Jonathan Clements’ legacy: wisdom, generosity, and the Getting Going on Savings Initiative

Jonathan Clements, the newspaper columnist who transformed how millions of people thought about money, has died of cancer at the age of 62. Through his thousands of columns, his books, his blog HumbleDollar, and his final act of generosity — the Getting Going on Savings Initiative — he left behind a legacy of wisdom and generosity that will continue to shape investors for decades to come.

Jonathan Clements spent nearly 20 years as the personal finance columnist at The Wall Street Journal, writing more than 1,000 columns. Later, he launched HumbleDollar, published nine books, and became one of the clearest, most trusted voices in investing.

His style was disarmingly simple. He could strip away jargon, expose hype, and translate the complexities of Wall Street into plain English. As Jason Zweig put it:

“Jonathan wrote 1,009 columns. And never once, to the best of my knowledge, wrote anything that was flagrantly wrong. He constantly filtered out the nonsense and the noise in Wall Street propaganda. He conducted himself with honor and integrity. He’s a role model for any financial journalist, any investing commentator, and anyone who wants the general public to stand a better chance of being able to achieve their financial goals.”

Clements was, in Ron Lieber’s tribute, “the Wall Street Journal personal finance columnist who may have done more than nearly anyone who didn’t work at Vanguard to bring index funds to the masses.”

It is no exaggeration to say that he changed the conversation about investing — from one focused on beating the market, to one focused on giving ordinary investors a fair shot at achieving their goals.

Lessons for all investors

I interviewed Jonathan for my Scientific Investor podcast just nine months before his death. Even then, he was still teaching with the same clarity and conviction. “The goal isn’t to beat the market,” he told me. “The goal is to harness the market to achieve your financial goals.”

The advice he gave investors was remarkably consistent:

• Don’t chase performance. “Yesterday’s winners are often tomorrow’s losers,” he warned.

• Don’t try to time the market. “Trying to time the market is like playing a game of chance. You might get lucky once, but the odds are never in your favour.”

• Keep it simple. He urged investors to stick to low-cost, globally diversified index funds.

• Save more. “The more you save today, the greater your future freedom.”

• Avoid mistakes. As he often said, good investing isn’t about brilliant decisions; it’s about not making catastrophic ones.

Lieber captured this ethos in his New York Times piece, listing Clements’s “five pearls of wisdom”: minimise subtractions, understand that taxes favour the patient, balance money with meaning, focus on avoiding mistakes, and remember that purposeful striving is key to a happy retirement.

These were not abstract ideas. They were grounded in evidence and behavioural insight. But they were also grounded in life. “The ultimate goal isn’t to have the most money when you die,” he reminded readers, “but rather to lead the happiest life you can.”

Revered by his peers

Clements wasn’t just admired by readers; he was revered by fellow journalists. Zweig, who succeeded him at the Journal, said in a recent interview:

“Jonathan wrote more than a thousand columns without ever misleading his readers. He cut through Wall Street’s noise with integrity and became a role model for every financial journalist.”

knowledge, wrote anything that was flagrantly wrong. He never misled or fibbed, or lied to

his readers. He constantly filtered out the nonsense and the noise in Wall Street

propaganda. And he just always conducted himself with honour and integrity. And he’s a

role model for any financial journalist, any investing commentator, and anyone who wants

the general public to stand a better chance of being able to achieve their financial goals.

I’m proud to have been Jonathan’s friend for so long.

The respect was mutual. In our December conversation, Clements spoke warmly of his colleagues, including Zweig and Lieber, and how much he valued being part of a community of journalists determined to demystify investing.

Lieber, who sat near him in the Journal newsroom two decades ago, remembered his wit, his dry humour, and his cheerful frugality:

“Jonathan Clements … was resolved to see out his days in the wake of his diagnosis much like he lived them before, in a cheerful state of frugality.”

That combination of rigour, wit, and humility is what set him apart.

The Getting Going on Savings Initiative

If Clements’s journalism was his first great legacy, his final project may prove just as lasting. After his cancer diagnosis, friends and colleagues suggested creating a journalism award in his honour. Clements declined. Instead, he proposed something more practical: a charitable foundation to help young people start investing.

In May 2025, he introduced the Getting Going on Savings Initiative. Funded by royalties from The Best of Jonathan Clements: Classic Columns on Money and Life and by donations, the scheme seeds $1,000 into Roth IRAs for participants in Boston’s Summer Youth Employment Program.

“It’s time to pay it forward,” he wrote. “If it leads some of these young adults to become regular savers and investors, lives will have been transformed. How cool is that?”

The initiative is being run in partnership with the John C. Bogle Center for Financial Literacy, J-PAL North America, and the City of Boston. Crucially, it is structured as a randomised controlled trial — a rigorous test to measure whether seeding accounts and providing support actually creates long-term savers.

That combination of generosity and evidence was pure Jonathan. As Zweig explained in his Morningstar interview:

“We’ve teamed up with behavioural economics researchers … to figure out how we can best motivate young people who don’t come from families with investing experience, how to take those young people and turn them into long-term lifelong investors.”

A legacy of wisdom and generosity

Jonathan Clements’s legacy is twofold. First, his words: the columns, books, and blog posts that will continue to guide investors toward better decisions. Second, his deeds: the Getting Going on Savings Initiative, which embodies the very principles he spent his career teaching — thrift, patience, simplicity, and generosity.

For investors, his message is as relevant as ever: save diligently, invest simply, stay the course, and don’t let money become the master rather than the servant. For those of us who write about investing, he remains a role model of clarity, humility, and integrity.

Carrying the torch

Jonathan Clements was more than a journalist. He was a teacher, a mentor, a friend, and finally, a philanthropist. He showed that money, managed wisely, can buy security and freedom — but also joy in helping others.

The best way we can honour his legacy is by living his principles. For investors: keep it simple, save more, avoid mistakes, and focus on what really matters. For families: consider “seeding” a child or grandchild’s ISA or JISA, just as he seeded Roth IRAs.

Jonathan Clements showed us that financial wisdom and generosity can go hand in hand.

Rest in peace, Jonathan. You will be greatly missed.