The Simple Path to Wealth

Your roadmap to a rich, free life — in just five minutes per week.

June 9, 2026

"Mr. Jack Bogle might be your patron saint, but YOU are mine! Thank you for paying it forward," Rich B. writes to JL. "Every graduation announcement my wife and I receive, we send them a copy of The Simple Path to Wealth. I look forward to the day when they come back to me and say, 'Hey, remember that book you sent me? It changed my life!’ Because it has changed my life! I feel this deep sense of appreciation for the knowledge, and a responsibility to help others onto the Path."

This really is a great time to give the gift of financial freedom, as graduation season fades and the young folks in your life go out into the world. How many of us wish we'd come across The Simple Path earlier in life?

THE SIMPLE NUMBERS

Since many college graduates will soon be taking home their first proper paychecks, let's head over to the compound interest calculator at Investor.gov and see what kind of opportunities await for a 22-year-old.

Let's say they get their hands on $1,000 now and put it in a broad market index fund. If the S&P 500 continues to return around 10% a year over the long term, they'll have $60,240 by the time they're 65. That's if they never invest another dime.

But what if they get a copy of The Simple Path to Wealth from a kindly relative, a wizened elder, and they take to heart JL's advice that they should save all the money they can along the way—and invest that, too?

If they invested even an additional $1,000 each year, they'd hit $652,617 by age 65. And if they stepped it up along the way and averaged $10,000 saved and invested each year? They'd hit $5,984,223 by "retirement age," with the option to lower that age by quite a bit. That's the power of compounding.

SIMPLE PATH OF THE DAY

A slice of timeless wisdom from The Simple Path to Wealth:

"Owning stock is owning a part of living, breathing, dynamic companies, each striving to succeed."

Graduate holding a navy blue cap with a 2023 tassel. — It's that time of year.

ASK JL

Q: I will have a teacher pension—a quite respectable one, thankfully—and will retire with 80% of my salary in 22 years. I've also got a Vanguard Roth IRA contributing to the Target Retirement 2045 fund (VTIVX), but I am considering shifting my funds into VT (Vanguard Total World Stock Index Fund ETF).

Any thoughts on this consideration? —Rebecca B.

Hi Rebecca,

Very interesting question.

Let’s start by noting that you are asking about setting an asset allocation. This is a very personal decision and the correct answer depends on your comfort level with the market’s volatility.

While the market always goes up, it is a wild and sometimes gut-wrenching ride.

Basically, the more you allocate to stocks, the greater your long-term returns. But you have to be able to endure the volatility. If you panic and sell, you’ll be left bleeding by the side of the road.

The more you allocate to bonds, the smoother the ride. But you’ll have to accept lower long-term returns.

Understanding this, let’s look at your question. VTIVX is a “fund-of-funds,” which is to say it holds several different stock & bond funds, both US and international. It is designed to be more aggressive at first, with a heavier weighting of stocks, and then progressively become more conservative by adding more bonds as time goes on.

It is a good choice for a balanced portfolio that you can set-and-forget. But it might not be a good fit for someone, like you, who will have strong sources of other income.

It is useful to think about pensions and Social Security as serving a similar purpose as bonds in your portfolio. That is, they smooth the ride but offer little growth. With your pension, you might decide you need fewer bonds. Perhaps none at all.

Should that be the case, VT or VTI might very well be the better choice. Given that I tend to be on the more aggressive side and very comfortable with volatility, it would be for me.

Hope this helps.

—JL

Got a money question keeping you up at night? Reply to this email and we'll get it over to JL.

WHAT WE'RE READING

📚 Over at A Wealth of Common Sense, Ben Carlson explains what we can take away from research indicating that consumer sentiment has hit the lowest level ever recorded.

📚 A Mr. Money Mustache classic: The Magic of Thinking Big.

📚 The Wall Street Journal looked into how some parents are giving their adult children large sums of money before anybody dies. It's something folks write in here quite often to tell us about.

THE BIG QUESTION

Do you make a habit of telling young people in your life about The Simple Path, or index investing more generally? Is graduation season a big time of year for it?

Reply to this email and we'll feature some of your responses in upcoming issues!

Last time, we asked whether you're concerned about an AI bubble and if that fear has changed your investing behavior. Here are a few of your answers...

Not scared of a AI bubble, but maybe a correction once chipmakers see demand slow. The market is on a run to make up for the COVID drop. —Oscar G.

Yes, I am concerned about an AI bubble. I had been slowly changing my asset allocation from 90% stocks to more bonds/cash since 2025 to prepare for retirement. This AI bubble has convinced me to accelerate that change.

Now I’m at 67% stocks, 33% bonds/cash—plenty of cushion to start retirement. Then I plan to bring it to 80/20 after a few years. Also, I tilted my stock allocation slightly towards international, though it’s still not quite the 40/60 international/US split that Vanguard recommends. —Lucas L.

Many market observers compare today's market to the dot-com boom/bust, implying they are comparable. The difference is important: The dot-com companies had little (if any) sales, much less profits, while the Mag Seven are tremendously profitable. I don't doubt corrections will come, and we may be in an AI bubble, but the people investing in AI (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc.) are a lot smarter and seasoned that the dot-com kids were. —Dennis T.

I feel the same as in 1999-2000. Which means: real growth related to real, life-changing, pervasive technological changes. However, I cannot imagine this growth to average more than 10-15% a year over the next decade or two, while the market is growing much faster than that. So no, it's not a bubble. It's just a few years of growth condensed into one. —Bruno B.