Apex Money Posts

Hi Apexians!

When J.D. and I started Apex nearly 7 years ago, we wanted to share interesting personal finance content we found on the Internet. We were both blogging heavily, reading a ton, and it seemed like a fun little hobby. Curation sites like Rockstar Finance were acquired and shut down and we felt like we wanted to put something out there.

Since then, J.D. has moved onto to other pursuits, I’ve focused less on blogging and more in video, and my heart and energy just hasn’t been in Apex Money the last few months.

And so now has come the time to shut things down for now.

If you’d like to keep in touch, I’m creating videos on Instagram and TikTok.

I also still continue to write at WalletHacks.com and you can join my email list there. I do share articles I find interesting in my weekly newsletter but it’s not one thing each day, it’s usually one per week.

I hope you’ll keep in touch!

5 Investing Rules You Can Steal From Millennials [Kiplinger’s] – “Millennial investors have been called many names, from risk-happy speculators to overly cautious skeptics. But if you look past the stereotypes, a more interesting picture emerges: millennials are reshaping the way Americans invest in ways that all generations can learn from.”

There Are 154 Billionaire Women in the U.S. Here’s How They Amassed Their Fortunes. [The Wall Street Journal] – “The ever-growing list includes CEOs and entrepreneurs, ex-wives and widows, and some heiresses, too. Here’s where their money comes from and how they spend it.”

The “Elite” Myth and the GoFundMe Outrage [Alyssa Milano] – “When friends of Eric Dane and James Van Der Beek organized GoFundMe campaigns for their families, the backlash was swift and predictable. Comment sections filled with variations of the same accusation: Why are we giving money to elites? Aren’t they rich? Isn’t this absurd?”

The post is short but poignant.

“Perhaps the more revealing question is not why anyone would give, but why generosity toward someone recognizable provokes such suspicion. Compassion should not have a means test.”

Brown rice and status [Seth Godin’s Blog] – “Rice is one of the most consumed foods in the world, and it gives us insight into our relentless search for status and for affiliation.”

🤣🤣🤣

Buying the Dip is for Losers [Money Changes Everything] – “In April of last year, I bought the dip. I timed the market perfectly, investing an unexpected cash windfall into the stock market at one of the lowest points in the year. I did not achieve this through brilliant technical analysis or financial forecasting. I achieved this by accident. I slipped on a golden banana peel.”

Great opening section but the real gold is in this section:

“The Dip Feels Like the End of the World

You know when one of the best times in history to invest was? March of 2020.

Did you have a lot of confidence in the state of the world and financial markets in March 2020? Think back to those early pandemic days.”

It’s a good playbook: Get paid for what you’re good at and use a side hustle as a creative outlet.

But beware burnout.

‘I am never off the clock’: inside the booming world of gen Z side hustles [The Guardian] – “On top of her day job in the tech giant’s security and artificial intelligence department, Doshi also publishes social media content about working in tech and her life in New York City, and records podcasts – sometimes all three in a day.

She is part of a seismic generational shift: 57% of gen Z Americans have a side hustle, according to recent Harris Poll research, compared with 21% among boomers.

Rather than throwing everything into a single career, many young adults are now spinning plates – using their main job as financial bedrock while directing their passion, and ambition, elsewhere.“

Are You Spending Your Money Wisely? [TED] – “Drawing on his experience negotiating million-dollar deals for global brands, procurement expert Wolfgang Schnellbaecher distills the tricks of the world’s best buyers into three simple rules to help you make the most of your money.”

I watched Best in Show before having any exposure to dog shows. I didn’t really get the mockumentary (it was too over the top) until I learned more about dog shows… and now I see why the movie was such a hit!

It was fun (and scary) to read the economics behind it.

The economics of dog shows [The Hustle] – “What drives the people behind the spectacle? As one California-based dog handler told me, “Number one, you have to be competitive. And you have to love the dogs.”

You also have to be willing to sink a small fortune into breeding, grooming, training, feeding, and showing your prospective prize-winners, with no guarantee of a return on investment.”

We probably experience similar trajectories every time new technology is introduced in the workplace. Rapid increase in productivity but also increase in cognitive fatigue and burnout.

Our brains can only go so fast and so hard for so long.

AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It [Harvard Business Review] – “One of the promises of AI is that it can reduce workloads so employees can focus more on higher-value and more engaging tasks. But according to new research, AI tools don’t reduce work, they consistently intensify it: In the study, employees worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks, and extended work into more hours of the day, often without being asked to do so. That may sound like a win, but it’s not quite so simple. These changes can be unsustainable, leading to workload creep, cognitive fatigue, burnout, and weakened decision-making. The productivity surge enjoyed at the beginning can give way to lower quality work, turnover, and other problems. To correct for this, companies need to adopt an “AI practice,” or a set of norms and standards around AI use that can include intentional pauses, sequencing work, and adding more human grounding.”