All The Financial Advice You’ll Ever Need Can Fit On A Single Index Card? | Harold Pollack

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Imagine what's possible when learning doesn't get in the way of life. At Capella University, our game-changing FlexPath learning format lets you set your own deadline so you can learn at a time and pace that works for you. It's an education you can tailor to your schedule. That means you don't have to put your life on hold to pursue your professional goals. Instead, enjoy learning your way and earn your degree without missing a beat. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella.edu. Be honest. When's the last time you had a homemade meal?

**Harold Pollack** (0:33)
We get it.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:34)
Between meetings, workout classes, and the kids' after-school sports, who's got time to cook?

**Harold Pollack** (0:39)
That's where HelloFresh comes in.

**Adam Taggart** (0:41)
No matter how busy you get, HelloFresh has everything you need to get an easy, home-cooked meal on the table.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:47)
With flavor-packed recipes like parmesan herb-crusted salmon, you'll be filling your kitchen with the cozy aromas of a homemade meal in no time. So go ahead, try HelloFresh. It's homemade, made easy. Learn more at hellofresh.com.

**Adam Taggart** (1:06)
Welcome to Thoughtful Money. I'm its founder and your host, Adam Taggart. On this channel, we conduct deep dive discussions with hundreds of experts a year, doing our best to see through their eyes and chart a wise course through the economic waters ahead. But with all the different approaches, opinions, and conclusions, it's important to remind ourselves not to overcomplicate things. The fundamentals to wealth building aren't rocket science. And for most non-professional investors, keeping it simple, consistent, and disciplined makes success more attainable. In fact, today's guest claims that everything the average investor needs to know can fit on a single standard index card. So what's on that card? Well, we'll ask the man himself. Today, we talk with Harold Pollack, University of Chicago professor and co-author of the bestseller The Index Card, Why Personal Finance Doesn't Have to Be Complicated. Folks, if you've got children in college or starting out in life, this may be a particularly valuable discussion for them to hear. Professor Pollack, thank you so much for joining us today.

**Harold Pollack** (2:11)
Thanks so much for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

**Adam Taggart** (2:14)
Good. Same here. Well, look, I got introduced to you through your book and through the interviews that happened at the time the book was published. It was published about a decade or so ago. But got a lot of media coverage. And anyways, I obviously want to get to the index card and what's on it. But let's just, if we can, start with a little backstory on the book. What was the genesis for writing it with your co-author, Helene Olin, if I spelled her name right?

**Harold Pollack** (2:43)
Yeah. Well, it was my own personal journey that I got to, I basically got to the age of 40 and I never paid any attention to any of this stuff. And remember, I was a professor at the University of Michigan, and then I got an offer at the University of Chicago to move to Chicago, and we moved to Chicago, and then about four months after we moved to Chicago, my mother-in-law died suddenly, and my wife's brother Vincent, who lives with an intellectual disability called fragile X syndrome, he had to move into our home.
And my wife had to basically leave the workforce to take care of him, and we just had a financial crisis. I remember he was a very large person, and I remember we had a scale that went up to 340 pounds in our bathroom, and he stood on the scale and it said 340 pounds. And I remember that I had to buy him a furniture that would work for him, and I bought this gigantic sort of lazy boy chair, and I remember it was quite expensive. And I remember looking at that thinking, you know, I am going to hemorrhage all my money. Like I got to take money management seriously. And I just had never done it before. And so I started to really bone up on it. And what was interesting was what I found was that, as you said, that what you really have to know is not rocket science. Actually, I was originally trained as a rocket scientist. So I actually know rocket science, and you don't need to know anything like that.
And I was writing for the reality-based community, a blog, at the time. And I remember I interviewed Helene Owen, who was a financial expert. And I said to Helene, isn't the problem that the personal financial advice industry has, isn't there a problem that the best advice basically is available for free at the library, and it would fit on an index card? And we continued talking. And I started getting these emails from people saying, hey, where's the index card? And of course, I was kind of woofing when I said that, but I had put my flag in the ground. So I grabbed one of my daughter. My daughter was in seventh grade at the time. I grabbed a four by six index card, and I took like 90 seconds, two minutes, and I just scribbled down a bunch of stuff. And I took a picture with my iPhone, and I posted it on the internet. And it just went viral. It got like 400,000 hits.