Ask Doc Common sense.
It's the approach I use for improving my wealth, health, and retirement. A lot of the advice I've given over the years is common sense.
Want to have more money when you retire? Start saving as soon as you can. Time is on your side, so the more you save now, the more you'll have in the future.
Want to live your healthiest life? Exercise regularly, eat a diet filled with whole foods, and moderate your intake of unhealthy foods like sodas.
Common-sense advice is often simple. But most of us have a hard time following it.
Today, one subscriber takes me to task for not giving enough common-sense advice.
Do you think I'm not giving enough common-sense advice? What common-sense advice can you share? Send your thoughts and suggestions to [email protected].
Q: You do not stress diet and exercise enough. Most of your readers are not going to die from energy drinks, accidental Tylenol overdoses, eating grapefruit with their prescription narcotics, using DEET, spraying their houses with the can of DDT they found in the shed, or a sleepy intern.
No, most of them are going to die from eating [a lot] of fructose, trans fats, processed foods, white bread, white rice, light beer, cheap wine, Velveeta, and moving so slowly that a time lapse camera is required to notice any motion at all.
If you are going to engage in selling fear, at least get people to be afraid of the right things. – J.L.
A: Diet and exercise are essential for a healthy life. That's why I dedicate so much time to discussing ways to improve your diet and include exercise in your daily routine.
I've talked about why exercise is one of the best ways to control your blood sugar, why everyone should have berries in their diet, the health benefits of just nine minutes of exercise a day, how to protect your heart with the world's easiest exercise, and the excruciating food that brings pain relief.
I regularly remind people to avoid things like sodas and white sugars and to make sure to get up and move around. But the fact is, a lot of this is just pure common sense. I always advocate moderation. I enjoy the occasional fast-food cheeseburger, and there are days where I'm not as active as I could be. And that's OK.
But it is important to remember that for a lot of us, the most common-sense advice is the hardest to follow. So we'll up our efforts to make sure we're hammering home the importance of good diet and regular exercise.
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Q: Really enjoying this series, which I plan to share with my grandchildren. My daughter, however, keeps asking me about annuities (of which I'm not a big fan) that someone is trying to interest her in buying. Do you have any thoughts about them as part of a retirement portfolio? – I.J.
A: Annuities can be a way to generate retirement income. But they're not for everyone. And there are plenty of factors that anyone considering annuities needs to know.
We haven't covered this topic in Retirement Millionaire Daily yet, but Retirement Millionaire subscribers have access to my report on how to buy safe annuities – "How to Instantly Increase the Power of Your Retirement Savings by 200%." If you're not a Retirement Millionaire subscriber, you can join here.
Q: Use coffee pods... round disc shape, no plastic, green, and compostable. – J.G.
A: Thanks for the tip!
My research assistant has a single-cup Keurig brewer, but brews her coffee with reusable, fully BPA-free pods made of metal and class-5 recyclable plastic (the same kind recommended for baby bottles). These reusable pods are not only more environmentally conscious, but you can use any kind of coffee to fill them. She likes to grind the beans immediately before putting them in the pod – for flavor freshness.
Reusable pods also save money – right now, hers costs her about $0.25 per cup of coffee. Keurig cups, sold in packs of 12 or 24, generally come out to about $0.75 per cup (sometimes more). So if you drink one cup of coffee every day, that's $7.50 you'd spend on the refillable cups per month, compared with $22.50 you'd spend on Keurig's cups. If you're closer to the average of three cups per day, that's $22.50 versus $67.50 per month.
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