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THE WATER COOLER
The Big Three
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#1: Warren Buffett Is Sitting on $397 Billion in Cash
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The most famous investor alive has pulled back and is holding a record $397 billion in cash rather than buying stocks, while another well-known investor is actively betting the whole AI boom is about to crash just like the dot-com bubble did in 1999.
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The Raw Truth: When the guy who has been right about markets for 60 years decides to sit on the sidelines, that is worth paying attention to. It does not mean you panic and sell everything, but it is a reminder that the stock market is not a guaranteed escalator right now. If you are still carrying high-interest debt, this is your sign to stop gambling on the market and get that debt dead first. |
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#2: Farmers Warn Cheap Milk Is Killing Family Farms
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Dairy farmers are sounding the alarm that milk prices have dropped below what it actually costs them to produce it, and they are warning that family-owned farms will be forced to sell if prices do not recover soon.
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The Raw Truth: This one sneaks up on you at the grocery store. When small farms go under, the big industrial operations take over, and competition drops, which almost always means your food bill goes up over time. Milk, cheese, butter, yogurt — these are staples in most households, and a shrinking supply chain means less pressure to keep prices low. Keep your grocery budget tight and your pantry stocked with what is on sale now. |
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#3: Social Security Timing Question for a 62-Year-Old on Low Income
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A 62-year-old woman earning only $20,000 a year is weighing whether to start collecting Social Security now or wait until 67 to claim a larger survivor's benefit, with the financial break-even point calculated around age 78.
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The Raw Truth: This is a real decision millions of people are staring down right now, and getting it wrong can cost you tens of thousands of dollars over your lifetime. If you are in poor health or truly cannot make ends meet, taking it early might be the only option, and there is no shame in that. But if you can hold on even a few extra years, every month you wait locks in a bigger check for the rest of your life, and that monthly income is the foundation everything else is built on. |
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"The four most dangerous words in investing are: 'This time it's different.'"
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TRACKING YOUR S&P 500 INDEX FUND
The Ownership 10
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Your 401k S&P 500 index fund — whether you know it as VOO, FXAIX, or the Vanguard Institutional 500 Index Trust — owns all 500 of these companies. When they win, you win.
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The Heavy Hitters — Working Hard for You Today:
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GE Aerospace (GE) 🟢 Up 3.85% — People are feeling really good about the demand for new jet engines right now. They build the engines that power most of the commercial planes you fly on. |
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Caterpillar (CAT) 🟢 Up 3.26% — Investors are betting big that construction and mining are about to pick back up. They make those massive yellow bulldozers and excavators you see tearing up job sites. |
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Intel Corporation (INTC) 🟢 Up 3.07% — Drifting along with the broader market today after a rough stretch. They make the computer chips that power a lot of the laptops and desktops sitting in offices and homes. |
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Ford Motor Company (F) 🟢 Up 2.61% — Drifting along with the broader market today. They build the F-150 trucks and Broncos you see in every neighborhood and parking lot. |
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Broadcom Inc. (AVGO) 🟢 Up 1.90% — Drifting along with the broader market today. They make the behind-the-scenes chips that help your internet, your TV streaming, and your phone all talk to each other. |
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The Benchwarmers — Having a Tough Day (But Still on Your Team):
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Chevron Corporation (CVX) 🔴 Down 3.51% — Oil prices dropped today and that drags these guys down with it. They pump oil and gas out of the ground and sell it to the world. |
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Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) 🔴 Down 3.30% — Oil prices falling hit them hard today too. They are one of the biggest oil and gas companies on the planet — think gas stations, jet fuel, and plastic. |
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Pepsico (PEP) 🔴 Down 3.25% — People are worried folks might start cutting back on snacks and drinks to save money. They make Pepsi, Gatorade, Doritos, and pretty much every chip in your pantry. |
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UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (UNH) 🔴 Down 2.99% — There is a lot of noise right now about the government possibly changing how health insurance companies get paid. They run one of the biggest health insurance networks in the country — there is a good chance your employer uses them. |
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Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) 🔴 Down 2.46% — Just taking a breather after a really hot run-up lately. They run those giant warehouse stores where you buy everything in bulk, from groceries to tires. |
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Takeaway: Five companies are winning today. Five are hurting. Your index fund holds all 500. You never have to pick the right one. You just have to stay in. That is the whole game.
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YOUR MONEY
The Household Dashboard
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| Item |
Today |
Status |
| National Gas Avg (AAA) |
$4.46/gal |
🟢 3¢ down today |
| DC Gas Avg (AAA) |
$4.64/gal |
⚪ flat today |
| 30-Year Fixed Mortgage |
6.51% |
🟢 Trending |
| S&P 500 YTD Return |
see Scoreboard |
🟢 Still growing |
| Credit Card APR Avg |
22.30% |
🔴 Record highs |
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National gas is 3¢ down today at $4.46 a gallon — that is a small dip, so if your tank is running low, fill up now and log any work-related miles before the price bounces back. |
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Your credit card is charging you an average of 22.30% interest right now — that is a record high, meaning every dollar you carry on that card is bleeding you dry, so take whatever is sitting in your checking account above your small emergency cushion and throw it at that balance today. |
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YOUR RETIREMENT
The Scoreboard: Daily vs. The Long Game
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| Investment |
Today |
5-Yr Return |
10-Yr Return |
| S&P 500 — VOO / FXAIX / Vanguard 500 |
🟢 +0.65% |
🟢 +88.3% |
🟢 +324.4% |
| Nasdaq — QQQ |
🟢 +1.78% |
🟢 +112.3% |
🟢 +628.9% |
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The TV wants you to panic about the red dot on the left. The green numbers on the right are your real story. Stay in.
