YouSaid · the spoken record

Jonathan Clements

lines on the record: 79
first: 2025-01-17
most recent: 2025-01-17
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Not worry about it at all. You know, things generally do work out today. You know, there are not many people, you know, who go into the world, out into the world, and are reasonably prudent in managing money and so on who don't successfully get to retirement. You don't need to fret about it every step of the way you don't need to analyze every month spending in quick and you don't need to fine-tune your portfolio every month just you know set up a sensible asset allocation, buy some index funds, save regularly, and good things will happen.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's an interesting question. Why do I wish I knew? I guess what I wish I knew was that if I did the right things for long enough, everything was going to work out just fine. As long as I saved, as long as I didn't fiddle around too much with my portfolio, if I just let it ride, I could just go off and worry about other stuff.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I think I already answered the Financial Journalism one, which is don't do it. I'm not Tali service. I mean, journalism. Is the most fun you can have while keeping your clothes on. I mean, newsrooms are great places to beef. You will never meet a group of people who are more fun to be with and more cynical. I mean, it's just so much fun to be in a newsroom. So yeah, go and be a journalist. In journalism in your 20s, when you don't really need to worry about making a lot of money, is a great thing to do. So yeah, I would encourage people to do it, but don't imagine you're going to make a career out of it.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you can find Charlie's original book, Investment Policy, which is the one that I believe came out in 86, It's 94 pages. It's a great read. And that, I think, was probably the most influential book on investing that I've ever read.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, the go-go years And then there was this little book that I discovered in the Forbes Library called Investment Policy by Charles Ellis. And investment policy, I believe, came out in 1986. And I think the original edition was 94 pages. And it just seemed like Charlie went through and picked out Every word in that book with enormous care. Since then the book has ballooned a little bit. It's over two hundred pages, but that, and it's now, of course, called Winning the Losers Game. That's right.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And next to me is an elderly lady. I think she's probably in her 90s and her son lives with her and he's in his mid-60s. And Charlie tells me that when he was growing up in the neighborhood, there were two Italian families and everybody else was Irish. And the fact that he was aware that there were only two families in the neighborhood who were Italian and everybody else was Irish tells you something about that neighborhood at the time. So I enjoy reading about Philadelphia. In terms of favorite books, the best time in terms of learning about finance was when I was at Forbes in the late 1980s. Back then, the workplace was less pressured. There's less drive to produce and there was more time to sort of sit, kick back and relax and read. And Forbes had a great library. So back in those days, you know, I read Burton Malt.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Lately, I've been doing a lot of reading about Philadelphia and about the neighborhood where I live. I live very close to the Schuylkill River across from the UPenn campus. And where I live now used to be full of Irish immigrants who worked on the wharves along the Schuylkill.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Great experience. I was so fortunate. And in fact, this was all before I went to college, and I took the advice that she gave me about how to run a small newspaper. And then I took it and I used it when I edited the student newspaper at Cambridge. And I've used it ever since. So if I ever, for instance, see a piece of copy with an exclamation mark on it, I immediately hear Leslie's voice in my head saying, you only ever use the exclamation mark if it's World War III. Otherwise, no exclamation marks.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I would call out one person, which was the editor of this little newspaper that I worked for when I was 19. Her name was Leslie Levin, and she had just got out of the American University Journalism School, and she had already All of this knowledge about journalism that she was anxious to pass on. And literally she taught me how to write, she taught me how to report. It was”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I lived down in Philadelphia. So the Eagles are an obsession. And you can't help but catch a little bit of the fever. On a Sunday afternoon, half the people, and Mark, this is not an exaggeration, half the people you see walking on the street are wearing Eagle's gear. I mean, that's how much of an obsession it is in the city. And it's fun. I've been taught by my son-in-law that when you go into a store in Philadelphia to buy something on a Sunday, what you have to say when you leave is go birds.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that's not a Thing I'm very good at kicking back and relaxing. That said, as I mentioned, if I'm going to be retired, which I don't think I'll ever be fully retired, this is the moment, right? If I don't do it now, I'm never going to get to do it. And for the first time in probably 20 years, I actually started watching sports again on TV. And it sort of takes me back to being a teenager and so on, sitting on the couch. I'm not sure I could ever sit through a whole football game, but maybe I could watch the final quarter. And so I've been trying a little bit of that. So yeah. Have you played?”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And for as long as I am able, I want to be able to continue writing. I do have a whole bunch of articles that I still hope to pen, but I know this ride is going to come to an end probably sooner than I would like. But for now, while I can still write, well, I can still get my fingers on the keyboard. I hope to keep punching out a few more articles.