Jul 26, 2024
Writing more than 1,000 columns over 20-plus years, Jonathan Clements dispensed personal finance advice in the Wall Street Journal typical of this 1999 shot across the pecuniary bow: “I am the nag who uses this column to advocate trading little, diversifying broadly and looking to the long term.”
Clements practiced what he preached. To him, “long term” meant beyond age 90, a goal he seemingly approached with the expectation he would continue to work part-time. Meanwhile, he prepped through a mix of savings, deferred Social Security payouts and immediate fixed annuities that would yield monthly checks to last a lifetime.
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Except that, in Clements’s case, a lifetime is so short — truly and tragically. And whatever funds he has amassed, he will in all likelihood never get to spend.
Not even close.
As he revealed on his personal website, the money guru “may have just a dozen okay months” to live, the result of a devastating cancer diagnosis he received in May.
Despite it all, he has maintained his trademark wit and focus on dollars and cents. When recounting the day of his diagnosis, Clements admitted that, at first, he suspected he had an ear infection, and thus faced a frugal decision.
“It was going to be a busy week, and I figured that it would be smart to get some antibiotics inside me, even if visiting the urgent care clinic on Sunday might be more expensive than contacting my primary care physician on Monday."
Would he take his advice back?
Clements spent much of the ink at his disposal dispensing a cautious financial approach to readers, which is the same one he used to prepare for a comfortable retirement. Does he now regret giving any of his advice?
In a July 6 post on his website, Clements, confronted the realities this way: “That money I diligently amassed over the past four decades? Almost all of it will end up with my heirs. My carefully considered plans … have gone out the window.”
Yet, that has absolutely nothing to do with boneheaded mistakes. Clements didn’t gamble or sink his fortune into an overhyped IPO (also gambling, you could argue). He didn’t indulge in luxury cars or lavish homes. Rather, his financial misfortune reflects a stark reality many have faced, even if they’re not as brave to discuss it as openly as he has: his terminal illness remained undiagnosed until an otherwise routine doctor’s visit, as he otherwise seemed to be healthy.
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And even through his illness, he continues to operate his website and dole out advice.
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Less time and a longer time horizon
Would he spend more freely now? Clements did discuss a planned trip to Europe; he had to nix a second due to his condition. It’s not the expense that bothers him so much as where some of the money went.
“When I made changes to our flights, the airlines dinged me for a few hundred dollars. Supposedly, I no longer need to worry about how much I spend, and yet I couldn’t help but be irked,” he wrote. “Yes, even now, my frugality still lingers.”
Clements’s situation highlights a sobering reality. Many of us won’t get nearly as many years on the planet as we’d like, time being a precious commodity in its own right. Life expectancy in the U.S. is 77.5 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That may not be 90, but that's still a healthy stretch. Meanwhile, the number of people in the country aged 90-94 increased by nearly 70% between 2000 and 2020 from about 1.1 million to 1.8 million, according to the Census Bureau.
And yet, Clements asserts that his portfolio’s time horizon is getting longer. He’s thinking now about his wife and two kids.
“At this point they’re the ones I’m investing for.” And so, more than 90% of his portfolio rests in stocks “because that’s the asset allocation that makes sense for them, given where they are in their career and what other investments they hold.”
Employing the Rule of 72, Clements believes they could see the money double in slightly more than 10 years, assuming a 7% annual return.
Thus even with not much time left, nothing has stopped Clements from sharing with readers and loved ones the fruits of his wisdom and prudence: abundance of another kind.
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Lou Carlozo is a freelance contributor to Moneywise.
