Answering Your Financial Questions | #420

In this Ask Me Anything episode, Ben Felix, Ben Wilson, and Louai Bibi tackle a wide-ranging collection of listener questions spanning investing, retirement, family finance, and financial planning. Along the way, they combine academic research, practical experience, and thoughtful discussion to separate evidence-based decisions from intuition.

The conversation explores everything from teaching children healthy money habits and the long-term behavioral challenges of value investing to sequence of returns risk, retirement spending strategies, and global portfolio construction. The episode concludes with an in-depth discussion of Louai Bibi's National Financial Planning Award-winning financial plan, highlighting the importance of holistic advice, evidence-based planning, and continuous improvement through client feedback.

Key Points From This Episode:

(00:00:00) Introduction

(0:05:30) Advice for aspiring financial planners: Building skills, credentials, networks, and mentorship early in your career.

(0:07:35) Why young advisors should be "a sponge" and learn from both good and bad professional experiences.

(0:09:41) Ben Felix on completing the CFA, CIM, and CFP early—and why creating content accelerated his learning.

(0:11:51) Why getting large numbers of client-facing "reps" can dramatically improve an advisor's ability to communicate advice.

(0:15:44) Choosing the right firm, team, and mentors—and how networking helped Ben Felix ultimately join PWL.

(0:18:53) Should a young physician borrow from a professional line of credit to invest?

(0:24:55) Robert Merton's perspective on leverage for young investors and the risks of implementing leverage through margin borrowing.

(0:28:21) Why the psychological experience of investing borrowed money can be very different from owning an unleveraged portfolio.

(0:30:35) How much leverage is needed before it meaningfully changes a long-term financial plan.

(0:31:36) Should investors increase their equity allocation before considering leverage?

(0:33:39) Louai's experience working with physicians and why becoming debt-free can change how people feel about borrowing to invest.

(0:36:00) Louai and Ben Felix share their own experiences with leverage.

(0:36:59) How to teach children about money, scarcity, saving, generosity, and spending.

(0:38:26) Ben Wilson's approach: Save 50%, give 10%, and let his kids decide what to do with the remaining 40%.

(0:40:02) Using wealth for memorable family experiences rather than simply giving children more money.

(0:42:51) Why anticipating an experience can be an important part of the enjoyment it creates.

(0:43:42) Is the value premium worth the behavioral challenge of potentially enduring years of underperformance?

(0:44:11) Ben Felix explains why the difficulty of sticking with value may itself contribute to the premium.

(0:45:47) Can having a sufficiently large portfolio eliminate sequence-of-returns concerns?

(0:49:41) Reframing "sequence of returns" as "sequence of withdrawals"—and why flexible spending matters.

(0:51:21) Separating retirement expenses into fixed needs and flexible spending.

(0:52:47) The purchases that have delivered the best personal ROI for Ben, Ben, and Louai.

(0:53:08) Ben Felix on his indoor basketball hoop, family travel, sauna, and prepared meal delivery.

(0:56:56) Ben Wilson on family vacations, skiing, cycling, and why his family chose a pool over a cottage or boat.

(0:58:27) Louai on his 49-inch monitor, his dog, and investing in health and fitness.

(1:00:42) How should investors geographically weight a global small-cap value portfolio?

(1:05:13) Why a globally diversified portfolio that an investor can actually stick with matters more than finding a theoretically perfect country allocation.

(1:07:19) What should investors approaching retirement or FIRE do about sequence-of-returns risk?

(1:09:00) Research comparing declining, rising, and static equity allocations during retirement.

(1:13:38) Why risk tolerance, time horizon, spending needs, and financial-plan resilience should drive retirement asset allocation.

(1:15:07) The National Financial Planning Awards, the judging process, and the sponsorship conflict disclosure surrounding Louai's award.

(1:18:37) Inside Louai's 47-page award-winning financial plan and the range of planning issues it addressed.

(1:20:06) What Louai believes actually distinguished the submission: Not one clever strategy, but a holistic decision-making process.

(1:21:39) Why Louai sought feedback from planners outside PWL and how the award process can improve the broader team.

(1:23:26) Why Louai believes financial-planning knowledge and feedback should be shared rather than "gatekept."

(1:23:56) How feedback from the Rational Reminder community changed Louai's thinking about investment risk.

(1:24:40) Why defining risk purely as short-term volatility can overlook the bigger risk of failing to achieve financial goals.

(1:27:59) How public feedback through the podcast creates a powerful learning loop for the PWL team.

(1:28:29) A PWL client review on the value of planning, professional experience, and advice that puts the client's interests first.

Links From Today's Episode: Meet with PWL Capital: https://calendly.com/d/3vm-t2j-h3p

Rational Reminder on iTunes — https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-rational-reminder-podcast/id1426530582. Rational Reminder on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/rationalreminder/

Rational Reminder on YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/channel/ Benjamin Felix — https://pwlcapital.com/our-team/

Benjamin on X — https://x.com/benjaminwfelix

Benjamin on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminwfelix/

Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com)