Week 187 · Austin, Texas

Boring money advice, written out in full

One letter a week on index funds, 401(k)s, HSAs and the small decisions that compound. No stock picks. No affiliate links. No course.

Start with the basics

Published in the open since 2021

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If you are starting from zero, do these five things in this order

It takes about a weekend. Nothing here needs an advisor, and none of it is clever.

  1. Write down what you actually owe

    Every balance, every rate, on one page. Not an app — a page. Most people are wrong about at least one number and it is usually the rate.

  2. Bank one month of expenses

    A plain savings account, separate bank, no card attached. This is the buffer that stops a flat tire becoming credit card debt at 24% APR.

  3. Take the whole employer match

    If your 401(k) matches 4% and you contribute 2%, you are declining a raise. This is the highest guaranteed return you will ever be offered.

  4. Kill anything above 8% interest

    Avalanche order, highest rate first. Below 8%, the math stops being obvious and investing instead becomes a reasonable choice.

  5. Automate one broad index fund

    A total-market or target-date fund inside a Roth IRA, funded on payday before you can think about it. Then stop looking at it for a year.

Recent letters

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What our household spent in 2025, line by line

All $71,340 of it, including the $2,100 of restaurant meals I said I would cut last January and did not.
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Target-date funds are fine, actually

The 0.08% expense ratio argument against them costs a typical saver less than one bad panic-sell. Simplicity is a real return.
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Reading a 401(k) fee disclosure without crying

Where the numbers hide, which three lines matter, and the email template that got a reader’s plan fees cut by half.
Self-employedJanuary 17, 2026

Emergency funds when your income is lumpy

Six months of expenses is the wrong frame for freelancers. Here is the version that works when March pays for June.
CorrectionsJanuary 10, 2026

I got the 2022 bond market completely wrong

What I wrote at the time, what actually happened, and the two things it changed about how I write about duration.

Who writes this

Marcus Adeyemi, and no one else

I am not a financial advisor and I do not want to be one. I spent eleven years as a compliance analyst at a mid-size bank, which is where I learned how much of retail finance is designed to be slightly too boring to read. Slow Money Weekly is my attempt at the opposite: the same information in plain English, with my own numbers attached so you can see what I actually do rather than what I recommend. The letter is free and always will be. It is funded by a reader membership of $6 a month that about 3% of readers pay and 97% happily ignore.

A desk with a laptop, printed spreadsheets and a cup of coffee

Reasonable questions

Will you tell me which stocks to buy?

No. I have never picked an individual stock in this letter and I do not intend to. If that is what you are after, there are four hundred newsletters that will happily oblige and I would read none of them.

Is this US-specific?

Mostly, yes — 401(k), Roth IRA and HSA are US accounts. The behavioral parts travel fine, and about a fifth of readers are outside the US, but I will not pretend to know your country’s tax code.

How do you make money?

A $6/month voluntary membership, and nothing else. No affiliate links, no sponsored issues, no referral bonuses for brokerages. If I ever take sponsorship it will be disclosed at the top of the letter in bold before you read a word.

Can I ask you about my specific situation?

I read every reply and answer what I can generally, in the letter, anonymized. I cannot give you personal advice — that is both a legal line and a genuinely good idea, because I do not know your full picture.

One letter, every Saturday morning

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