To judge from sky-high Wall Street salaries, managing money is such a complicated task that it is worth a hefty price.
Could mere mortals ever hope to try their hand at it and save a few bucks?
Helaine Olen and Harold Pollack say yes.
They are the co-authors of the new book "The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn't Have to be Complicated," which offers ten rules that regular people can follow to manage their own money, without getting a degree in finance or paying high fees.
What you need to know is so straightforward, they argue, that it can be written down on a single card and posted on your fridge. The idea came about in 2013, after Olen, a personal finance journalist, and Pollack, a professor at the University of Chicago, talked about it during a video chat, which later went viral (bit.ly/1isBksz).
We sat down with Olen to talk about what those simple money principles are, and why they remain so elusive for most of us.
Q: Why do so many of us pay professionals so much money to manage our portfolios?
A: We are all pitched the idea that managing money is really hard, and that professionals have some special secret that can help you. In fact, most of this stuff is pretty basic, and can be put on a single index card.
I get that people are legitimately busy, and that money management is a task they find unpleasant. So it tends to be put off, or given to someone else like a financial adviser. Since they are the experts, they should know what they are doing, right? But the majority of advisers aren't even legally bound to act in the best interests of their clients. People don't even realize that.