Get the weekly note for guys building cash flow late. →

A few years ago I sat down and noodled out what the numbers on my retirement looked like. And what I found was that my portfolio was missing a comma. Well, I knew that much from looking at brokerage statmements, but when I worked out how much monthly income that portfolio would throw off, I was too far from "I'm fine" and too close to "I might be living out of a refrigerator box."

That's a hell of a thing to look at in your fifties.

I'm guessing you've had some version of that afternoon. Maybe a financial site's calculator told you what you already suspected. Maybe you just felt it in your gut every time someone at work mentioned their 401(k) like it was a solved problem.

Here's what I want you to know before you do anything else on this site:

The gap between what you have and what you'll need isn't a verdict. It's a starting point. 

Compound interest or the markets didn't fail us. We just didn't give them enough to work with. And most of us figured that out about ten years too late. 

The upside is that "not enough money" is a math problem, not a character flaw. And math problems can be solved.

You've still got working years. You've still got fight. And you've got something most younger guys don't: judgment. You know what a bad deal smells like. You know what matters and what doesn't. That's leverage, even if it doesn't show up on a balance sheet.

Missing Comma is where I work through what to do about it, out loud, in public, with the receipts. No 12-hour grinds. No shiny objects. No get-rich-quick. Just the honest work of building cash flow late, investing like Social Security might not be there, and staying strong and useful for the next thirty years.

If you want to see your number, there's a calculator inside. Don't flinch when you see it. We'll work through what it means.

Takes about two minutes. No email required.

Copyright © Steve Norris | MissingComma.net | All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy