Originally published in the Stock Savvy Dad newsletter on June 30, 2026.

In my early 20s I told my mother to buy Apple and Netflix stock.

I was studying business and finance at the time. I remember the conversations in college before the iPhone came out, people asking what if Apple turned the iPod into a phone so you didn’t have to carry two devices. Once it actually happened, Apple became the obvious cultural winner.

I had a Netflix DVD subscription and watched them add streaming on top of it. When the stock dropped after they spun off the DVD business to focus on streaming, I remember thinking that’s a golden opportunity.

I never bought either one.

Not because I didn’t believe in them. I did. Enough to tell my own mother to buy in. The problem wasn’t analysis. I understood the consumer market well enough to spot two of the biggest winners of that entire decade. 

The problem was I never figured out how to actually open a brokerage account and put money in. Getting started back then took more effort than it does now. There was no app you could download in a few minutes. That barrier was real, but it also wasn’t impossible. I just never pushed through it.

That’s it. That was the entire gap. Not a lack of insight. A missing first step I never took because I didn’t fully understand how, and honestly, because I wasn’t confident enough to go find out.

If you’re sitting on a similar gap right now, you’re not alone. Maybe it’s credit cards and how interest compounds against you. Maybe you signed a lease without fully understanding it. Maybe it’s a car loan you took without really running the numbers.

Whatever it is, the fix is almost always smaller than it feels. You don’t need a finance degree. You need one Google search, one sit down with a parent or mentor who has been there before, one honest conversation that fills in the gap. The hardest part usually isn’t the information. It’s giving yourself permission to ask the basic question you feel like you should already know the answer to.

So here’s the ask this week. Think of one thing you’ve been avoiding because you’re not totally sure how it works. Not what to do with it long term. Just the actual first step. Then take it. Open the account. Make the call. Ask the question you’ve been sitting on.

I did eventually buy Apple. I’ve owned it for almost a decade now. It’s a good reminder that it’s never too late to close a gap, even if you close it years later than you should have.

The analysis isn’t usually the hard part. Starting is.

— Stock Savvy Dad
​Invest smarter, build wealth, be a savvy dad.