Act Smarter. Live Richer. Nick Maggiulli on personal finance and investing.
My late grandfather gambled away over $1 million during his lifetime. His wager of choice was horse racing. But if he were alive today, I'm confident he'd be into sports betting. How do I know? Because most other gamblers are. Today, 52% of men aged 18-49 have…
If it feels like there are more millionaires in the U.S. than ever before, you're right. According to the 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances, there are about 29 million U.S. households with a net worth (all assets minus all liabilities) exceeding $1 million. Thi…
A few weeks ago, this tweet set off a firestorm on Twitter/X: JUST IN: 🇺🇸 US boomers overwhelmingly support higher taxes on younger workers to maintain current Social Security benefits, poll shows. After the usual boomer bashing, the conversation quickly tur…
Do you want to know how you are doing relative to your peers financially? Then this is the article for you. The Federal Reserve recently released its 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances, the gold standard of wealth data for American households. I've decided to ta…
Last Friday, the Federal Reserve released the results of its 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), which takes a detailed snapshot of American households' finances every three years. And the big takeaway from this year's release is clear—older Americans got…
A few months ago, I saw this tweet about the World Sauna Championships and how men will literally push themselves to the brink of death to win them, despite there being no tangible rewards. As the author of the tweet noted: It was interesting to me because it'…
If you want to understand the wealth of the typical American household, the resources are excellent. Not only are there free public data sources, but there are also many great books that detail how people live across The Wealth Ladder. For example: For Level 1…
Imagine joining a startup as employee number 10. Your salary is a bit below what the market pays for your role, but, in exchange, you get equity. How much? 0.25% of the company to be exact. You do the math in your head—if the company sells for $100M in a few y…
A few months ago, I analyzed U.S. stock returns over the last century. Today, I'm going to determine the best portfolio over the last 50 years among the following asset classes: U.S. Stocks International Stocks Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) U.S. Corpor…
I recently joined a professional organization to discuss various topics in wealth management. On our first Zoom call there was a debate around the use of levered long/short strategies. For the uninitiated, a levered long/short strategy is a way of taking marke…
When I was 27 years old I was at a crossroads. I was five years into my career, yet I was stagnating. Though I was making six figures, which was great for my 20s, I knew I couldn't make much more at my job. Without an advanced degree, my future compensation wo…
A year ago I wrote the blog post Why I'm Bearish on U.S. Stocks (for the Second Time Since 2017). Since then U.S. stocks are up 16% (total return) and my bearish prediction turned out to be misguided. So where did I go wrong? And how can you prevent yourself f…
You've probably heard it all before. Be your own boss. Control your schedule. Own your time. As attractive as it sounds, it's a lie. Many people believe that working for yourself means unlimited flexibility. You can work where you want, when you want, and with…
Imagine being the typical SpaceX employee over the last few months. Your shares IPO at $135 and within a few days they peak at $225/share (up 67%) before they begin to decline. As of this morning they sit at around $139, or about 3% above the IPO price. Given…
What if I told you that $100 at 25 is worth $500 at 65, even after we adjust for inflation? Well...it is. There's an unspoken belief in personal finance that a dollar is always worth a dollar (putting inflation aside). We assume that spending $100 today would…
I’ve seen a lot of discussions this year around maximizing freedom and optionality. For example, consider this tweet: If you ever get up $1M in cash Buy a new modern apartment in the UAE for like $550k (you have zero property tax). Once you own it, it’s actual…
A year ago, I published my second book The Wealth Ladder. It's sold over 100,000 copies worldwide and hit the New York Times bestseller list in its third week of publication. At the time, I was thrilled that my work was finally getting some mainstream media at…
As stocks have hit new all-time highs in recent months, I've seen an increasing number of people argue that stocks aren't becoming more valuable, the dollar is becoming less valuable. Investor Lee Roach articulated this "debasement theory" in a recent Twitter/…
In honor of America's 250th birthday, I decided to do a deep dive into U.S. stock returns over the past century. My goal was to answer the following question: If you had invested in U.S. stocks at a random point in the last 100 years (1926-2025), how would the…
A few months ago I saw this video of Kevin O'Leary (Mr. Wonderful) arguing that $5M was enough for a lifetime of financial security. On the surface it seems hard to argue with this, but it was how O'Leary recommended investing this money that gave me pause. As…
I recently saw this video where Anna Stansbury, an assistant professor at MIT, explains that people who grew up in poverty end up earning less than their more affluent peers, even when they attended the same university: We know that socio-economic background m…
Working in England in the 14th century was difficult to say the least. Between the harsh conditions and low wages, you also had to fight against the occasional disease outbreak and a repressive government. As the Black Death spread across England, killing anyw…
This week SpaceX is having its initial public offering (IPO) where it plans to raise $75 billion at a $1.77 trillion valuation. Anthropic and OpenAI have their own IPO plans for later this year. With these highly valued companies coming to market, there's been…
I recently saw this Reddit post about a man who retired early (FIRE) only to be called a "loser" by his wife go viral. In the man's own words: 41m, $2mm liquid, $650k retirement and I get a $75k/yr royalty from a business I sold. Recently retired. Wife is a sc…
My wife and I recently started watching Hacks, the HBO TV series starring Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, about a legendary comedian trying to stay relevant in a changing world. It's funny, the writing is fantastic, and there are lots of great plot twists. Bu…
Over the last year, there have been a number of policies aimed at taxing the wealthy and ultra-wealthy. It started last November when the "2026 Billionaire Tax Act" ballot initiative was proposed in California to impose a one-time 5% wealth tax on its resident…
There's a common belief that as your wealth increases, your capacity to take risk increases as well. After all, when you have more you can afford to lose more, right? This might be correct in the extremes, but this argument doesn't hold in more typical wealth…
It's 1:30 AM and my wife is in the middle of labor. We're both trying to get some sleep while she dilates further from 3cm to the ultimate goal—10cm. That's when I wake to one of the nurses telling my wife: We don't want you to panic, but you're about to hear…
As of today, I've published 500 blog posts online since January 2017. That's slightly more than 1 per week. Given this, I wanted to discuss the biggest lessons I've learned from this and how they can help you. Consistency Beats Everything If there were one ide…
One time I saw someone ask James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, "What's the point of writing a book when there are already so many books out there? Isn't the market oversaturated?" Clear agreed that this was true if your book wasn't any good. But, if your…