Investing without Wall Street: The Five Essentials of Financial Freedom

CHAPTER 11

The No-Work Way to a Comfortable Retirement . . . Maybe

In the course of talking to our newsletter subscribers and advising our managed investment account clients, I found that their involvement in the day-to-day details of the investing process varied widely. At one extreme, some investors are as involved and knowledgeable as professionals. At the other extreme are people who are not interested in the details of investing and generally want to hand off the decisions to a professional.

The latter are not dumbbells, nor are they necessarily beginners. More commonly, they are busy people who believe it's more productive for them to invest their energies elsewhere. Although they want their money working for them as productively as possible, they just don't want to think about it very much. They have careers in other fields, and don't want to learn about investing.

If they have enough money, most of these people simply give professional advisors discretionary power and hope for the best. Most of the time, this works out quite well, but the fees for personal service can be steep.

So, smart investors look for other ways. I ran across one such investor back in the 1990s when I received a phone call from a doctor.

“Jacobs,” he said, “I hear you have a fine newsletter, and I'm interested in subscribing. But only on one condition.”

“What's that?” I asked.

“That I don't have to read it,” he replied.

My response was easy. “No problem, doctor. You don't have to read the Investor ...