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Being of service to others has always been really important to me. I mean, I feel like if I'm not doing some little good in the world, I'm not spending my days usefully. I never want to spend.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But it sort of goes back to what I was talking about earlier about the amount of publicity that my diagnosis has generated. I mean, since that came out, you know, I had the Wall Street Journal article that I wrote. I wrote a piece for the Washington Post. I got a piece coming out in the ARP magazine. Ron Lieber wrote that piece for The New York Times. I also wrote a piece for my father's old paper in London, The Telegraph, which was a lot of fun. Maybe not fun, but it was great to be in there. So, yeah, the focus on my diagnosis is a little bit odd, and certainly it's uncomfortable for me to be the focus of attention rather on my writing, but I feel in some way, in a way that I didn't really realize that it's doing some good.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Barry, to be honest, sitting here getting quizzed by you is not that difficult from different from getting quizzed by Ron Lieber of The New York Times. But that said, yes, I personally do not want to be the center of attention. I would like the focus to be on my writing rather than me as a person. But I knew Ron was not going to be unkind. I've known Ron for decades. He's a friend of mine. Much more uncomfortable actually was the photo shoot where I have to sit there and try to smile for an hour.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Their life buying what their parents bought because they thought it made their parents happy, and so they think it's going to make them happy. Probably not going to work out that way. So try to think for yourself and try to know yourself.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think what people need to do is know themselves much more than what's the expense ratio on their index funds or which is the best age at which to claim social security. Know yourself because everybody has different financial needs and different financial worries and so on. So if you customize your finances to your own needs, not to somebody else's needs, not to what your brother-in-law says, not to what you heard on the TV, if you focus it to your own needs, what you worry about the most, that is likely to lead you to have a happier financial life. I think one of the problems is that we live too much under the influence of others. It's not just the influence of people today, our friends and family and the people we see in the media, but also we live under the influence of the past, what our parents told us or what they modeled for us. People go through this.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Things are likely to work out just fine. We are not back our hunter-gatherer ancestors worried about every threat. It's time to go those worries. That to me is the biggest mistake people make. And I don't have a magic cure for getting away from those worries, but I do believe that is the number one thing we could do for our own happiness.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Boom, we achieve whatever it is, and we immediately start striving off to something else. We can't get off that treadmill. Well, there's also a worry treadmill, and we worry about something. Choose away from us. The worry goes away. We're on to something else. People cannot escape their worries. And what I would want for listeners, and I want for my readers, is please find some way to worry less. Because if you do the right stuff financially, you live beneath your means, you're not crazy with your investment, hopefully you index, you know, hopefully you don't take on too much debt, you know, you're not going to get it all right, but good things will happen in the end. You don't have to spend 30, 40 years worrying about retirement. You don't have to get to retirement and worry that you're spending a crazy amount of money because you're going to get derailed by the stock market or whatever it is.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hair because our hunter gatherer ancestors survived, and why did they survive? Because they were warriors, right? They worried about everything. They wanted to make sure that they were going to be okay no matter what happened. Well, guess what? The Sabertooth Tiger is not going to leap out of the bushes. We do not need to worry the way we our ancestors used to. And yet people worry constantly. I mean, people are serial warriors. It's like the hedonic treadmill. We talk about how we strive towards goals, hoping that they're going to make us happy forever.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Suddenly, you know, this focus on investing, this focusing on beating the market is the wrong place to be spending your time. But let me broaden it out, Barry. Something that I've been thinking about a lot of late, which is most people... And this was true of me in the early days spend too much time. Worrying in general and worrying about money specifically. And I think this is hardwired into us.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Probably like everybody, you know Barry, who has amassed some wealth on their own. The smartest thing I ever did was to be a good saver. If you're a good saver, everything else's going to turn out fine. Even if you're not a great investor, as long as you're a good saver, good things will happen. If you're a lousy saver but a great investor, it's unlikely that you're going to succeed financially. So yeah. Saving was the number one thing. And then two, I was very early, as you might imagine, on the indexing train, and that has also rebounded to my benefit. But it's been a saver that was not top of the list.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Voiding on the unhappiness of being broke, two, doing whatever you think is fulfilling, and three is spending special times with friends and family. That's what money can do for you. That is the way that money can buy happiness.