“If past history was all that is needed to play the game of money, the richest people would be librarians.”

— Warren Buffett

In This Edition

›A Truth Teller Must-Read: Protect Your Household

›Truth Teller Articles Worth Your Time

›Two New Free Books

›This Week’s Podcast: The $5 Million Payoff

›Testimonials

From Paul

A Truth Teller Must-Read

With all the conversation about AI and personal security, I don’t think I know a more important book right now — and I trust you will share it with your family. I sent copies to all four of our kids and three of our grandkids.

It’s the latest from Truth Teller Mike Piper, the CPA behind the Oblivious Investor blog and the free Open Social Security calculator: Household Cybersecurity: A CPA’s Guide to Protecting Your Accounts and Personal Information.

Mike’s central idea is one that will sound familiar to anyone who follows our work on saving and investing: don’t rely on getting every decision right in the moment. Just as automating your retirement contributions beats remembering to make them by hand, the goal here is to put protections in place that hold up even when someone in the household makes a mistake — because eventually, someone will.

This isn’t a book about enterprise IT. It answers a simpler, more urgent question: what does an ordinary household actually need to do to protect its money and personal information? With cybercrime and fraud growing at an alarming rate, I believe this belongs on the same shelf as your tax and retirement planning.

See the Book

Truth Teller Articles

Worth Your Time This Week

A couple of recent pieces from our Truth Tellers that I think are well worth your time.

The Biggest Risk Everyone Already Knows About

Ben Carlson

Savings, CDs, T-Bills or Money Market Funds? Where Cash Earns the Most Now

Rob Berger

Free Books

Two New Additions to Our Free Books

We’ve added two more titles you can download, read and share — free, as always.

Retire Secure! For Professors

James Lange

Download PDF →

Retire Secure! for Parents of a Child with a Disability

James Lange

Download PDF →

See All Free Books

This Week’s Podcast

The $5 Million Payoff for a Financially Literate High School Graduate

This is the fourth of five presentations I recorded for Next Gen Personal Finance (NGPF.org) and am sharing with Sound Investing listeners.

I titled this one “The $5 Million Payoff for a Financially Literate High School Graduate” — but I could have called it the $42 million payoff, and by the end you’ll see the math that makes it believable. I walk through the single biggest decision of all (stocks vs. bonds), 100 years of market history, why the first five years of investing matter most, and how low costs, low taxes, and automation turn small savings into a fortune over a lifetime.

This week’s free book is Spending Your Way to Wealth (see Appendix E). You can find the tables and research at paulmerriman.com/data-tables, and send your questions to me at paul@paulmerriman.com (put “NGPF” in the subject line).

▶ Listen Now

▶ Watch on YouTube

Testimonials

“I want to thank you for all that you do for young adults and nervous investors alike. Before reading your book and listening to your teachings, I was definitely one of them. I love everything that you and your team put out to help people reach their financial goals.”

— John, 25, Toronto, Ontario

Thanks for listening, for sharing this information with others, and for your generous donations. And please keep getting the free We’re Talking Millions link into the hands of people who might be helped.

All the best to you and your family,
Paul Merriman

From Paul Merriman

Resources & Ways to Connect

Free Book Download

Get Paul's latest book — completely free. Thousands of investors have used it to build a better financial future.

📚 Download Free Book

Latest Podcast

Sound Investing — practical, no-nonsense financial wisdom you can act on today.

🎙️ Listen Now

YouTube Channel

Hundreds of videos on investing, retirement planning, and building long-term wealth.

▶️ Watch on YouTube

Follow on TikTok

Short, powerful investing tips delivered daily. Share with the next generation of investors.

🎵 Follow on TikTok

Support the Foundation

Your donation helps us continue providing free financial education to investors everywhere. Every dollar makes a difference.

❤️ Make a Donation

A Truth Teller Must-Read on Protecting Your Money