Apex Money Posts

One of my favorite quotes / jokes is “happiness is making $1 more than your brother in law.”

I wish I knew where I heard it but the message rings true.

Wealth is relative.

It’s why you can see articles about people who make $400,000 and not “feel rich.” It’s because they’re surrounded by people who make $500,000 or $1,000,000 a year.

Comparison is the thief of joy… as President Theodore Roosevelt would say.

Rich People Who Don’t Feel Rich [A Wealth of Common Sense] – “Wealth is what you keep, not what you make but it’s hard to envision a world in which being in the top 3% of income is not considered rich.”

Valuing Social Security as an Asset in Your Retirement Plan [bestinterest.blog] – “All too often, I speak with current or future retirees who think along these lines:

“We don’t want to assume Social Security will be there for us. Let’s just focus on the assets in our control.”
“I know Social Security is there, but it’s so small. Let’s play it safe and ignore it for now.”
“Social Security is only $2000 monthly, whereas my IRA has $900K. Social Security is a drop in the bucket.”

These ideas are not only wrong but perilously so. To overlook Social Security is an unreasonably conservative retirement assumption.”

Finally, I leave you with this perfect tweet:

FU money, explained pic.twitter.com/q11jjjtw18

— Steph Smith (@stephsmithio) April 21, 2024

If you really want to trade stocks when the market is closed, there are ways. You don’t get full market participants, you’re usually trading with other people at the brokerage or in “dark pools” with other people, but it’s not the full market.

Do we really want 24/7 trading of stocks?

More to the point – since it’s already happening, would it be better if it happened in the open or just left to different groups?

It’s a sticky question… with no good answers. Personally, I think we don’t need 24/7 trading in any capacity. Take some time off.

New York Stock Exchange tests views on round-the-clock trading [Financial Times] – “The New York Stock Exchange is polling market participants on the merits of trading stocks around the clock as regulators scrutinise an application for the first 24/7 bourse.”

Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, explained [Vox] – “On Friday, the White House announced that an additional 277,000 borrowers will see their student loans eliminated, amounting to about $7.4 billion in forgiven debt. Those borrowers qualified for that relief because they were enrolled in one of the loan repayment or forgiveness programs the administration created or revamped while it was also trying to roll out its original plan for broad loan cancellation.”

Rob Berger shares his experiences with Fidelity, Vanguard, and Schwab – he’s used all three over the last 20 years.

Happy Monday Apexians!

We’re starting off today with a bit of a heavier subject, lessons learned by a financial advisor after the passing of his father. It has a lot of tactical stuff regarding end of life planning but also quite a bit of emotional subjects too such as living with grief. It’s very powerful.

9 Lessons I’ve Learned About Death and Money [Kindness Financial Planning] – “These are the 9 lessons I learned about death and money during his 7 year battle with Stage IV Lung Cancer, increased cognitive impairment, relapse after 20 plus years of being sober, his death, and life post-death.

As a financial planner, I’m privileged to be alongside people as they experience death in their own lives. I hear what it’s like and help people plan to make it easier on their survivors. 

I’ll borrow a bit from my work and incorporate themes I’ve seen in my career, but most of this is my first hand experience, including fighting the healthcare system, how the legal system is not well set up for aging, and tips you can take to make it easier on your loved ones.”

Next, we lighten things up a bit – here’s a crazy story about what they’re playing around with at Johns Hopkin’s APL:

Scientists at APL Are Creating Food From Thin Air [Johns Hopkins Magazine] – “APL’s in-development system uses electricity, water, and engineered microbes to pull carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and trace minerals—such as magnesium, calcium, and iron—out of the air. Next, an electrochemical process involving common metals like tin and copper converts the CO₂ into acetate. From here, researchers can trigger a chemical reaction or introduce microbes to convert the acetate into simple sugars like glucose.” This is wild!

