What's in store for you:

1. Photo From My Life
2. Financial Thought: Savings > Returns
3. Life Thought: The Arena Matters
4. Good Sh*t: Ask for Recs

Photo From My Life:

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Working Together

As I build my boutique wealth management firm, I'm looking to partner with the right people and families. If you've ever wondered whether it might be a fit, or you just want a second opinion on your current setup, feel free to reach out. Always happy to talk.

Just reply to this email.

Financial Thought:

Savings > Returns: Most people spend way too much time thinking about returns. Don't get me wrong, returns do matter. But while you're in the accumulation phase, returns aren't what dramatically impacts your life.

Early on, one variable dominates everything else. Your savings rate.

Let me show you what I mean with two people. Same income. Same goals. Different approach.

Person A: Smarter investor, okay saver. Probably the person everyone wants to talk to at a dinner party.

• They invest $30,000 per year and earn 9%.
• Solid portfolio, pretty aggressive, doing everything "right" on the investing side.

Person B: Average returns, stronger saver. Probably the person who drives a minivan and is proud of it.

• They invest $50,000 per year and earn 7%.
• More conservative allocation. Nothing fancy. Just boring and consistent.

After 10 Years:

• Person A has about $456k.
• Person B has about $691k.

After 20 years:

• Person A has about $1.53m.
• Person B has about $2.05m.

The minivan wins.

In the early years of your portfolio, returns don't do much. The dollars you contribute are doing the heavy lifting. Compounding only gets interesting once there's something meaningful to compound.

People spend hours trying to squeeze an extra 1% or 2% out of their portfolio while ignoring the bigger lever sitting right in front of them. Just make more money and save it.

I know there are going to be people who come at me for saying returns don't matter. I'm not saying that! I just think for a lot of people, they should spend more time thinking about cash flow.

Once your portfolio gets to a certain size, returns take over. That's when allocation, tax efficiency, and investment selection really earn their keep.

If you've been reading long enough, you can probably recite my philosophy by this point: Spend less than you make, invest for the long-term, be tax-conscious, and enjoy life.

Life Thought:

The Arena Matters: My town is hosting a professional tennis tournament this week. It's a Challenger event where guys ranked somewhere between 100 and 250 show up, grind, and try to fight their way up the rankings.

These guys are so good. The pace. The consistency. It's all there. The gap between the top 50 and the top 200 seems very narrow.

Kei Nishikori, a former world #4 and US Open finalist played the tournament. Not that long ago, he was one of the best players on the planet. He lost in the second round to a 17 year old.

These players are traveling nonstop. Grinding week after week. Trying to earn just enough points to get into bigger tournaments. Until they break through, there's not much money. Not much recognition either, unless you count the occasional overly enthusiastic fan. That's me.

It's a brutal.

It got me thinking about how uniquely hard tennis is as a career choice. Even within professional sports, the economics are rough. A tennis player ranked 100 in the world makes far less than the 100th best football player. Same with golf. The earnings distribution is different.

Which brings up a broader point. Where you choose to spend your energy matters a lot.

For these players, it has to be about love of the game. There's no other rational explanation for enduring that kind of grind with that kind of payoff curve.

But for the desk jockeys like me, we have more flexibility. We get to choose the arenas we operate in. The markets we enter. The games we play.

And those choices compound. A simple way to think about it:

• Chasing something you care about is important. Skill and effort are table stakes.
• Picking a growing market over a shrinking one matters just as much. Expanding opportunity beats contracting demand.

Sometimes the difference between struggling and thriving is a result of choosing the right arena and not your effort.

We don't control everything. But we do control a few big decisions. Where we play is one of them.

Good Sh*t:

Ask for Recs: I needed a few new books to read, so I did something crazy. Instead of googling top reads, I asked a few friends. Within a day, I had a list of 5 books queued up.

It was a good reminder that recommendations from people you trust are almost always better than anything an algorithm spits out. But the better part wasn’t even the books. It sparked a bunch of fun conversations.

If you need your next read, skip the endless scrolling and just ask a few friends.

Disclaimer: VDB Wealth is a registered investment adviser. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.

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