YOUR RETIREMENT The Scoreboard: Daily vs. The Long Game

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.

WORDS TO STEER BY The Daily Quote

"Don't put all your eggs in one basket."

— Andrew Tobias

The Mailbag

"My wife and I just paid off my 2018 Honda Accord and are on Step 3 of the roadmap. Her car is getting older and the dealership keeps sending us offers to lease a brand new SUV for a really low monthly payment. Her friends are telling her leasing is the smartest move because you always have a car under warranty and cars depreciate anyway, so why own a depreciating asset? Is there ever a scenario where leasing actually makes sense for building wealth?" — Brian, Delaware

Brian, I am going to give you the absolute raw truth. The only people who think car leasing is a smart wealth-building strategy are the people selling the leases and the people who are perpetually broke.
Let's completely cut through the dealership marketing noise. A car lease is not a savvy financial hack. It is nothing more than a glorified rental agreement where you are legally required to finance the absolute most expensive years of a vehicle's life.
When a brand new shiny car rolls off the lot, it loses a massive chunk of its value in the first three years. When you lease, you are paying for 100% of that steepest depreciation curve. You are paying the interest. You are paying the dealership's profit margin. And at the end of thirty-six months, you hand the keys back and you walk away with absolutely nothing but an invitation to start the cycle of debt all over again.
The entire goal of the Raw Truth Roadmap is to completely eliminate your monthly payments so you can use your most powerful wealth-building tool—your income—to fund your wealth engine. Leasing guarantees that you will have a car payment for the rest of your life just so you can impress people at stoplights with a shiny new toy.
When I am working a commercial flight and we hit massive turbulence at 35,000 feet, the only thing that matters is the structural integrity of the aircraft. Your financial fortress is the exact same way. A paid-off, reliable car is a structural asset that protects your monthly cash flow when life gets rough. A leased car with mileage limits and wear-and-tear penalties is a massive vulnerability that drains your money every single month.
Here is your exact execution strategy.
First, you take that lease offer from the dealership and you throw it directly in the trash.
Second, you keep driving that paid-off 2018 Honda Accord, because not having a car payment is exactly what financial peace feels like.
Third, if your wife truly needs a replacement vehicle, you save up cash and you buy a reliable, slightly used car that has already taken the massive depreciation hit from the first owner.

You do not need a shiny new rental every three years to win. You need cash flow, discipline, and compound interest.
Keep your money on the roadmap.

Send questions to [email protected]

YOUR MONEY The Household Dashboard

THE MILLIONAIRE MANUAL THE GLORIFIED RENTAL: Why Car Leasing is Destroying Your Wealth Engine

Today we are taking a sledgehammer to one of the most toxic financial myths the automotive industry has ever created. The car dealerships have spent millions of marketing dollars trying to convince hard-working people that leasing a brand new vehicle is a savvy financial hack. They tell you it is smart because you always have a car under warranty and you "never own a depreciating asset." I am here to give you the absolute raw truth. Leasing is the absolute most expensive way to operate a vehicle on the planet, and it is quietly keeping the middle class completely broke. Today, we are completely shutting down the dealership noise.

Let's look at the brutal math behind what a lease actually is. A car lease is not a smart wealth strategy; it is simply a long-term rental agreement with terrible terms. When a brand new car rolls off the lot, it loses a massive percentage of its value in the first thirty-six months. When you sign a lease, the dealership is mathematically forcing you to finance 100% of that steepest depreciation curve. You are paying for the exact timeframe where the car loses the absolute most money, plus you are paying the interest charges, plus you are paying their profit margin.
And what do you get in return for bleeding all that cash? Complete vulnerability. You are trapped in a contract with strict mileage limits, ridiculous wear-and-tear penalties, and the absolute guarantee that at the end of three years, you have to hand the keys back and walk away with zero equity. You are literally paying top dollar to rent your own lifestyle. Building a financial fortress requires free cash flow to buy assets that actually go up in value, like your S&P 500 index funds. Leasing guarantees that your most powerful wealth-building tool—your income—is permanently hijacked by a car payment.

The Move: Your execution strategy is all about total ownership, extreme discipline, and protecting your monthly cash flow at all costs.
Here is exactly how you execute this piece of the roadmap:
1. Reject the Lease Trap: Never sign a car lease for the rest of your life. Do not walk into a dealership and negotiate based on a monthly payment. You negotiate the total price of the vehicle, or better yet, you avoid the shiny showroom entirely.
2. Buy Reliable Used: Let somebody else take that massive depreciation hit. Save up your cash and buy a reliable, slightly used car that is three to five years old. It will still run perfectly, but it will cost you a fraction of the sticker price.
3. Drive It Into the Ground: The ultimate financial flex is not a brand new leased SUV. The real flex is a ten-year-old paid-off car that runs great and requires absolutely zero monthly payments. Take that $600 you were going to throw at a lease and fire it directly into your wealth engine every single month.

True financial peace is built on structural stability, not shiny rented sheet metal. When you eliminate your car payments permanently, you take back absolute control of your paycheck and massively accelerate your path to millionaire status. Stop renting your transportation, buy reliable, drive it until the wheels fall off, and keep your money firmly on the roadmap.

RESPECT The Tribute

🇺🇸 To every power-line crew worker splicing energized lines in the dark after a storm — you sleep when we sleep, and none of us ever think to say thank you.

THE WATER COOLER The Big Three

#1: 50% Canada Tariff Could Spike Your Home Costs

The US is days away from hitting Canadian imports with a 50% tariff, and construction companies that rely on Canadian lumber, steel, and building materials are already feeling the squeeze. If those tariffs land, the cost of building and repairing homes goes up — fast.

#2: Big Bonus Could Kill Your Health Insurance Subsidy

A family got a $42,000 bonus and discovered it might wipe out their Affordable Care Act health insurance discount, potentially costing them thousands of dollars they were not expecting to owe. They were even told to consider giving the bonus back.

#3: Medicaid Can Come After Your Family's Home

When a parent passes away after receiving Medicaid benefits, the government can file a claim against their home to recover what it paid out — leaving adult children scrambling to save the family property. This is called Medicaid estate recovery and it catches families completely off guard.

TRACKING YOUR S&P 500 INDEX FUND The Ownership 10

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.

The Heavy Hitters — Working Hard for You Today:

The Benchwarmers — Having a Tough Day (But Still on Your Team):

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.

BACKPAGE The Wacky Corner

Around 600 B.C. in ancient Babylon, a family called the Egibis was quietly running what modern people would recognize as a full-service bank — making loans, collecting deposits, financing trade caravans, and managing real estate — all scratched onto clay tablets. They were not kings. They were not priests. They were just a family who showed up, kept records, and let compound interest do the heavy lifting across five or six generations. Archaeologists eventually dug up thousands of their clay tablets, and the records show the Egibis were still collecting on loans made by their great-great-grandfathers. No flashy moves, no get-rich-quick schemes — just patient, boring ownership that outlasted empires.

Lesson: Lesson: The oldest wealth playbook ever found looks exactly like the boring one — own things, lend carefully, keep records, and let time work.