Retirement Millionaire Newsletter Review (Should You Join?)

I’ve encountered numerous David Eifrig stock teaser presentations over the years and generally found his insights interesting, so I decided to join his Retirement Millionaire newsletter service to see what companies he’s recommending.

Is it worth it? This newsletter won’t suit everyone, but it may be worthwhile if you’re looking for long-term “buy and hold” stock picks and in-depth research.

Especially if you’re either in or approaching retirement.

It may also suit those who want tips on living a healthy lifestyle and saving money, as these are a core part of the newsletters Eifrig sends out each month.

What about his stock picks?

Based on what is shown in the model portfolio right now (October 2022) on the Stansberry Research website, his active (aka “open”) recommendations have done pretty well. Some of his picks are down, which is to be expected, but most are up.

That doesn’t mean you’ll make money as a subscriber, and as I’ll explain shortly, it’s unclear how well his “closed” picks have worked out. But overall, I found the service to be legit, comprehensive, and potentially worthwhile.

Read on for my full review.

About the Retirement Millionaire Service

Retirement Millionaire is a Stansberry Research newsletter service run by Dr. David Eifrig that’s been around since 2008. And according to the website, its purpose is to show readers “how to live a millionaire lifestyle” with less money.

“Retirement Millionaire is a monthly advisory that shows readers how to live a millionaire lifestyle on less money than you’d imagine possible.”

Source: https://stansberryresearch.com/products/retirement-millionaire

As you might expect, given the newsletter’s focus on retirement, this service is very conservative. So Eifrig isn’t chasing the latest trends, recommending emerging tech stocks, or promising huge gains in a short time (at least, not that I’ve seen).

Instead, he mostly recommends somewhat “boring” large-cap stocks across a variety of sectors, and many of his picks are dividend plays.

Each newsletter is fairly in-depth, too.

Each issue walks you through his current take on the market, shows you his latest recommendations, and contains tips on saving money and living well.

That’s the gist of it, anyway.

Next, I’ll show you what went down after I joined the Retirement Millionaire service, and then I’ll delve deeper into what you get as a subscriber.

Joining Retirement Millionaire

I ended up joining Retirement Millionaire through an updated version of David Eifrig’s “Health Care Singularity” presentation, where he teased several health-related stocks.

In short, that pitch was recently revamped to promote the Retirement Millionaire service at a discounted price of $49. And I always like to avoid paying the full price (which, in this case, is $199), so I signed up through the above teaser to save some cash.

Eifrig would be proud (lol)!

Anyway, as with most newsletters I’ve joined, the first thing that happened after signing up was that I was greeted with upsells (i.e., I was pitched more services).

The first was a “premier subscription” for $399, which is essentially a lifetime subscription to the Retirement Millionaire service.

And the second upsell was for DailyWealth Trader, a service that costs $55 a month.

I skipped past both of those because they didn’t interest me. And from there, I checked my email, followed the prompts, and gained access to the Retirement Millionaire member’s area, which is located on the Stansberry Research website.

Inside the Member’s Area

The first thing I noticed after joining was that the site is very “busy.”

As in, there’s a lot going on, and many different places you could unwittingly click into before getting what you went there for – the Retirement Millionaire newsletter.

However, once I clicked on the “My Research” tab at the top of the screen, I was able to quickly navigate to the service’s homepage, which looks like this:

This page gives you an overview of everything the service offers in one place: the latest newsletter issues, special reports, model portfolio highlights, and more.

And as I started making my way around the Stansberry website, I was genuinely impressed by the quality and number of tools you get access to.

For example, there’s a customizable ticker tape across the top of the screen, you can create stock watch lists, there’s a market overview page, a tool that allows you to search different companies and get Stansberry’s rating on it, a stock screener, videos… the list goes on.

Here’s a peek at the “Market Overview,” “Stansberry Indicators,” and “Stock Screener” pages, which are each designed to help you research stocks (you can click on any image below to see a larger version of it):

The first page (left) is set up to give you an overview of the market.

The middle page allows you to search different tickers and see Stansberry’s “proprietary” indicator on 4,850 different public companies as of writing.

And the third page allows you to find stocks by using a bunch of different filter options (like market cap, sector, and numerous financial metrics).

It’s pretty cool!

This is a Stansberry Research thing, though, so it’s not exclusive to the Retirement Millionaire service. But as a member of this newsletter, you get access to all this stuff, which I wasn’t even aware of until after I joined. So it was a nice “cherry” on top.

Only time will tell how useful all of that proves to be. And bells and whistles don’t mean you’re going to make more money. But the value-for-money aspect is off the charts here (no pun intended) when you look at what you get compared to most services.

Anyway, with that out of the way, let’s discuss the monthly newsletter itself.

How the Monthly Newsletter Works

Despite all of the tools and resources you get access to in the member’s area, the newsletter really is the core aspect of the Retirement Millionaire service.

How does it work?

Well, each newsletter is published on the second Wednesday of each month, and this is where David Eifrig shares his latest investment insights, stock picks, updates on the portfolio, and tips on living a healthy, “millionaire lifestyle” with less money.

