About 10 years ago, I read about a young man who wrote and sent a thank-you note every day for a year. He started because he lost his job, felt depressed, and wanted to remind himself that he had a lot to be thankful for. He soon learned that he got more out of saying thank you than simply counting his blessings.

In 2023, I’m taking a slightly different approach. I’m planning to publicly thank people who have had a positive impact on my life in ways they probably didn’t plan, and most likely did so without even realizing it.

A hat-tip to a co-worker

When I first started working, 401K plans were brand-new. No one, particularly me, quite knew what to think about making her own retirement plan and giving up company-managed pensions. I knew nothing about mutual funds, bonds, or stocks. The only kind of saving I knew about were bank savings accounts and Christmas Clubs. Does anyone remember Christmas Clubs? I kinda wish banks would bring those back.

But I digress.

At a complete loss for how to invest, I listened to one of the “old sages” at work. Now that I think back on it, the “old sage” might have been pushing fifty. Funny how my perception of old changes as I get older. Wrestler #1 is near the “old sage” age of my early career youth!

But, I degrees again. Kinda shows you how much I like to talk about money.

“Use your age as your guide.”

That was the “old sage’s” advice. Use your age as the percentage that you invest in conservative, safe funds, and invest the rest in high-yield funds. Adjust the percentage accordingly as time passes. So, at 25 years old, I invested 25% in what he called “safety-net” funds; the rest went into riskier, high yield funds.

That seemed easy and proved to be a good rule to use. For me, anyways.

Hat tip to an “old sage.” Simple and wise advice that served me well.

I passed my “old sage” advice on to my children, which served them well, too. The information I see in the financial advice columns match my “old sage” advice almost to a tee. I wish I knew where my “old sage” is right now so I could say thank you in person.

Have you ever received advice that was easy to remember, easy to apply, and served you well?