June's Great Reads

Finally, summer is here! While I heartily encourage you to spend every possible minute outside (as I write this indoors because I’m tired of wiping pollen off my laptop screen), you may find yourself wishing for some great reads, and boy do I have some for you.

If you can only read three, I’ve picked them out for you below. If you have time for more, here’s one on the inequitable outcomes of school fundraising (it might ring some bells for parents looking forward to the end of school and the end of the neverending fundraisers), here’s one on how robo-advisors and fee for service financial planners can deliver superior value at lower cost to traditional “wealth management” offerings, here’s another reminder that bonds still (yes, still) belong in your portfolio, and there’s more fantastic stuff in the list below.

Read on!

Create Your Own Online Spend Tracker

From Owen Winkelmolen

This is a simple, elegant, and free system for tracking spending that you can set up, customize, and be using in less than half an hour. Yes, please.Read the full article here. [

To Be a New Fool in the World

From Jason Zweig

This is a total cheat, since it’s a list of posts, but when someone as smart and dedicated to continuously pursuing wisdom as Jason Zweig publishes a list of what he considers his best work, you read it.Read the full article here. 

You Are What You Read

From Josh Brown

Make damned sure your sources and curators come from different backgrounds than yours & each other’s. Diversify your world view, don’t de-worsify it by adding more of the same crowd. (That might include me & that’s okay.)

Read the full article here

You can read this month's entire list below:

Occam’s – Does Dollar Cost Averaging Make Sense? | Bob French

Investing a large lump sum: all at once, or in smaller amounts over time?

Break the Chain: Stop Being a Slave | Farnham Street

It can be hard to say no. It means refusing someone, and often it means denying yourself instant gratification. The rewards of doing this are uncertain and less tangible.

[great article; terrible title]

Safety Net Funds: Why Traditional Advice Is Wrong | Dan Egan

This is a really interesting compromise for emergency funds.

The Financial Literacy Hoax | Sandy Hudson & Nora Loreto

Financial literacy education, when divorced from the politics of the public pension and tax systems, essentially teaches that "if you're poor it's because you don't know rules, not because the system doesn't serve you."

How to rebalance when some ETFs already do it themselves | Dan Bortolotti

On rebalancing around the all-in-one Vanguard funds in a couch potato portfolio.

The Great Divide: Fundraising is no solution to under-resourced classrooms | Erika Shaker

If we want things like well-stocked libraries and well-resourced classrooms (and field trips and musical instruments and art supplies and team uniforms and sports equipment) for our kids, then we have to acknowledge that all kids deserve these things too. So let’s make sure we pay for them in the most efficient, effective, fairest way possible.

Do Bonds Still Diversify When Rates Rise? | Cullen Roche

And that’s why you own bonds – not for the sexy returns, but because they make your overall portfolio more behaviorally sustainable.