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Jonathan Clements — Here to Financial Happiness Enrich Your Life in Just 77 Days

In This Edition
Jonathan Clements, Longtime WSJ Columnist, Dies at 62
Short Form Videos
Latest Podcast
Testimonial

My wife and I are spending a week in Hawaii. We just came back to the condo after a beautiful day at the beach. After a quick nap I opened my computer to get a little “work” done and the first email I came to was an article by Jason Zweig.

I was not shocked but very sad to read that Jonathan Clements, one of our Truth Tellers, had passed due to a rare lung cancer he had been fighting for over a year. I always enjoyed my conversations with Jonathan. He was the do it yourself investors champion and a very gentle human. Here are a few of Jason’s comments.

Last fall, Jonathan Clements, author of The Wall Street Journal’s long-running personal-finance column, “Getting Going,” wrote a gut-wrenching article for the Journal about his terminal cancer diagnosis.

Jesting at his own impending death, he proposed to the article’s editors that the headline should be “Getting Gone.”

Now he is gone. Clements, 62 years old, died in Philadelphia on Sunday, about a year-and-a-half after being diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer. Between 1994 and 2008, he wrote 1,009 columns on investing, financial planning, money and life for the Journal.

Clements was one of the first financial journalists to argue for index funds. His advocacy, he conceded in a 1999 column, was nearly an “obsession” that irked many readers.

In the 1990s, professional investors often derided index funds as inferior and a guarantee of mediocrity; Clements praised them as a sure way to minimize the risk of underperforming the market. Following the trail Clements had blazed, millions of investors eventually made index funds the building blocks of their portfolios.

Clements also lambasted high fees, murky disclosures and misleading practices. Among his targets: incubation, in which fund companies nurtured many funds in secret, launching only the winners and burying the records of the losers; proliferating share classes with complicated fees; and fund mergers in which a well-performing minnow swallowed a whale with putrid returns, making the big loser’s record disappear.

Clements sometimes said that his crusading drive, as well as his emphasis on the importance of thrifty behavior, was an outgrowth of his family’s experience. His great-great-grandfather, a tobacco baron named George Cope, had been one of the wealthiest people in England. Cope’s immediate heirs squandered his fortune.

Clements’s later columns often focused on how to use money to help achieve happiness—mainly by spending on memorable experiences with friends and family rather than by amassing possessions.Clements was also the author of nine books on personal finance and a novel about bicycling, one of his favorite pastimes. A compendium of his Journal columns, “The Best of Jonathan Clements,” was published earlier this year. Proceeds from its sale go to support the Jonathan Clements Getting Going on Savings Initiative, a collaboration among several nonprofit organizations that seeks to turn young people from low-income households into long-term investors.

Clements is survived by his wife, Elaine, his children Hannah and Henry, and two grandchildren.

The weekly quote above was chosen for this week’s newsletter, before we left on vacation. I will share more of his words in the coming weeks.

Short Form Videos

We will be experimenting with short-form videos to share OUR investing wisdom in bite-sized, easy-to-digest segments. These quick clips make it simple for viewers to get actionable tips and insights without committing to a full-length episode. It’s a new way to connect with both longtime followers and those just discovering OUR approach to smart investing.

The first ones should be available later this week on tiktok, instagram and youtube. We’d love to hear from you: do you prefer these fast, focused videos, or do you like Paul’s traditional, in-depth style where he takes the time to explain the details?

Latest Podcast- Retirement Distributions: All S&P 500 vs. 60/40 Portfolio

Welcome to the third episode in our four-part series exploring radical investment strategies—going “all in” with an all-equity portfolio versus choosing a balanced approach of 60% equities and 40% bonds.

In our first two episodes, we focused on the accumulation years—how these portfolios grew wealth from the early stages of investing to the point of retirement. Today, we shift gears to ask the big question: What happens when it’s time to start taking money out?

Using 55 years of historical data from 1970–2024, Paul Merriman compares:

All S&P 500 portfolio: The high-growth but high-risk approach
60/40 portfolio: A balanced strategy blending stocks and bonds

This episode digs into the distribution phase, showing how these portfolios handled major market downturns and sustained income over decades.

What We Cover

Recap of Accumulation Findings: How both portfolios performed leading up to retirement using tables B1, H2, and H2A
Retirement Withdrawals: Real numbers from Table D1.4 with fixed distributions of $40,000 per year, inflation-adjusted
Market Volatility: The impact of big crashes like 1973–74, 2000–2002, and 2008 on retirement income
Bond Protection: Why bonds served as a shock absorber when markets crashed
Lessons for Investors: Understanding risk, return, and the emotional side of staying the course

Key Takeaways

All-equity portfolios can build bigger balances—but they also expose retirees to deep, gut-wrenching losses when markets collapse.
A 60/40 approach often produces steadier, more predictable income, sometimes finishing with more wealth despite slower growth in good years.
Historical data offers valuable lessons, but it also reminds us that the future will bring its own surprises—making diversification critical.

Whether you’re decades from retirement or already in it, this episode will help you understand the trade-offs between growth and stability when you start living off your investments.

Next week Paul will analyze the U.S. 4 Fund Strategy for retirement withdrawals.

Youtube Testimonial

One of the best of this kind of interviews I’ve heard. Filled with information and insights. Like hearing two old friends just talking. Mutual respect goes a long way.

From the video- Financial Gurus Collide! Paul Merriman and JL Collins Debate Wealth Strategies

Retirement Distributions: All S&P 500 vs. 60/40 Portfolio

Lifecycle Investing : The Ages of the Investor

How to retire with more money and greater peace of mind

In This EditionJonathan Clements, Longtime WSJ Columnist, Dies at 62Short Form VideosLatest PodcastTestimonial

In This Edition
Jonathan Clements, Longtime WSJ Columnist, Dies at 62
Short Form Videos
Latest Podcast
Testimonial