The Best Problems

In partnership with

Get value stock insights free.

PayPal, Disney, and Nike recently dropped 50-80%. Are they undervalued? Can they recover? Read Value Investor Daily to find out. We read hundreds of value stock ideas daily and send you the best.

Subscribe with one click.

Random Words from our sponsor, Public.com

All right, options traders, listen up. I want to tell you a bit about Public.com. But first, have you ever actually thought about all the fees you're paying to trade options? Aside from the regulatory fees, there are commissions, and most platforms charge per contract fees, too.

That's what makes today's sponsor Public. Public doesn't charge commissions or pre contract fees, and in an industry first, they offer a rebate of up to 18 cents per option contract traded. Check it out. If you trade 1,000 option contracts on Public, you'll get up to $180 in rebates. If you trade 10,000 contracts, you could earn almost $2,000.

More importantly, the rebate means you can maximize your profits and and minimize your losses. So to recap, no commissions, no per contract fees, and up to 18 cents on every contract traded. See why NerdWallet recently awarded Public five stars for options trading, and start earning up to 18 cents per contract traded only at Public.com.

Paid for by Public Investing. Options not suitable for all investors and carry significant risk. Full disclosures and podcast description U.S. members only. 

Jason’s Random Words

We have a fun and interesting tagline for our podcast: "...we ask and answer the hard questions about investing." I think in general, we do ask hard questions. Or to be more accurate, questions with a lot of the nuances that are the difference between middling or poor returns and just doing a little bit better. 

These questions can be hard to answer. And the answer – your answer – will change over time, as your situation changes or you get closer to reaching your goals. 

Frankly, the hard questions we have to answer about our portfolios, like which stocks to buy, whether to fund a retirement account or a taxable brokerage, or if you should put Junior's college money in a 529 or a trust, are the sorts of questions about money that most people wish they were facing. 

At times, I have faced many of these questions and felt stress and worry about getting it right. They are important, and making the best decisions can be the difference in thousands, tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime. The stakes aren't small. 

Yet I have come to realize something that's exceedingly valuable to making better decisions, and having a better life: Even the less-perfect answers to these questions will usually result in good financial outcomes. If the problems you spend the most time thinking about are whether to buy Hershey (HSY) or Home Depot (HD), or if you should invest in your Roth or taxable brokerage, then you have problems that 99% of the people on earth would love to have. 

Good problems or real problems?

I'm not trying to minimize the importance of these decisions. They are material and will affect your family for years to come. But they're great problems to have. 

But I am trying to help contextualize them. 

But we don't always get closer to our financial goals. Things like having a (or another, maybe unexpected) child, a divorce, a prolonged illness, addiction, or death of a spouse, can result in having to push financial goals further out. Sometimes those goals have to come off the table completely. 

Life happens, and sometimes in brutal, hard ways. 

When that happens, we are faced with the real hard questions in life. And they're rarely the ones about investing. 

Poor kid, rich kid

My wife and I just spent about an hour going through my son's clothes ahead of school starting back, and like some of you can probably relate to, he has clothes that still have the tag on them that he has never worn. This really struck me; I can remember my first year of high school. I had exactly five decent shirts to choose from at the start of the school year, and I spent a lot of mental effort trying to mix and match them as much as I could to make it less obvious that I was wearing the same shirts every week. 

Sometimes it's hard to remember being that kid. 

One of the amazing things about this adventure Jeff and I have started is you. I have become friends with many listeners, and one in particular has shared some serious health challenges with me. In the past few years he's gone from being a normal 30-something guy with a young family expecting to life another active, healthy half- century, to now facing an illness that could cut that in half, and potentially make the last decade really tough. 

The point? There are hard questions about investing, and then there are hard questions about life. My goal here isn't to make anyone feel guilty for financial success. Instead, I want to share something that's helped me when I am facing a hard question about investing. I take a step back, and try to find a place of gratitude. I have worked hard for my financial success, but I have also benefited from many things outside of my control, ranging from the country I was born in to the crazy-good economy and stock market of the past 15 years. 

The cheat code to better outcomes (and my outlook)

When I reset, and start from a place of gratitude, I find that pressure and stress falls away. Don't get me wrong; the motivation to make the best decision is still there; but it's more about the responsibility I have to myself and family, and less about getting it perfect, or the dangerous path of chasing wealth I don't need that can lead to wealth-harming decisions. 

I realize this is a rambling collection of Random Words, but I am feeling especially grateful for so many things right now. That includes you, dear reader and (hopefully) podcast listener. We get to share this space together to talk through the hard questions about investing, having a lot of fun along the way. I just hope each of you are able to find your place of gratitude, too. It makes the hard parts easier, and the journey just as valuable as the destination. 

You can do it,

Jason