The latest newsletter is always displayed on the “homepage” of the subscription, but you can also click on the “View All Issues & Updates” tab, which takes you to this page:

The nifty thing about this setup is that you can access pretty much all of the content Eifrig has created for subscribers on one page.

So instead of navigating to different pages of the site, you can just filter out different content (newsletters, reports, updates, etc.) by using the filter option they give you.

As a side note, this feature also allows you to dig through the archives and see all of the companies Eifrig has recommended since the service began in 2008. But given how many newsletters have been published in that time, that would be an insane task.

In any case, each newsletter covers different topics (or “themes”) Eifrig is focused on and typically includes a recommendation on a company he likes.

The latest issue, for example, focused mostly on his thoughts about inflation and the strength of the U.S. dollar, and he recommended a healthcare stock.

Aside from sharing his pick, Eifrig does a write-up on the company, explains why he likes it, and includes an “action to take” section that shows you exactly what he’s recommending to make it easy to follow his ideas.

Then, after all that, there’s an “updates” section that keeps you informed about anything that impacts his previous recommendations.

And finally, there’s a “Secrets of the Retirement Millionaire” section that discusses ways to save money and a section about living a healthy lifestyle during retirement.

Is it a decent newsletter?

Overall, yes, it’s a very in-depth newsletter with lots of relevant insights.

However, it definitely won’t appeal to everyone, and I think the parts of the newsletter about saving money and living well during retirement are good examples of that.

The Retirement Millionaire Stock Picks

David Eifrig has been recommending stocks to subscribers of the Retirement Millionaire since 2008, and some of the open positions still include picks from that time.

That should give you an idea of the types of investments he recommends.

Hint: the “buy and hold” type.

How well have his picks worked out?

I can’t reveal Eifrig’s entire model portfolio, as I’m pretty sure someone from Stansberry Research would be emailing me, which is understandable.

But I can give you an idea of how it’s worked out.

In short, out of 42 recommendations in the portfolio, 32 of them are up, and eight are down. And of the losing picks, all of them were recommended from 2020 onwards. So all of his long-term “open” picks are up as of writing, while most of the new ones are down.

Here’s a peek at his top three winning picks:

Now here’s a snapshot of his three worst-performing picks:

Worth noting is that these are all OPEN positions.

Meaning they can change at any time.

I don’t know why, but there is no record (aside from sleuthing through 14-plus years of monthly newsletters) that I could find of Eifrig’s closed positions. As in, stocks he’s recommended selling.

So I don’t know how his overall track record has worked out when you factor in both the open and closed positions, and that is important to note.

Another thing I can tell you about the model portfolio is that they are spread across numerous different “themes,” the names of which are as follows:

• Cash Positions
• Chaos Hedges
• Fixed Income
• Hybrid Stocks
• Stocks
• Decade of Biotech Portfolio

Not all of his recommendations are stocks, but most are.

And most of them are pretty “ordinary” large-cap companies spread across a variety of sectors (finance, tech, health, defense, and more). So even though Eifrig is probably best known for his healthcare-related picks, he’s not wedded to this sector.

Another thing Eifrig’s stock picks have in common is that many of the companies he recommends pay dividends, which ties in with the general theme of the service being for the more risk-averse and those who want to generate retirement income.

In any case, each recommendation has a “strong buy,” “buy,” “hold,” or “speculative buy” associated with it and other info related to what Eifrig is recommending.

You can also click on the ticker symbol to see an interactive price chart come up and get access to further information about the company, including all the research that Eifrig has done on the company.

You can also see the “Stansberry Score” for most of his picks, which is where the different tools and resources I mentioned earlier come into play.

Is David Eifrig the Real Deal?

According to the Stansberry Research website, Dr. David Eifrig Jr. started his career as a derivatives trader at Goldman Sachs.

And after a decade, in 1995, the site says he became a medical doctor.

Then, in 2008, Eifrig started the Retirement Millionaire newsletter service, which essentially combines his experience in both the investing and health fields.

Aside from that service, Eifrig runs a service called Retirement Trader, one called Income Intelligence, and another called Advanced Options (all higher-priced).

He also heads up a free email newsletter called the Health & Wealth Bulletin, authored a book called “Dr. David Eifrig Jr.’s Big Book of Retirement Secrets,” and runs a winery called Eifrig Cellars in California.

Cool… but is he legit?

I don’t know David Eifrig personally, and I don’t have access to his entire trade history, but based on what I’ve seen, he does seem to be who he says he is.

All you really need to do is read Eifrig’s newsletters to see that he knows what he’s talking about. And as mentioned, while it’s unclear how well his “closed” recommendations have done, most of the “active” Retirement Millionaire picks are up as of writing.

Not to mention, his book is pretty well-reviewed.

And while not everyone who’s joined Retirement Millionaire is a fan, the service has a decent overall rating on stockgumshoe.com, which is one of the few sites in this space I trust.