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The Mailbag
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"Hey Craig. I’m 52 and my employer just announced they are cutting our 401k company match from 6% down to 3% to 'optimize corporate expenses.' I am incredibly frustrated and feel like my retirement timeline just took a massive hit. Should I stop contributing to this plan entirely and just move my money to a brokerage account, or should I keep playing their game?" — Dave, Fairfax, VA
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Here is the raw truth. It is a dirty corporate move, but you cannot let your emotions break your math.
Do not stop contributing. You never, ever walk away from free money. Even at 3%, that is a 100% instant return on your dollar the second it hits the account. Wall Street cannot give you that guarantee. No index fund can match that on day one.
Here is your exact flight plan for handling a corporate match cut.
First, you still max out that 3% match. You give them exactly what is required to pull every single dime of that free money off the table.
Second, once you hit that 3% cap, you stop funding their plan. You take the next dollar of your investment budget and you open a Roth IRA at a real brokerage firm like Fidelity or Vanguard. You control the options, you escape their high-fee plan administrators, and you dump that money straight into a low-cost S&P 500 index fund.
If you manage to max out your Roth IRA for the year and you still have cash left over to invest, only then do you go back to the workplace 401k to pile in more pre-tax dollars.
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Your employer changed the rules to protect their bottom line. Now you change your strategy to protect yours. You don't quit the game; you just play it smarter.
Keep building.
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Send questions to [email protected]
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THE MILLIONAIRE MANUAL
Car Payments — The Monthly Bill That's Keeping You Broke on Purpose
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You're not broke because you don't make enough money. You might be broke because $600 a month is walking out the door to sit in your driveway.
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The average car payment in America is hovering right around $700 a month. Think about that. People are willingly signing up to bleed nearly ten grand a year out of their paycheck just to drive a depreciating asset that loses value the second it hits the pavement.
The dealership wants you to focus entirely on that monthly payment. They ask, "What can you afford per month?" because they want to stretch your loan out to 72 or 84 months. They are financial black holes designed to keep you trapped in a perpetual cycle of debt. You trade your hardest-working years and your most powerful wealth-building tool—your income—just to look cool at a red light.
Let's do the actual millionaire math. If you took that exact same $700 a month from age 30 to age 60 and dumped it straight into a low-cost S&P 500 index fund averaging its historical 10% return, you would be sitting on over $1.5 million.
You aren't just buying a car. You are literally burning a million-dollar retirement portfolio to drive a plastic-heavy crossover that will be sitting in a junkyard in fifteen years.
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The Move: Stop playing the dealership's game. Here is your flight plan to break the cycle:
- Drive what you have: If your current car is paid off, run it into the ground. Take care of it, maintain it, and drive it with pride. A paid-off car is the ultimate status symbol for your net worth.
- Flip the script: Instead of paying a bank $700 a month plus high interest, pay that exact amount to yourself. Set up an automatic transfer into a separate savings or brokerage account.
- Buy with cash: When your current ride finally dies, you take that pile of cash you built up and buy a reliable, used car outright. No debt, no interest, no middleman taking a cut of your hard work.
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The rich buy assets that go up. The broke buy liabilities that go down. Stop funding the dealership owner's beach house while your own retirement account sits starved for cash. Drop the permanent car payment, put your money to work in the market, and start driving your way to real financial freedom.
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BACKPAGE
The Wacky Corner
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In the 1820s, engineer Marc Isambard Brunel talked London into funding the world's first underwater tunnel beneath the River Thames — a project so plagued by flooding, cave-ins, and worker deaths that it swallowed roughly £614,000 (millions in today's money) before it even opened. The Thames Tunnel Company went back to investors not once but twice, promising the tunnel would carry horse-drawn carriages and pay back handsomely. It finally opened in 1843 — with no road ramps built, because they ran out of money, so it became a pedestrian novelty attraction charging a penny a walk. Brunel's son Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who later became one of the most celebrated engineers in history, basically watched his father's grand financial promise turn into a carnival sideshow. The whole thing eventually got bought out by a railway company for a fraction of what investors put in.
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Lesson: Lesson: The flashiest, most 'revolutionary' project in the room is usually the one that quietly cleans out your wallet — slow, boring, and proven beats bold every single time.
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🇺🇸 To the appliance repair tech who shows up sweating in July to fix a stranger's refrigerator full of a week's worth of groceries — your hands save families from a crisis they couldn't afford.
Love y'all. Attack that debt. Keep those contributions running. The plan does not change.
See you on the road. — Rock (Craig)
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