Celebrating 4th Anniversary of Dollar Mentor

31 August 2024 Four years ago today, the three of us came together to start Dollar Mentor—a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to providing free financial and investment education to individuals and families. Our inspiration stemmed from our own journey in learning to manage finances and investments independently. Despite the abundance of investment books and online resources, we realized that many people struggle to learn effectively and put their knowledge into practice. When we spoke with friends and acquaintances, we noticed a common theme: confusion or misinformation about investments and uncertainty about where or how to begin. Yet, for all the…

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Are Bonds Really Worthwhile?

Sid Roy & Sanjib Saha 16 July 2024 If you’re questioning the value of bonds after a challenging 2022, you’re not alone. Many investors have learned the importance of balancing their investments between stocks and bonds. Stocks and bonds are expected to behave differently—when one falls, the other should stay put or even rise—creating a more stable portfolio overall. Yet, we've recently experienced a period that challenges these assumptions and shakes up our investment approach. Both stocks and bonds ended 2022 with significant losses. This wasn’t supposed to happen, right? How can bonds lose so much value when stocks are…

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Goodbye 2023

Sanjib Saha 29 December 2023 It’s hard to believe that 2023 is almost over. As we get ready to welcome the new year, here are a few trivia facts about how the US large company stocks did this year. After a disastrous show in 2022 and dropping by almost 20%, the S&P 500 Index has gained almost 25% this year. Investors who stayed course are handsomely rewarded for not panicking or switching to safety of cash/CDs offering juicy interest rates. While the S&P Index is yet to surpass its record close figure from December 2021, it’s total return reached an…

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Happy Thanksgiving

Sanjib Saha 22 November 2023 While heartbreaking and nerve-wracking headlines dominate the news—stories of innocent people suffering from wars and unprecedented natural disasters— there are still many reasons to be thankful for Falling Inflation: After surging above 9% last year, inflation is coming down steadily and hovering slightly above 3%. This doesn’t mean prices are coming down across the board, but they aren’t skyrocketing either. Rising Stock Market: Market goes up and down, there is no escape from it. Still, going through a bear market takes a toll on investor sentiments. After a steep drop last year, the market seems…

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Ten Questions

Sanjib Saha 1 July 2023 When it comes to seeking help about our finance and investments – whether from a professional financial advisor or a trusted mentor – it’s essential to consider the broader aspects of wealth and life instead of specific money questions. Why? Because money alone doesn’t guarantee happiness and fulfilment; it’s merely a means to help us navigate life’s challenges. Often, the biggest roadblocks to our satisfaction are non-financial, and money fails to do much about them. In fact, money can create roadblocks of its own in our life journey. Thus, it’s important to reflect on what…

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Three-legged Stool

Sanjib Saha 14 June 2023 We’ve heard this a million times already: Getting rich quickly is hard, but building wealth slowly isn’t. To be sure, becoming wealthy is neither automatic nor overnight. But with three foundational pieces in place, and some patience, we can achieve it sooner or later. What are the three ingredients of the wealth building recipe? I like the metaphor of a three-legged stool, where each leg represents a mandatory element on which our financial future rests. Each element is necessary, but not sufficient by itself. We need all three legs for the stool to be safe…

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Retirement Income Estimator

Sanjib Saha 19 March 2023 Are you thinking of dialing down at work, but worried about not having enough in retirement if you stop saving? Depending on how much you've saved already and how long your investments can grow untapped, you might get there sooner than you think. Instead of guessing, why don't you get a clearer picture by doing the math with our simple calculator? Let's say that you've saved some money for retirement and plan to add to it regularly in future years. Let's also say that you don't plan to retire before you're 65 years old. "Retire…

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New Year Resolution, Anyone?

Sanjib Saha 31 December 2022 Any New Year resolutions for 2023 yet? A few of our favorites: 1. If you are the CFO of your household, prepare the annual financial statements – the balance sheet, income/expense summary and cash-flow – and share with family. 2. If someone else manages your household finances, help the person to prepare and walk you through the annual household financial statements– the balance sheet, income/expense summary and cash-flow. 3. If you are new to investing, learn the basics of different asset classes – Stocks, Bonds, Cash, Hard/Real Assets and Alternatives – to ponder which ones might be appropriate for you (or…

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Dollar Goes Further

Sanjib Saha 27 November 2022 I wrote about the true damage caused by misspending. Let’s look at the other side of the same coin. Each dollar that you managed to cut back from your expenses goes a lot further than you think. How? Because retirement dollars can be cheap to buy when you’re many years away from it. You get a large discount –the time value of money. But if are able to stop a recurring expense – be it the annual gym payments because you chose to pick up health activities that you can do yourself, or the monthly…

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Raiding the Bank

Sanjib Saha 24 November 2022 Each dollar we misspend in our working years is a raid on our retirement bank. Sounds dramatic? I guess so. But it’s true, nonetheless. We just don’t think of it that way. Why? Because we aren’t that good in thinking long-term and picturing ourselves in our inevitable life-stage called retirement. “It’s many years from now, and we’ll cross the bridge when we get there.” This shortsightedness, alas, can be costly if we aren’t saving a good chunk of our income towards retirement. Realistically, most of us are going to earn only a limited amount of…

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