Mailbag, incl: How do I preserve my purchasing power? August 2, 2026

“I am down 50% from the high water mark,” Andrew Page says, not as a boast but as a matter of fact. “But I’m much higher than I was ten years ago. That is the price you pay for very high returns. It’s the volatility.” This blunt admission comes during a wide-ranging mailbag episode of Motley Fool Money where hosts Andrew Page and Scott Phillips tackle a listener’s central dilemma: how to preserve purchasing power after winning the investing game, without risking another 50% drawdown. The conversation spirals from that personal question into debates about capital gains tax indexation, the nature of corporate fraud, and the psychology of risk.

The “What Now?” Dilemma: Preserving Power vs. Preserving Sanity

The episode’s anchor is a detailed letter from an anonymous listener, a 50-year-old doctor who started investing disastrously in November 2007, using leverage right before the GFC. After losing more than half her capital, she restarted in 2012 without borrowed money, worked frugally, and has since compounded at 20% per annum. She now has “more than enough” to live her ideal life, works for purpose rather than profit, and wants to shift into low-risk investments that merely preserve her capital’s purchasing power. Her explicit request: “Are there products and/or strategies you can suggest for this kind of situation?”