Why I Manage My Own Money
And why a 77-point basketball game made me even more confident about it.
A few weeks ago, I was at our local bowling alley with my daughter Iris, a friend, and his son.
Bowling turned into the arcade, which turned into a little nostalgia spiral: skee-ball, Galaga, flashing lights, sticky floors. And then, of course, the basketball shootout game.
If you’ve played it, you know the setup. The balls roll down a short ramp toward your hands. The hoop sits maybe six feet away. A countdown clock dares you to rush, tense up, and lose your form.
My friend went first. He put up a score in the mid-50s. Respectable. Especially for two adults whose basketball lives are mostly memories.
Then it was my turn.
I pressed start. The whistle blew. The balls rolled down.
And something kind of clicked.
I don’t know exactly when it happened, but I locked in. Iris was next to me, cheering and counting shots. I stopped thinking about the score and focused on rhythm. Arc. Release. Repeat.
In the final 10 seconds, the machine switches from two points per basket to three. That’s where the Hall of Fame scores usually happen. I didn’t look up. I just kept shooting.
When the buzzer sounded, the screen flashed:
77 points.
A basketball miracle.
Iris, having no real context for what the numbers meant, thought this was unbelievable. Honestly, so did I. My buddy shook his head, tried to come up with a witty comeback, and couldn’t quite find it. The top score on the wall was 91, and for a brief moment, I thought: Should I go again? Maybe I could beat it?
Here’s the funny part.
If someone asked me later how I did on that game, I could say, completely honestly:
“I scored a 77.”
That statement is true. Accurate. Clean.
It also gives the impression that I’m a much better basketball player than I actually am.
The Part We Don’t Talk About
I do understand basketball fundamentals. I’ve played, coached, and spent enough time around the game to know what usually works and what doesn’t.
I’m also someone who likes to figure out systems. I look for patterns. I look for probabilities.
On that machine, I wasn’t trying to swish every shot. I was throwing the ball lightly enough that it wouldn’t bounce too far away. Just enough power to reach the rim. More forgiveness. More opportunities for the ball to stumble into the basket.
That strategy happened to line up perfectly that night.
But here’s the rest of the story.
Another time at that same bowling alley, there were about five of us playing the exact same game. Same machine. Same me.
I didn’t crack 50.
I think I finished around 46.
So yes, I can score a 77.
I just can’t do it reliably.
What One Score Doesn’t Show You
If I told you I scored a 77, it sounds impressive.
If I told you I’d already played that game 19 other times, most of them with very average results, that 77 suddenly looks different. Now it looks like what it actually is: an outlier.
If I walked around telling everyone I scored a 77 but forgot to mention the 19 times I scored in the 40s and 50s, you’d get a very distorted picture of my basketball ability.
This is exactly how actively managed investment funds work.
Investment companies research relentlessly. They launch many different funds. They test strategies. They tweak approaches. They do everything they can to improve the odds.
And sometimes, one of those funds hits a 77.
When that happens, you’ll hear about it.
“Look what we did.”
“We beat the market.”
“Our managers have special insight.”
What you don’t see as clearly are the other funds that didn’t beat the market. Many get shut down, merged away, or quietly disappear. Investors see the winning fund. They rarely see the graveyard of funds that came before it.
If you only see the winning score on the wall, it feels like skill.
If you see the full history, it looks a lot more like luck.
Who Would You Bet On?
If I asked you to bet on me or bet on the combined performance of the 500 best basketball players in America, the choice is obvious.
My 77 was real.
Their consistency is realer.
That’s essentially what an S&P 500 index fund does. Instead of betting on one company, one CEO, or one fund manager, you’re betting on the collective strength of 500 of the largest companies in the country.
Companies rise. Companies fall. The lineup changes. The system adapts.
You’re not betting on one manager’s hot streak.
You’re betting on the long-term growth of a diversified engine.
And the data backs that up. Somewhere between 82% and 91% of actively managed funds fail to beat the market over 5, 10, and 15-year periods. Once you factor in fees and expense ratios, the odds get even worse.
The overwhelming majority fail to beat the market, and the tiny minority that do are nearly impossible to identify in advance.
That’s not a bad year or a rough patch. It’s what happens when thousands of professional investors all compete to find the same opportunities.
I Don’t Want Luck. I Want Reliability.
I haven’t spent years learning how money works so I can protect my time by betting on outliers.
I want my money somewhere boring: automatic contributions, broad diversification, low fees, and enough patience to let time do what it does best.
Not exciting.
Not a story worth telling at a party.
Just reliable.
Iris still thinks I was amazing that night.
Maybe I was.
But when it comes to my money, I don’t want amazing.
I want reliable.
That’s why I’ll take the S&P 500 over a hot streak every time.