Money For the Rest of Us

Hosted by J. David Stein

Business Investing

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Episodes

587

Latest episode

Oct 2026

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About the show

Money for the Rest of Us is a personal finance and investing podcast on how money works, how to invest it, and how to live without worrying about it. Host J. David Stein spent 17 years at FEG Investment Advisors, where he was Chief Investment Strategist for a firm overseeing $15 billion. Since 2014, he has focused on helping individuals understand investing through podcasting, video, and writing. Episodes cover stocks, bonds, alternative investments, asset allocation, expected returns, retirement income, asset location, inflation, interest rates, and the economic forces that drive financial markets. David explains how each investment works, what the risks are, and how each connects to the prevailing market narrative. New numbered episodes come out twice a month, with bonus episodes in between. David is the author of Money for the Rest of Us: 10 Questions to Master Successful Investing (McGraw-Hill). Learn more about the show and Plus membership, with model portfolios and premium episodes, at moneyfortherestofus.com ]]>

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60 recent

October 21, 202613 min

U.S. Stocks Might Not Be as Expensive as You Think

In this off-week bonus episode of Money for the Rest of Us, we look at the possibility that current U.S. stock valuations are justified and the market is not overvalued. Topics covered include: Two ways to measure P/E ratios and which is more accurate How record profit margins are affecting P/E ratios How concentration risk is at an all-time high for U.S. stocks How the stock market's direction will depend on whether profit margins expand, contract, or stay the same. Where to invest to reduce an overconcentration in U.S. stocks. Episode Slides Episode Transcript Slides, transcript, and show notes also at: https://moneyfortherestofus.com/ . See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

October 14, 202625 min

What If You Only Invested at Stock Market Peaks?

We analyze long-term stock returns when investing at market peaks and bottoms, and when stocks are cheap or expensive. We also share what we think stocks will return over the next decade and why. Finally, we simulate the investment outcomes for someone who invests $50 per week. Episode Slides Episode Transcript Sponsors Get the free guide from NetSuite: Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI Is Changing Everyday Work Delete Me – Use code David20 to get 20% off Our Premium Products Asset Camp Money for the Rest of Us Plus See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

September 30, 20268 min

Money for the Rest of Us Update and Survey

I provide a short update on Money for the Rest of Us and introduce our listener survey. All survey participants will get access to an exclusive podcast episode on my worst investing mistakes and what I learned. Take the Money for the Rest of Us Listener Survey See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

September 23, 202626 min

Small Gains, Big Losses: The Hidden Risk in Steady Income

In this episode, we explore why the income we earn isn't the same as the return. We show how option income strategies work, what their historical returns have been, what drives the return, and what reasonable return expectations are. We show why option income strategies have a positive expected return while sports betting has a negative expected return. Finally, we look at other areas where we confuse income with the total return. Sponsors Money for the Rest of Us Retirement Investing Cohort Delete Me – Use code David20 to get 20% off Our Premium Products Asset Camp Money for the Rest of Us Plus Show Notes Episode slide deck Variance Risk Premia by Peter Carr and Liuren Wu—NYU Cross section of option returns and idiosyncratic stock volatility by Jie Cao and Bing Han—The Journal of Financial Economics The Price of Correlation Risk: Evidence from Equity Options by Joost Driessen, Pascal J. Maenhout, Grigory Vilkov—SSRN Cross-section of option returns and volatility by Amit Goyal and Alessio Saretto—The Journal of Financial Economics The Art of Put Selling: A 10 Year Study by John Marshall, Krag Gregory, Katherine Fogertey—Goldman Sachs Low Stress Bets Related Episodes 557: Don’t Fall in the Dividend Trap 549: Why Catastrophe Bonds Are Yielding 12%, and Should You Invest? 544: Sports Betting Is Not Investing Article: Tail Events and Tail Risk See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

September 9, 202625 min

The Financial System Will Be Hacked and How to Prepare For It

Bad actors will use AI to disrupt the financial system, transportation networks, and utilities. We should prepare now for this inevitability. We share how in this episode. We also explain why the bull market in gold will likely continue. Topics covered include: Why the OpenAI agentic AI breach is so disturbing How do we prepare for cyberattacks Why gold should be one of the assets we hold apart from the financial system How the historical relationship between gold and real interest rates has broken down To what extent are central banks selling dollars to buy gold How gold ETF flows influence the gold price Sponsors Get the free guide from NetSuite: Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI Is Changing Everyday Work Delete Me – Use code David20 to get 20% off Our Premium Products Asset Camp Money for the Rest of Us Plus Show Notes Episode 564 Slide Deck with Charts Gold's Run Isn't Yet Done - Bhanu Baweja - Financial Times Brief independent investigation of agents’ behavior, reasoning and collaboration in the OpenAI / Hugging Face hacking incident Are Central Banks Moving Out of Dollar Assets? - Linda S. Goldberg, Oliver Hannaoui, and Sneha Parthasarathy - Federal Reserve Bank of New York Related Episodes 541: Debasement Fears or Meme Fever? What’s Driving the Gold and Silver Rally 563: Why Interest Rates Keep Rising and What to Do About It See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

August 26, 202627 min

Bond Market Chaos: Why Interest Rates Keep Rising and What to Do About It

The national debt exceeds $40 trillion, U.S. long-term Treasury yields are at 19-year highs, the U.S. Treasury Department is intervening in currency and bond markets. We unpack it all in this episode and show you how to position your investment portfolio to lock in higher yields and protect yourself from falling bond prices. Sponsors Try NetSuite for Free Delete Me – Use code David20 to get 20% off Our Premium Products Asset Camp Money for the Rest of Us Plus Show Notes Episode 563 Slide Deck Debt to the Penny - U.S. Treasury Historical debt and budget tables - U.S. White House Average U.S. national debt interest rate - U.S. Treasury Treasury Announces Increased Sizes of Nominal Long-End Liquidity Support Buybacks Beginning September 9 - U.S Treasury America’s Risky Debt: What Markets See That Policymakers Don’t - Hanno Lustig Related Episodes 525: No More AAA – What the U.S. Debt Downgrade Means for Investors 463: How to Lock in Higher Yields 464: More Ways to Lock in Higher Yields See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