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, money, I believe, can do three things for you. One, it can allow you not to worry about money. We've talked about this already. In many ways, you know, money doesn't buy happiness, it lets you avoid unhappiness, the unhappiness of being broke. But two, money can buy you the financial freedom to spend your days doing what you love. If you love your job, that's great. That's the greatest combination you get. But a lot of people clearly don't love their jobs. So what they want is the financial freedom to do whatever it is they wished to be able to do. And you get that by saving diligently year after year, decade after decade. And then third, money can allow you to have special times with friends and family. And whether it's the barbecue, the special vacation flying across the country to see the grandchildren, whatever it is, money can allow you to do that. So those three things.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Weekend. This month we're going to Paris. We've got other trips planned in the months ahead. There's a limit how far I can plan ahead because I never know where I'm going to get derailed by some bad diagnosis. And I hate the idea of the cancellation fees. But we do have trips planned and we've booked the hotels, but I haven't booked the flights because I don't want to have to cancel them.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think one of the things that makes me happy through this period is knowing that I don't have to worry about money. With everything else that's going on, money is not a worry. So when I go back to the 20s and 30s and the sacrifices I made, I'm glad I made them so that I have that financial security today so that amid everything else that's going on, money is not something that's top of mind for me. Truth is, I haven't really worried about money for years, but it would be terrible to be faced with huge medical costs potentially and not have the finances to cover it. I've also, however, thought about, you know, this is my retirement, right? If I don't join my retirement now such as it is, I'm never going to enjoy. So yeah, I have been spending more freely. You know, we went to London recently. We went to Ireland. I took the family on a fairly luxurious long-term.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not part of the estate at all, so she won't have to pay the inheritance tax on that $300,000. Okay. So there are a variety of things like that that I've done in order to make things a little less taxing for my kids. It's also why as soon as January 1 passed this year, that's why I made them a gift for 2025, similarly for my grandchildren. I funded their 529 plans early in the year so that I can get that money. Out of my estate, and hopefully I'll make it possible to the one year mark so it's not subject to the inheritance tax.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, my kids will be subject to the Pennsylvania Inheritance Tax 4.5%. And so that's why I've started to distribute money to them now. I had written a private mortgage for my daughter. It was currently a little over $300,000, and I forgave that loan and then adjusted how much she's going to get versus how much my son is going to get. And as long as I make it through to July, past the one-year mark, then Hannah won't have to pay the inheritance tax on that money.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, two days after my diagnosis, both my kids were in town, Elaine's in town, I sat them down and I explained my state plan. And of course, all this was obvious to me, while there's this traditional IRA, there are these Rotha IRAs, regular taxable accounts, there's this account, that account. And they're looking at me. Like, dear in the headlights, like, what is all this about? And it's when I realized that the stuff that Second Nature to Me isn't second nature to my kids. So had an hour discussion then and so many discussions since then as I've tried to explain why you should not spend the Roth IRA until the end of the 10-year period, but you'll have to draw down the traditional IRA over time because it's going to be taxable income on top of your income. Lots of stuff like that that second H to me just wasn't clear to them.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For my wife and for my kids, and I still have more work to do. So all the utilities are currently in my name. And in the weeks ahead, one of the final things I want to do is to make sure that I move the internet, the cell phones, the gas, the water, the electricity all into Elaine's name so that this one less thing for her to do after I'm gone.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Already consolidated, but for instance, I had a Roth 401k, and it's like, I'm not going to. I'm not going to fund this anymore, so I'm going to close it and roll it into my regular IRA. I had an inherited IRA from my father. It didn't have very much in it. So I closed that out. But also down in the basement, I had a box of papers, a couple boxes of papers. Some of them went back to when I was in college. I was like, what? I had every Christmas card from 1986. Why do I need every Christmas card from 1986? So I just started trashing all of this stuff. And you... Carry around this stuff for decades thinking one day you're going to look at it This was my moment to look at it, and you know what? I didn't. I just started sticking in the recycling bin. So there was a lot of work to be done in order to simplify things for my”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I've always had my finances pretty well organized. But until you know that you're about to pop off, you realize how much Sorry to use the phrase how much crap you've accumulated and you realize how hard it will be for your family to figure out your finances. So in the The weeks and months that followed I've done all kinds of things. I got a new will, powers of attorney, I closed accounts so that there are fewer accounts for my family. Everything's consolidated.