick with a long-term behavior change, whether that was quitting smoking, losing weight, or adhering to a new fitness routine. The example I always think of is my Nana (my maternal grandmother), who quit smoking cold turkey after her five-year-old grandson (me) told her that it was going to kill her. Realizing that she needed to preserve her health so that she could enjoy more time with her family made the choice easy for her. Thankfully, she’s still around over 30 years later. Stories like this, along with the academic results on intrinsic motivation, make intuitive sense as well. After all, if a behavior fits your values or identity, you can see why you’d stick with it longer than a behavior you’re being externally rewarded for. This doesn’t imply that external rewards harm motivation. In fact, according to one meta-analysis, external rewards only reduced intrinsic motivation in very specific circumstances.

The post Is It Better to Save or Invest? Here’s Your 2026 Guide appeared first on Dividend Power. Deciding whether to save or invest is one of the most important financial questions individuals face at every stage of life. In an uncertain global economy, understanding how to balance financial security and long-term growth has become even more critical. Many people frequently ask, should I save or invest, especially as market volatility, inflation, and shifting interest rates […]

The best lazy investing portfolio is the set up in line with your risk tolerance and rebalanced regularly. In investing there’s no one right way to invest or manage your portfolio. In fact there are hundreds of approaches, from momentum, buy and hold, tactical, technical and more. Active portfolio managers, each have their own ideas about how to get the highest returns for their strategies. Hedge funds, clamor for alpha from creative investment strategies. Finally, the market timers attempt to outsmart the indexes and strive to invest at the bottom and sell at the top. In most cases, your best lazy portfolio will outperform all the other approaches. If you don’t believe me, then check out Mark Hulbert, William Bernstein, and scores of other well regarded investors and researchers. Hey, even Warren Buffett, one of the greatest investors of all time, believes in a lazy portfolio. Contents Toggle My Lazy Portfolio StoryWhat is a Lazy Portfolio?What is the Lazy Portfolio Performance?Three Fund Lazy ETF Portfolio Returns – Annualized One, 20 and 30 Year PerformanceBacktesting and Performance Analysis Stock and Bond Indexes Annual Returns | 2000 – 2025Best Lazy Portfolio IdeasLazy Portfolios With Vanguard FundsFriedberg Family Lazy PortfolioWhy This Friedberg Family Best Lazy Portfolio Is Good For UsSet Up Your Lazy Portfolio – The Easy WayM1 Finance Pre-made Investment PortfoliosGeneral Investing Model Portfolio From M1Lazy Portfolio Guide Wrap UpRelated This article may contain affiliate links which means that – at zero cost to you – I might earn a commission if you sign up or buy through the affiliate link. My Lazy Portfolio Story For several decades I was an investment portfolio manager. During that time I researched individual stocks and bought and sold them for my company and our family investment portfolio. I read everything available, from Graham, Buffett, Bernstein, Lynch, William O’Neil and more. I subscribed to the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII), Morningstar, the Wall Street Journal and Value Line, all the top research sites of the time. My individual investing strategy was simple, dig into corporate and economic trends, compare valuation, debt, profitability ratios with their historical averages. choose companies trading below or at fair market value, with growth drivers. Buying and selling individual stocks was challenging and profitable. I was successful and content with my methods and returns. Once I entered the in the Penn State MBA program, I learned about lazy investing or passive investing studies and research. On the first day of my investing portfolio management class the professor asked who could beat the market averages. Of course, my hand shot up. After all, most years, my stock picking, beat the S&P 500. [embed]https://youtube.com/watch?v=WHK0oyMRx1g&si=3fBfG5nj0QDfUBnj[/embed] Then, while digging into the investing research, I found out that – over the long term – individual stock pickers rarely beat investing in a portfolio of diversified index funds. And even the stellar portfolio managers, rarely continued to beat the market over the long term. And, today, more so than ever, stock pickers are competing with sophisticated computerized algorithms that are smarter

With my brain struggling to admit that it’s 2026, now seems like an ideal time to dive back under the duvet of 2025. (Still warm from the glow of double-digit equity returns or the world being on fire – I’m not sure which!) Somehow it never appears to be a good time to invest. And yet Monevator’s Slow & Steady model portfolio earned 9.4% in 2025. That’s the third year in a row the portfolio […]

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I co-host a LIVE episode of the Catching up to FI podcast with Jackie Cumings Koski, recorded during the third annual FI Freedom Retreat in Bali hosted by Amy Minkley The post Podcast | Catching up to FI Take-over first appeared on Captain FI.