August 12, 202626 min

5 Steps to Simplify Your Investment Portfolio

What are the steps to simplify your portfolio, given that it is likely spread across multiple accounts? We focus particularly on retirees, who have to weigh additional considerations like withdrawals, Roth conversions, and required minimum distributions. We also explore which areas of the stock and bond markets are attractive right now as you seek to simplify and/or rebalance your portfolio. Sponsors Try NetSuite for Free Delete Me – Use code David20 to get 20% off Show Notes and Related Content A Complete Guide to Investing in I Bonds and TIPS (2026) 550: Asset Location: Where You Invest, Where You Live, What You Can Access Free Investment Strategy Report Insiders Guide Email Newsletter Get our free Investors' Checklist when you sign up for the free Money for the Rest of Us email newsletter Our Premium Products Asset Camp Money for the Rest of Us Plus See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

July 29, 202626 min

How to Navigate the AI Debt Bubble

We explore the expected size of AI-related debt, which vehicles hold it, what could go wrong, and how to protect yourself. Topics covered include: How AI capex boom compares to other large booms and busts What fixed income vehicles hold AI-linked debt What mechanisms are being used to transfer AI-debt risk. How circular finance is contributing to the AI infrastructure buildout What could go wrong with the AI infrastructure buildout that could lead to losses on AI-related debt How to tell what exposure you have to AI debt Sponsors Delete Me – Use code David20 to get 20% off NetSuite Insiders Guide Email Newsletter Get our free Investors' Checklist when you sign up for the free Money for the Rest of Us email newsletter Our Premium Products Asset Camp Money for the Rest of Us Plus Show Notes AI debt slide deck used for episode RBC Weighs $2 Billion Risk Transfer to Hedge Data Center-Linked Loans by Esteban Duarte and Paula Sambo—Bloomberg Hyperscalers Tap External Financing as AI Capex Outruns Cash Flow—FactSet Insight What History Tells Us About The AI Investment Boom by Larry Swedroe—Financial Advisor Goldman Sachs Warns on AI’s Debt Tsunami — Is This the End of the AI Boom? by Rich Duprey—Yahoo! Finance Progress and peril by Pablo Hernández de Cos—BIS The Opportunities and Risks AI Presents for the Economy and Financial System by Governor Lisa D. Cook—The Federal Reserve Financial Stability Report by The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System—The Federal Reserve Financing the AI infrastructure boom: on- and off-balance sheet borrowing by Egemen Eren, Ingomar Krohn and Karamfil Todorov—BIS How AI debt financing impacts duration supply and interest rates by Hugo De Vere, Srini Ramaswamy and Seth Searls—Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas US Life Insurers Held $807 Billion of Hard-to-Sell Credit by Alexandre Rajbhandari—Bloomberg Insurers are funding AI infrastructure – NAIC wants to know if the ratings hold up by Paul Lucas—Insurance Business US Corporate Bonds Statistics—sifma See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

July 15, 202625 min

Is Inflation Manipulated? If So, What to Do About It

How inflation numbers are manipulated to appear lower. How to change your mindset about inflation to get ahead of it. Topics covered include: How Inflation (PCE) Calculations Are Changing Why the CPE Changes Are Suspicious The Biggest Changes Ever to Inflation Calculations What Causes Inflation AI Buildout Is Boosting Inflation How Rising Income Can Overcome Inflation Inflation Is Currency Debasement Most Things Get Cheaper and Better Over Time Personal Inflation Rate and Retirement We Can Beat Inflation by Improving Our Skills Inflation Manipulation vs Inflation Fabrication How to Outsmart Inflation Sponsors Delete Me – Use code David20 to get 20% off NetSuite Retirement Investing Webinar and Portfolio Cohort Insiders Guide Email Newsletter Get our free Investors' Checklist when you sign up for the free Money for the Rest of Us email newsletter Our Premium Products Asset Camp Money for the Rest of Us Plus Show Notes Preview of the 2026 Annual Update of the National Economic Accounts—BEA The Inflation Outlook by Governor Stephen I. Miran—U.S. Federal Reserve Toward A More Accurate Measure Of The Cost Of Living by The Advisory Commission To Study The Consumer Price Index —SSA A Complete Guide to Understanding and Protecting Against Inflation by David Stein—Money for the Rest of Us Live Retirement Portfolio Cohort—Money for the Rest of Us Related Episodes 475: Inflation’s Illusion: Debunking the Normalcy of Currency Debasement 429: Which Inflation Protection Strategies Worked and Which Didn’t? See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

June 24, 202629 min

A Listener's Path from Zero to Millionaire in 10 Years - Nine Lessons to Get You There

David shares nine lessons a listener followed to become a millionaire. Topics covered include: The benefit of underspending on housing What rate of return and how much would you need to save to grow a portfolio to one million dollars Why historical studies of the S&P 500 returns are misleading David's recent portfolio mistake Sponsors Delete Me – Use code David20 to get 20% off NetSuite Retirement Investing Webinar and Portfolio Cohort Insiders Guide Email Newsletter Get our free Investors' Checklist when you sign up for the free Money for the Rest of Us email newsletter Our Premium Products Asset Camp Money for the Rest of Us Plus Related Episodes 498: What I Learned Investing in the Past Decade 454: How To Invest – Ten Rules of Thumb for Individual Investors See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

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