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Focus on the day to day. I mean, when I get up in the morning, I really notice the taste of the coffee. When I take a walk, I really notice how beautiful the trees are, how lovely the sky is. It really does focus the mind. And if anything, because I know the time is finite, I'm joining the day-to-day even more. It's strange, but it's true. And I would say to people, you know, even if you don't have a terminal diagnosis, Try to be sort of more purposeful and more mindful about each day because you will get greater happiness out of each day.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is it that people don't talk about this stuff because of denial? Is it because they're embarrassed? Is it because fear of death? I don't know. But it seems like the most natural thing in the world to write about it. And to my surprise, I seem to have done a fair amount of good by doing so. People really appreciate somebody talking openly about what it is, what it's like to have a terminal diagnosis. I would also say to you that A short life expectancy, this notion that your life is finite. I mean, of course, that's true for all of us, but it really does make you.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I've coped with the treatment fairly well. I'm having chemo and immunotherapy every three weeks taking countless medications. I've had these radiation treatments. As I said, I just had my back operated on in order to shore it up. But at some point, cancer is going to win. I just don't know when. So, come back to answer the question that you asked. So, yeah, after I got the diagnosis, I wrote about it on my website and put out the word on social media. And the response to me was quite surprising. I mean, not only did I get an outpouring of love heard from people I hadn't heard from in years. Readers have shown a lot of love, but people also said, you know, you're so brave for sharing your diagnosis. I was like, brave. I've spent my entire life writing about my own finances. Why would I stop now?”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, as of today, I'm feeling okay, but the cancer is, you know, is it my blood? It's likely to crop up somewhere else. I think I'm going to beat the one year mark that I was given. I'm hoping I'll make it through 2025, but realistically, it's unlikely that I'm going to make it much beyond then, though of course I would love it. I mean, I have to say this, Barry, I love every day. I want every movement I can get, but you have to be a realistic. And, you know, this is stage four cancer. There is no recovery. It's just a matter of trying to control the cancer. I have the good fortune I came into this in reasonably good physical shape.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that was in June of 2024. Since then, I've had a couple more lesions on my brain and the cancers will also spread to my spine. In both cases, the cancer of my spine was dealt with with radiation, similarly to the new lesions on my brain. I've also recently had a two-hour procedure to shore up my spine because of the damage done by the cancer. Otherwise, there's a risk I was going to fracture my spine.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ward at a hospital in Philadelphia. So it was 16 beds up there, 15 guys who were intubated plus me, sitting on the edge of my bed like, what am I doing here? Wow. So after some scans, some MRIs, they realized that I had not had a minor stroke. Instead, I had cancer. They found 10 lesions on my brain and a golf ball size growth on my lungs. And after some Some genetic testing and so on. They discovered that I had a relatively rare form of cancer that tends to flick people of Asian origin and women. Called EGFR Exxon 20, and it's a relatively aggressive cancer. The median life expectancy for people who have EGFR Exxon20 is 16 months. So by the time I got in to see the oncologist, she suggested I might have a year to live.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So back in May of last year Barry, I started having balance issues and I thought I might have an ear infection. I couldn't figure out quite what was going on. So on a Sunday decided to go to an urgent care clinic. And the doctor saw me at the Urgent Care Clinic must have realized something that was going on that was obviously I was missing. So I got dispatched the emergency room. And the next thing you know, I was stuck in the stroke victim.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“within personal finance is trying to bring this down to the individual level, not just making broad generalizations about, you know, investors have this behavioral bias or that behavioral bias, not talking in generalities about how you can use money to boost happiness, but you as an individual, what sort of individual are you? Are you a savior? Are you a spender? What is it from your past that is triggering you? I think that in the years ahead, we will start focusing more on that and that will lead to even more interesting conversations about money as people get to know themselves better and that works into how they manage.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So we did touch on this as well, which is what is considered financial journalism as change used to be that everybody was solely focused on investing, solely focused on beating the market. I mean, that was the discussion day in, day out. And to some extent, it still is in the financial media. But the playing field has widened. So we are talking about things in what I consider personal finance, homeownership, social security, tax management, estate planning, and so on. We're also talking about how money meets life, things like behavioral finance, things like money and happiness. And I think the next big”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right? I mean, they're at a point where they're still under a fair amount of financial stress. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I mean, motor stress. Yeah. Exactly. That's how you learn good spending habits. But you also get a lot of pleasure from getting a $19,000 check from your father.