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Influencer StackWhat the influencers actually use.

Morgan Housel

Writer · The Psychology of Money

Financial writer, partner at Collaborative Fund and a director at Markel Group. Two decades of writing about money started with columns at The Motley Fool and The Wall Street Journal, before he moved into venture capital. He grew up ski racing in Lake Tahoe six days a week, and says he came out of his teens with almost no high school education. Home is Seattle. The Psychology of Money, Same as Ever and The Art of Spending Money have sold more than 13 million copies between them, and he hosts a short podcast named after his first book.

Entries
21
Does
6
Recommends
13
Discusses
2

The gear and products they use

All 7 products in this stack

Protocols

4 entries

Repeatable, mostly free routines with a defined trigger and dose.

  • Low-cost index fund investingDoes it$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.

    A house, cash, Vanguard index funds and stock in Markel, whose board he sits on. That is the entire list, he told Tim Ferriss listeners. Fewer decisions leave fewer chances to get one wrong, on his reasoning. What he expects to do the work is being an average investor for an above average number of years.

    Source: The Tim Ferriss Show: How to Simplify Your Life in 2026 (#857)
    Backed by 3 of 54 stacks
  • Deliberate wanderingRecommendsFREE, no cost

    Passive learning is his term for it: no intended destination, reading and talking across fields, and stumbling on the topic you happen to need. Most of what he has learned came that way, he reckons. His advice to bosses is to hand people idle time that will not look productive.

    Source: Collaborative Fund: Active vs. Passive Learning
    Backed by 2 of 54 stacks
  • Inner scorecardRecommendsFREE, no cost

    At the top of his list of realistic finance hacks: a habit of not caring what other people think of you. He calls it the most underrated skill in the field. Spending past a basic level of comfort is mostly ego and social climbing, he says, which is why plenty of people on decent incomes save so little.

    Source: Collaborative Fund: Realistic Personal Finance Hacks
    Backed by 2 of 54 stacks
  • Circle of competenceDiscussesFREE, no cost

    It sits among his short money rules. Most people overrate the size of their circle and underrate how prone to bias they are, he writes. Nearby on the same list: avoid disaster, be patient.

    Source: Collaborative Fund: Little Money Rules
    Backed by 3 of 54 stacks

Habits

10 entries

Daily practices held long enough to become default behavior.

  • Daily readingDoes itFREE, no cost

    Starts far more books than he finishes, and shuts one ten minutes in if it is not landing. He credits Charlie Munger for the idea; the line that stuck was about not letting bad books burden you. A low bar on what to try is deliberate, he argues, since a high one feeds confirmation bias and keeps you on the same authors.

    Source: Collaborative Fund: How to Read: Lots of Inputs and a Strong Filter
    Backed by 24 of 54 stacks
  • Daily walkingDoes itFREE, no cost

    One blog post or book chapter costs him roughly three walks around the neighborhood. On each of them his whole attention is on what he just wrote and whether any of it is true. His brain does not work as well sitting at a desk, he says. Bad weather means folding laundry or doing the dishes instead, so long as he keeps moving.

    Source: The Tim Ferriss Show: Morgan Housel on Contrarian Money and Writing Advice (#702)
    Backed by 17 of 54 stacks
  • Daily writingDoes itFREE, no cost

    Opens a piece by throwing things on the page without knowing where it ends up, walks, then comes back and picks at what is there. Probably the worst writing advice anyone could take from him, he warned Tim Ferriss. Movement is what forms the new thought and moves the piece along, he reckons.

    Source: The Tim Ferriss Show: Morgan Housel on Contrarian Money and Writing Advice (#702)
    Backed by 8 of 54 stacks
  • Living without debtDoes itFREE, no cost

    No mortgage on the house he and his wife own. He calls that the worst financial decision they have ever made and also the best money decision. On a spreadsheet he will not try to justify it, and says he cannot. What it buys, by his account, is the sense that the house is theirs rather than the bank's, and he weighs that heavily while the kids are growing up.

    Source: The Tim Ferriss Show: Morgan Housel on The Psychology of Money (#576)
    Backed by 1 of 54 stacks
  • Reading historyDoes itFREE, no cost

    His reading time goes into history and very little of it into forecasts, a swap he says has made his relationship with the news simpler. Time in the past makes the repeating patterns of greed and fear familiar. That familiarity, he reckons, is what lets you filter a day of headlines quickly. He quotes Kelly Hayes on how everything feels unprecedented to someone who has not engaged with history.

    Source: The Tim Ferriss Show: How to Simplify Your Life in 2026 (#857)
    Backed by 1 of 54 stacks
  • JournalingRecommendsFREE, no cost

    Everyone should write something, he argues, and a journal counts as much as anything published. Intuitions stay vague until they are words on paper, where the holes and the biases show. He quotes Buffett on ideas that stop making sense once you write them down.

    Source: Collaborative Fund: Why Everyone Should Write
    Backed by 13 of 54 stacks
  • Deliberate solitudeRecommendsFREE, no cost

    Making a decision takes time alone with the problem, he argues, and the ideas turn up in the shower or on a walk rather than in a meeting. Most workplaces have it backwards. Asking people with thought jobs to look busy for 40 hours is, by his comparison, like making a ditch-digger work without a shovel.

    Source: Collaborative Fund: Lazy Work, Good Work
    Backed by 12 of 54 stacks
  • A high savings rateRecommendsFREE, no cost

    Wealth is whatever is left after you spend, on his framing, so the savings rate does more work than income or returns do. Saving, as he describes it, raises your humility rather than your salary. The return he cares about is flexibility. Time to think, and the option to wait rather than take whatever comes at you.

    Source: Collaborative Fund: Let Me Convince You To Save Money
    Backed by 1 of 54 stacks
  • Staying putRecommendsFREE, no cost

    Trust and a professional network compound the way any other asset does, and every job switch resets the clock on both. He rates the advice as good maybe a third of the time when you are young and half the time later. When it is right, he says, it is staggeringly right. And if you are going to quit, he adds, quit early.

    Source: Collaborative Fund: Staying Put
    Backed by 1 of 54 stacks
  • Thinking retreatsDiscussesFREE, no cost

    Bill Gates alone in a waterfront cottage for Think Week is his example. Work that looks like a vacation and is not. Judging it by how visible the process is gets that exactly wrong, he says, since the process happens inside someone's head.

    Source: Collaborative Fund: Lazy Work, Good Work
    Backed by 4 of 54 stacks

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