At the end of the day, none of this means that Eifrig’s recommendations will make you money, let alone help you become a millionaire.

And as I will explain shortly, there are some things about the service I don’t like.

But the Retirement Millionaire service is legit, and based on what I’ve seen, I don’t think Eifrig is scamming anyone.

What About Stansberry Research?

Stansberry Research, the company Eifrig works for, is owned by a Baltimore-based company called Beacon Street Group, LLC.

I have seen complaints about Stansberry Research online over the years, which is very common in the financial newsletter space, but I don’t think the company is a scam.

Why? Well, for starters, they’ve been around for over twenty years now and have hundreds of thousands of readers globally. So I doubt they’d still be running if they were outright scamming people.

Second, the company publishes a lot of free content in the form of email newsletters and YouTube videos. And while I’m not exactly an avid Stansberry follower, most of the content I’ve seen them publish has been informative.

And third, I’ve joined one of their services (Retirement Millionaire), which is not a scam.

That said, I have found their marketing to be overhyped at times, especially the stock teaser pitches they release, which are used to promote these services.

Also, as mentioned, I was greeted with upsells immediately after joining, which is pretty annoying. And I know they are likely to pitch me other Stansberry products in the future (of which there are many) because that’s how these companies operate.

They basically get you in the door for $49 (or so) and then pitch you all the other stuff they sell, which can end up costing you a lot of money down the road.

It’s not that selling higher-priced products (in and of itself) is a bad thing. Many legit companies have upsells. To me, it’s how worthwhile those services are and how aggressively they’re pitched that matters most.

Still, it’s probably best to assume that Stansberry Research’s marketing will annoy you at some point and to avoid jumping into anything you’re unsure about.

Can you get a refund?

According to Stansberry Research, the Retirement Millionaire service comes with a 30-day refund policy. So you can get your money back in that time, which is nice.

This may not, however, include all of the higher-priced services the company offers. Many of those come with “refund credits” where you can’t get your money back, you can only swap them for a different service.

Also, the Retirement Millionaire service automatically renews at $199 per year after the first 12 months, which isn’t exactly obvious when you first sign up.

Pros and Cons of Retirement Millionaire

The Retirement Millionaire service could potentially benefit any type of investor, but it does primarily cater to those who are retired or approaching retirement.

It also caters to investors who are risk-averse, want long-term investment ideas, like to earn dividends, and prefer to invest in a variety of sectors.

Not to mention, it’s ideal for anyone looking for content-heavy newsletters that provide lots of insight into the markets, economy, and companies being recommended.

So, all in all, it’s quite comprehensive.

But no service is perfect.

And it won’t suit everyone. For example, it probably won’t suit most young people, given the service’s focus on retirement. Nor is it likely to appeal to investors who are interested in finding the “next Tesla” or the like.

This is more of a “slow and steady wins the race” type of newsletter.

Nevertheless, here’s a summary of what I believe are the main pros and cons, which may help you decide if it’s something you want to try or not.

What I like:

• The newsletters are solid. You get plenty of well-researched, timely insight from Eifrig about his take on the market and different companies.
• The resources you get access to from Stansberry Research are pretty awesome. I don’t know if any of it will (actually) help me invest better or not, but they’ve packed a lot into this subscription. Interactive charts, updates, stock screener, rating system, videos… the list goes on. In this respect, it reminds me of the Motley Fool’s Stock Advisory service in that you get access to numerous helpful tools and resources.
• At $49, the service is very affordable to join and, in my opinion, represents good value considering the newsletter and resources you get access to.
• You can request a refund within the first 30 days of joining.

What I don’t like:

• When you join Retirement Millionaire, you have entered Stansberry Research’s sales funnel, whether you know it or not. And as such, you should expect to be pitched on the different services they offer, some of which are very expensive.
• It would be good if the complete portfolio history were made available to subscribers within the member’s area because, without it, it’s near impossible to know how well his recommendations have worked out overall (winning and losing closed recommendations). As it stands, you can only see the open positions (which have mostly done well) and some cherry-picked winners shown on the sales page.
• The service automatically renews at $199 per year after the first 12 months, which is somewhat “buried” in the fine print and may catch some by surprise.

Bottom Line

David Eifrig’s Retirement Millionaire service might not help you find the latest shiny growth stocks with moonshot potential, but that’s not its purpose, either.

Instead, it’s a newsletter that provides long-term “buy and hold” recommendations and insights aimed at helping readers optimize their retirement.

Of course, there are still risks involved.

The moment you put your money into any investment, there’s a chance you could lose it. So there’s no guarantee you’ll see a profit by following Eifrig’s recommendations.

But overall, this is a legitimate, high-value service that, in my opinion, is well worth the $49 asking price. Especially when you factor in the tools Stansberry Research provides.

So it could be worth a try, depending on what you’re looking for.

That’s my take, anyways.

At the end of the day, I’m not affiliated with Stansberry Research or Eifrig (in any way), so it makes no difference to me what you decide to do. But I do hope my ramblings help you make a more informed choice one way or the other. Thanks for reading!