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, absolutely. People definitely seem to be happier to give away money now, and it's not simply that you get the pleasure of seeing your kids enjoy the money. You can also guide how they use it. I actually just wrote checks at the beginning of the year to both my kids. And my kids asked, well, what should I do with the money? So it's a chance to say, yeah, you want to put it into your retirement account. You want to put it into your emergency fund. You want to use it to pay down the mortgage. The other thing, of course, is that you get to see them enjoy it, right? And they are at the point where, you know, if I give my kids $19,000 this year under the gift tax exclusion, which is the sum you can give without filing a gift tax return. That money to them in their thirties is so much more valuable than it is to me in my sixties.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that pushing people to spend more is unlikely to work. I think instead you should talk about other goals. I mean, do you want to start giving money to your kids? Do you want to start giving money to charity? Think of other ways to get them to let go of some of their dollars. And maybe that doorway will become the doorway to start spending more on themselves. Certainly, I've changed over the last five years. Five years ago, sort of pre-pandemic, I was very careful about spending. I didn't go out to eat a lot, didn't spend a lot on travel. And I think one of the things that for me, coming out of the pandemic was a willingness to spend more, to go out and enjoy life more after that long period stuck at home. And of course, my diagnosis has done that even more. And not only have I been spending more, I've also been giving more to my kids, to charity, and so on. So I think if you could open the door a little bit and people get comfortable with it, then they'll spend more. And giving away money, whether to charity or...”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I'm not sure I have a clear view on how the typical American thinks about money these days. You know, what I have is a relatively narrow audience, somewhat older, more affluent. They tend to have been drawn to the site because they followed me for a number of years. A lot of them are indexers. Most of them are great savers. And the biggest issue for them is not saving more and delaying gratification even more, but learning how to spend in retirement. I mean, that is the biggest struggle, obviously not a struggle for most Americans. People do have peculiarities about money. You know this as well as I do. It varies enormously. So it's hard to generalize, right? Probably most people are naturally inclined to spend too much and to save too little. But in terms of my audience, their inclination is to spend too little and save too much.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You are experts on your own life, so I encourage them to write about their own financial lives and the result has been that people engage in a level of financial disclosure about what they've done with their own money. The readership finds fascinating. They find liberating. And it's become, to my surprise, I mean, this is not what I set out to do. It's become a place where people happily talk about their own finances. And the readership tends to be very supportive. I do carefully moderate comments. I mean, if I feel like people are getting too rough on somebody, I'll delete comments. I also steer people away from the endless political commentary that's poisoned social media. And it becomes, I like to think a safe place for people to talk about their own finances.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So Humboldt was launched right at the end of two thousand six. I used it essentially to take an annually updated financial guide that I was producing, and I decided just to throw it on the web and make it freely available and run some ads against it. And as part of that, I invited a few people to start writing for the site. And that snowballed over time, and today I have probably 50 or 60 people who write occasionally for the site. They all do it for free. They're all amateur writers. And the thing I say to these amateur writers is, you know, you may not be financial experts.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Basically, doing what I've always done, which is to do work that I think is important. That is a big source of happiness for me. And not only does it not cost very much, but it actually owns me some money. So the other thing I would say to people is you do not want to do all of this too early on. If I had flown business class regularly in my 20s, it would not be special to me today. Having a gradually rising standard of living throughout your life is a wonderful thing. If you stayed at Motel 6 in your 20s, staying at a hyatt in your 60s seems pretty special.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all, I would say to you, Barry, one of the things that's the greatest source of happiness to me is just the day-to-day. Getting up in the morning, having a cup of coffee, sitting at my laptop, writing and editing, you know, going out for. For me, a happy life does not cost a whole lot of money. Yes, we are doing more traveling now and we are traveling first class or business class, which I wouldn't have done a couple of years ago. So yeah, I'm spending more freely. But the real happiness I get.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, ordering a pizza on a Friday night was a questionable decision. And I learned to be super careful with money. And that continued for probably 30 years. It's really only in the last five years that I've become happier about spending money, eating out more often, traveling more. And of course, since my diagnosis, I've been doing even more of that. I still want to make sure that my kids and my wife inherit plenty of money, but I'm at the point where, okay, I don't need to stay for the future anymore because there isn't much future left for me. So we've been traveling more. But to come back to the question that you're going to ask me, which is, do I regret my earlier frugality? Not really, because what I would say to you, Barry, is one sure way that money buys happiness is by allowing you not to worry about money.”
2025-01-17 · Masters in Business · Jonathan Clements Explains Why Dying is Hard Work · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source