The Art of Spending
Ben Johnson, CFP®, RLP®,AEP®,MS Providing Clarity, Confidence, and Peace of Mind to your Financial Plan, so you can Enjoy Life Now and In the Future. December 9, 2025 Picture “financial planning,” and most likely you imagine spreadsheets, budgets, and the...
Are Stocks REALLY Less Volatile in the Long Term?
This destroys the "stocks are less risky in the long term" narrative. Something I never even thought about actually. I'm reading this paper, "Are Stocks Really Less Volatile in the Long Run?" by a couple professors. They make the argument that if stocks are...
Embrace the Simple Life
Ben Johnson, CFP®, RLP®,AEP®,MS Providing Clarity, Confidence, and Peace of Mind to your Financial Plan, so you can Enjoy Life Now and In the Future. October 21, 2025 In a world where innovation and complexity reign supreme, it’s easy to believe that the best...
Why Market Volatility Can Actually Help Your Retirement
Here's something that might surprise you: a portfolio that bounces up and down can actually be better for retirement than one that stays perfectly stable. Yes, even those scary down years can work in your favor. The Unexpected Power of Volatility Let's look at a...
Will Long Term Care Costs Destroy Your Retirement?
We need to tackle the big scary monster that lurks in every retirement conversation: long-term care costs. You've probably heard the frightening statistics. “The average cost of a nursing home varies significantly by location, but recent data from 2024 shows a...
Don’t Kill Your Retirement Plan By Doing This
I want to revisit a huge issue that is often overlooked with Monte Carlo scenarios. Remember, Monte Carlo’s provide a probability of success around three inputs, return expectations, volatility around those return expectations and inflation. The problem here is...
Why So Negative?
I Don't Understand the DoomsayersCheck this out. Low fertility rates lead to declining populations for our economic competitors:Now look at this:Oh and maybe most importantly there is this:Now there is this:And one could make an argument that China...
What is Money and What is its Use?
This article appeared in The Standard newspaper, published in Cassville, Georgia, on November 26, 1857, during a period of financial panic and banking controversies in the United States. Money is gold and silver coin. It became such to the American people...
How One $100 Bill Paid Off $1,000 in Debts
A story from the Fredericksburg Herald in 1857 illustrating the power of debt circulation The Story A merchant from Fredericksburg went to Carolina Court carrying a $100 bill. Shortly after arriving, he used this money to pay a debt he owed to a local farmer. The...
Biblically Responsible Investing
By: Karl Swelling at Swelling.com In May 2023 the pastor of our independent Baptist church brought in someone to speak on Biblically responsible investing. I didn’t day trade, which I viewed as gambling, so I assumed I wouldn’t get much out of his message. But he...