A market decline can make the urge to act feel like evidence. It is not. In the RBI Starter planner, the fictional 10%, 20% and 40% rows are reflection prompts—not forecasts and not suggested portfolio losses. Pick one row today and keep these four answers separate: 1. Likely emotional response — what would you feel tempted to do? 2. Goal impact — did the goal, date or access need actually change? 3. Evidence needed — what facts would justify a decision? 4. Review timing — when will you examine it deliberately? “I would feel worried” is useful information about behavior. It is not proof that the goal changed. Complete one row in Risk Guardrails, then read it back. If the evidence or review time is vague, make it observable before moving on. — Lars General investment education only. The decline figures are fictional reflection prompts.

One of the easiest ways I’ve found to make a portfolio more complicated than it needs to be is to start with the product. A fund looks sensible. An ETF has low fees. A stock has a convincing story. But none of that tells me whether it belongs in my plan. Before I compare anything, I write three lines: 1. What is this money for? 2. When could I need it? 3. What job must this part of the portfolio perform? If I cannot answer those yet, I am not ready to research products. That is useful information—not a failure. Try this in Goals & Horizons today: choose one pool of money, write its purpose and date, then stop. Do not choose a product yet. The point is to make product research serve the plan—not let a product define the plan after the fact. — Lars General investment education only.

I used to treat every sharp price move as a prompt to rethink the holding. That created a strange problem: the market got to decide when I reviewed my own rules. Now I require three answers before I change anything: 1. What changed? 2. Which written rule applies? 3. What action does that rule allow? If I cannot name the new evidence, point to a rule written before today and show the action it allows, my default is WAIT. Waiting does not mean ignoring risk. It means separating a real change in the case from the uncomfortable feeling that comes with volatility. Try this with one decision you are considering this week. Write the three answers in your Decision Journal. If one is missing, schedule a review date instead of inventing a reason on the spot. — Lars General investment education only.

When I compare two funds, cost is one of the few inputs I can see before the future unfolds. That makes it important—but not enough on its own. ESMA’s latest report found that ongoing costs across EU funds kept falling, but much of the change came from newer, cheaper funds. Costs in long-standing funds moved less. Their conclusion is not “pick the cheapest fund.” It is that product choice and transparency still matter. In my own process, I write down four things before comparing performance: • ongoing fee • trading or spread costs • currency and platform costs • the role the product is meant to serve Then I ask: does the extra cost buy something my written policy actually needs? Try this with one fund you own or are researching. Put every known cost in one row and add the source date. If you cannot verify a cost from the provider’s documents, mark it Needs Evidence rather than guessing. Source: https://www.esma.europa.eu/document/market-report-costs-and-performance-eu-retail-investment-products-2025 General education only.

For a long time, my instinct was to add another column whenever an investing decision felt unclear. More data. More scores. More tabs. It looked thorough, but it did not always make the decision better. The useful change was simpler: write the rule first, record the source, and decide what happens when the evidence is missing. That is the idea behind RBI. The sheet should not impress you. It should make the next question obvious. A small exercise for this week: find one field in your investing spreadsheet that has never changed a decision. Remove it—or write the rule that explains why it deserves to stay. A simpler process is much easier to follow when the market gets noisy.