OK, so here’s another food related story and it’s completely by accident but related to money because California just increased the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 an hour:

‘Eat the future, pay with your face’: my dystopian trip to an AI burger joint [The Guardian] – “CaliExpress by Flippy claims to be the world’s first fully autonomous restaurant, using a system of AI-powered robots to churn out fast-food burgers and fries. A small number of humans are still required to push the buttons on the machines and assemble the burgers and toppings, but the companies involved tout that using their technology could cut labor costs, perhaps dramatically. “Eat the future,” they offer.”

All things being equal, is it better to have a person make it or a robot? I’d probably prefer the robot? It sounds like we’re a bit aways from them actually being able to make good burgers and fries but probably not that far away.

Hey, money nerds. It’s one of those days where I devote the entirety of Apex Money to one article. Why? Because I believe it’s both interesting and important. To that end:

There’s no such thing as a price anymore. [The Atlantic archive link] — “Prices aren’t just changing more often — they’re getting more complex, too. Fees, long the specialty of banks and credit-card companies, have proliferated across industries. Previously self-contained products (toothbrushes, movies, Microsoft Word) have turned into subscriptions, while previously bundled items (Wi-Fi at hotels, meals on airplanes) are now sold separately. Buying stuff online means navigating a flurry of discount codes, often just expired. Meanwhile, prices are becoming more personalized as companies hoover up customer data.”

Fascinating stuff. And frustrating. Forced subscriptions, forced bundles, and surge pricing have all been driving me nuts for several years now. Ultimately, so long as the U.S. is a de facto corpocracy, this kind of bullshit is only going to get worse and worse.

Good morning, friends, and welcome to another day of Apex Money.

Today’s first article should prove useful to me in the near future. I’m about to earn a regular income for the first time in years, so I’ll no longer qualify for subsidized health insurance. It’s time for me to dive into the healthcare marketplace!

How to choose the right healthcare plan for you. [Bitches Get Riches] — “Choosing the right healthcare plan can be intimidating, especially if you’re doing it for the first time. The stakes are high; the options are confusing; there’s often a small window during which you can make the choice before you lose your chance; and the whole thing highlights the merciless jank that is our healthcare system! Luckily, there’s an incredibly easy, 100% foolproof way to make the decision. Here’s our secret.”

Letting go of keeping up. [Reactor] — “Give yourself space. Step away from the internet. Ignore the websites that want you to rate and review art like it’s a toothbrush or a new pair of sneakers. Don’t even keep a list of books read, if you don’t want to. What we get from reading is not quantifiable, not a statistic to earn or an item to collect. It’s an experience, a process, an education, a gift.”

“37 pieces of career advice I wish I’d known earlier.” [Ryan Holiday] — “This post is about…things I wish I’d been told when I was just starting and things I still tell myself. Some of them might be exactly what you need to hear right now. Some might not apply to you yet, or ever. That’s okay. Whether you’re just starting out, looking to make a big change, or aiming to reach new heights in your current role, I hope you’ll find something here that helps you navigate your own unique path.”

Today’s non-financial video is right in my wheelhouse. It’s a twenty-minute compilation of Charles Schulz drawing Peanuts. I’ve seen some of these segments elsewhere before, but this industrious fellow has compiled a ton of them into one video. It’s awesome.

I continue to take art classes (I have three going right now!), and I’m making clear and obvious improvement. But I’m still a long way from being able to draw a comic strip, which is my ultimate goal.

Heigh-ho, money nerds. J.D. here with another week of Apex Money. I apologize for missing yesterday’s installment. I was hard at work in Real Life preparing for a variety of upcoming events. But I’m here today. And boy, do I have some great stuff!

I believe all three of these articles are fantastic and well worth your time:

“My advice to young people (or, The lies I tell myself).” [Jason Liu] — “You’ll notice that I use the word ‘choosing”‘frequently. I genuinely believe that we are always making choices and that we have the ability to choose. Choosing can be terrifying because it means we are accountable for our decisions, and there are infinite options before us. It is also frightening because once we have made a decision, we must live with it, it is the death of optionality. But I believe that choosing is the only way to live authentically.”

