The World War for Your Wallet

The world is quietly at war over your wallet. And your attention.

There’s a reason banks have directly or indirectly caused people to take on more debt than ever before.

There’s a reason tax-protected retirement accounts make it easy to invest in stocks and mutual funds… but practically nothing else.  

There’s a reason pensions are going extinct but fee-laden 401(k)s that, again, only allow you to invest in stocks and mutual funds are the norm.

There’s a reason why $47 trillion has vanished from the pockets of the bottom 90% and ended up in the pockets of the top 1% since 1975.

I could rant and rave about the kleptocrats in Washington or on Wall Street for pages…

But they’re only symptoms of something deeper that’s happening.

I’ll spare you the details of what that might be for now…

The simple fact is that we’re seeing the world change, and when the world changes, a lot of money tends to change hands fast.

There are winners and losers, opportunities and dangers, and a lot of the steady, stable beliefs we once held are shaken to their very core.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 pandemic and lockdown, we’re all realizing that we’re more vulnerable than we thought we were.

That includes everyone from Boomers to Millennials…

Retirees to recent graduates.

The world is at a frightening crossroads, and over the next 10 years we’re going to be shocked at the political, economic, and social changes that take place.

It doesn’t matter what your personal views are — on wealth or the wealthy, on politics, on the economy…

We’re clearly entering an entirely new world, a new economy, a new paradigm. 

And as I’ll prove to you in the coming weeks and months…

A lot of the old, well-worn beliefs about investing and getting rich are dead and gone, never to be revived.

Yet while this change is happening… 

In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, between 1.7 million and 2.2 million Americans became millionaires.

As I write, almost 9% of the U.S. population is a millionaire or richer. That’s up from 5.8% in 2010.

And billionaires? They got $1.9 trillion richer in 2020.

The data displays a simple truth…

It is still possible to get wealthier.

And even though my data above is largely about the U.S….

I firmly believe that it is possible to easily get steadily (and ethically) richer in the world.

But to grow richer, you need more than stock tips, stimulus checks, a “side hustle.”

You need a comprehensive strategy… one that’s easy to follow and addresses every aspect of your personal wealth, from your income to your debt to your investments to your spending to your net worth.  

That’s why colleagues and I created DIYwealth and the “Finance Daddy” newsletter (sign up here)…

To help folks get richer at a time when folks are being bombarded with bad advice and outright misinformation about money…

Sometimes from the people we trust to teach us about or manage our money!

So with all of that serving as a manifesto of sorts…

Let’s quickly get this question out of the way:

Who Is the “Finance Daddy”?

My name is Sean MacIntyre, by the way.

I’m an author, a non-chartered investment analyst (for equities and alternative investments), and an entrepreneur.

No, I’m not a CFA. No, I’m not and have never been associated with a Wall Street firm (and never will be, for reasons I alluded to above).

I’m simply a guy who learned the basics of investing from his dad and his dad’s dad — both stock brokers.

And I’m just a guy who learned how to build wealth from a variety of “surrogate” father figures along the way, including serial entrepreneurs, investors, former hedge fund managers, programmers, futurists, marketers, copywriters, and more.

(You’ll see contributions from some of them in the future, I’m sure.)

Studying finance and learning from successful folks who have built wealth themselves has paid off for me…

I’ve made over a million dollars over the last few years from work I’ve done, businesses I created, and investments I’ve made.

And this is coming from a guy with an English degree!

My journey isn’t over, either.

I’ve just started a family. Here’s a picture of us together:

I’ve also launched several businesses in the last few years.

My wealth building journey won’t be over until I feel like my family will be financially secure and my businesses will be self-sustaining after I’m dead and gone.

Since I’m on this journey, I intend to document it, share it, and hopefully provide some useful information to you along the way. 

How did I get the nickname “Finance Daddy”?

Well, I was having a conversation online with friends, and I mentioned that I felt like I didn’t contribute enough valuable information to the world.

And one of my friends said “don’t play humble finance daddy.”

The name stuck.

And when my partners and I were brainstorming names for the first face of the DIYwealth business, which seeks to provide valuable information about wealth and finance to regular folks…

We decided to roll with the “Finance Daddy” persona.

Think of “Finance Daddy” as Your Money Mindset Coach

And if you’re not comfortable with having a “money mindset coach”…

Then consider me a friend who wants you to make as much money as possible.

Someone who wants to share what he’s doing to make money in a transparent way, without the BS.

A lot of that will be investing related, because I’ve found that beginning to invest (or changing the way you invest) is the simplest, easiest, and fastest change you can make to start getting richer.

I don’t mean that in a “get rich quick” way or a slow “have enough to scrape by during retirement” way…

But as one part of a multi-pronged strategy for simply increasing your income and wealth as high as you want it to go. 

I’ll also be sharing strategies for dealing with debt, earning a side income, building a business from scratch, and more.

I will also try to simplify or explain something we’re seeing in the financial media — usually something that people are concerned about.

The plan that works for me may not work exactly the same for you.

Your life and your goals are different from mine. I’m not going to pretend there’s a simple one-size-fits-all plan for everyone.

But, you’ll get every tool I have and will discover along the way…

And I hope that you will be able to use these tools to easily devise a plan that will get you steadily richer.

The closest thing I think DIYwealth has to dogma about investing and building wealth is summed up in Proverbs 21:5:

“The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.”

So let’s not be too hasty…

We’ll work together to make a diligent plan that brings us to profit.