To make sure grandmas like his don’t get conned, he scams the scammers. [NPR] — “Kitboga, also called Kit, is a millennial with a knack for improvisation. He’s among the most popular of so-called scam baiters, a term used to describe those who aim to waste scammers’ time otherwise spent ripping off innocent victims. It’s a lucrative gig for some of the biggest creators in the genre who, like Kit, have quit their jobs to scam bait full-time, often broadcasting their humorous schemes on YouTube and Twitch. As internet scams spike, with victims losing more money than ever, scam baiters like Kitboga are trying to get more than just laughs.”

Anatomy of a credit-card rewards program. [Bits about Money] — “The heaviest credit card spenders — and this fact is both uncontroversial and flies in the face of what many personal finance columnists believe — are wealthy and sophisticated. They use credit cards primarily as payment instruments. Issuers compete aggressively for their business, which is quite lucrative. This is not because they pay much in interest, because while they have higher headline APRs they only rarely revolve balances. It is because ‘clipping the ticket’ via interchange on a high volume of transactions is an excellent business to be in.”

And, of course, we’re going to close out the day with a video completely unrelated to money. This one is a three-minute clip about a bulldog who is obsessed with bowls.

Animals are so funny — just like humans.

Okay, that’s it for today. I’ll be back tomorrow with more fun stuff for you. See you then.

Growing up, we didn’t talk a lot about money.

But it wasn’t a taboo subject by any means. It was simply that money would be a distraction from my “job” as a kid, which was to study and get good grades.

When it came to money, my parents were very open about it. While I didn’t know how much my parents earned, how much we spent, being frugal and judicious, and why were being frugal were all discussed. There wasn’t a lot of emotional baggage tied to money. We weren’t broke but we also weren’t wealthy, we were solidly middle class and happy.

A lot of people have a lot of emotional baggage around money and that’s, in part, because we don’t talk about it more. I this first post, Darius Foroux makes the case (and I agree 100%) that we should talk about it more (and why).

Why We Should Talk About Money More Often [Darius Foroux] – “So many of us carry around some baggage when it comes to money. Some folks find it rude to talk about finances, others are ashamed or uncomfortable. And then there are many folks who’re clueless because no one ever taught them how to talk about money. It’s no wonder that a recent survey found that 44 percent of Americans see personal finance as the most challenging topic to discuss with others.1 Most folks find it harder to talk about money than subjects like death, politics, and religion.”

Who gets to flourish? [Vox] – “Are you flourishing? Not “just getting by” or “making it through,” but truly thriving? In the last two decades, the field of positive psychology has embraced the concept of flourishing, the pinnacle of well-being. Distinct from subjective happiness or physical health, flourishing is the aggregate of all life experiences when every aspect of your life is going well. “A state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good,” says Brendan Case, the associate director for research at Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program. As impossible as it may seem, to flourish is to feel satisfactory, inside and out, about your relationships, income, work, health, and passions, and to extend that virtuous spirit to others.”

Silver coin boom in medieval England due to melted down Byzantine treasures, study reveals [The Guardian] – “The new rush of silver coinage stimulated trade and helped fuel the development of the new towns springing up at the time – but where did it come from? Were the Anglo-Saxon kings recycling old Roman scrap metal? Or had they found lucrative sources from mines in Europe?” It’s fascinating that they can determine coins in England came from melted silver from the Byzantine empire. Science is amazing!

Would you go to this type of bar?

At Stock Market Bar Night, Buy Low and Drink Up [New York Times] – “In London, “competitive socializing” transforms pubs into stock exchanges, golf courses and cricket fields for those looking for more elaborate drinking games.”

See you next week!

I was spending time with friends over the weekend and the subject of estate planning came up. We set up our estate a few years ago and it contained a few “future proof” statements, like including “all future children” rather than just naming the ones we had at the time.

One thing we did not do? Name a successor executor. (naming multiple executors is generally considered bad because it can cause a lot of headaches)

Sadly, our named executor passed away unexpectedly a few years ago and we haven’t yet named a new one.

Right now, it’s fine because we’re still alive and can update our estate to name a new executor, but it could be a problem in the future until we fix it (it’s on the list!).

This is covered in our first post today:

Name Successor Trustees (Plural!) for Your Trust [Oblivious Investor] – “Regardless, this is an easily avoided situation. Make sure your trust has multiple successor trustees. Even if you like the idea of naming a family member or a trusted individual professional as the trustee, naming a business entity, such as a well-established law firm that’s likely to outlive any one person, as a final successor trustee can prevent the situation described here.”

Exclusive: How much Acorns savers amassed by investing spare change [Axios] – “How much money would you save up if you invested your spare change in the stock market? The answer, in practice, seems to be about $2,500 over nine years.” The average saved per month was $43… but the fees are $3 – $9, so is it really worth it? Maybe? Kind of?

A history of the American economy through stadium names [Sherwood] – “With that much money changing hands, we’re bound to see trends emerge in who actually pays for these sponsorships, from beer companies to dot-com startups to for-profit colleges and disgraced energy brokers. Where might these naming-rights go next, and what do they tell us about how big-time sports — and the US economy at large — have changed over the past five decades?”

You Can’t Succeed In Life Without This Skill [Ryan Holiday] – “I’m a ‘sense of urgency’ guy. I always have been. As I was working on a draft of this article, one of my former employees sent me a short piece about the concept of “clock speed,” which in the world of computing refers to how quickly something can execute instructions. “Something you are very good at,” this former employee (and now friend) wrote. “You keep the tempo/momentum very high and if there is ever a bottleneck somewhere (decision or input), you process that as soon as physically possible. You return the ball very quickly.””

They Chose to Take a Pay Cut—and Say They’re Happier [The Wall Street Journal] – “Switching to a job with a lower salary often means trimming your expenses, but it can come with a raise in free time and work-life balance.”

How the California forest that starred as Endor in ‘Star Wars’ was obliterated [SFGATE] – “The film crew got to work. They dug up ferns and rearranged them to fit the eye of the cinematographer. Trails were built, logs repositioned and soon an area not far from Highway 101 began to take on a new, otherworldly shape. The preparation lasted months, but once the actors arrived, Perry suspected this wasn’t your typical movie.”

I’m a little sad that Endor doesn’t exist anymore… but also may exist in a lot of difference places now at the same time.

Happy Monday!

Did you travel to see the eclipse? Jim here – we did and hopefully it doesn’t disappoint! 🙂

Here are a few posts (sorry, none are eclipse-related) that I found interesting last week:

How to stay calm in a bear market [Rad Reads] – “Now I have the unsexiest investing strategy ever. I’ve been dollar-cost-averaging the S&P 500 since 1994, when I was 16 years old. NGL, it’s single-handedly made us rich. It’s been a remarkable strategy that has enabled a life of quasi-financial freedom.” Me too!

The History of Luxury in 50 Objects, From Cleopatra’s Barge to Louis Vuitton Trunks [Robb Report] – “History’s first superyacht owner was Ptolemy IV, who ruled Egypt from 221 to 205 B.C.E. Among his royal fleet was a 300-foot catamaran that towered 60 feet above the Nile, propelled by thousands of enslaved men. But it was his descendant Cleopatra, reigning nearly two centuries later, who has captured the imaginations of poets, playwrights, and Hollywood producers. Cleopatra’s barge was the first nautical fashion statement, a blazing vessel that included silver oars, colorful sails, and a gold-encrusted hull.” Wow.

10 Life-Changing Lessons from Atomic Habits (Book Summary) by James Clear [Untap Me] – “Atomic Habits by James Clear is the holy grail when it comes to guides on habit and behavior change. In this book, he provides a highly effective, practical, and step-by-step framework to embrace new good habits and break free from bad ones. This framework is based on the best techniques from behavioral science and the book is filled with tons of examples backing it up. A must-read if you’re looking to upgrade yourself and move towards becoming the best version of yourself. In this post, we will take a look at 10 key lessons from the book.”