Author: J.D. Roth

Today is Tuesday, Apexians, and we have money links for you!

Let’s lead with our video. This one is from the always-awesome Financial Diet channel on YouTube. It’s the six-minute story of how one woman spent seven months developing the skills and network needed too find a job she loved: I realized I hated my job three days after starting. Here’s what I did next.

What I love most about this story is just how self-motivated the narrator is. Instead of bemoaning her situation, she makes a plan and takes action. Awesome!

Why you shouldn’t ignore active income. [The Fioneers] — “This was the first time I heard of semi-retirement. I had no idea that with some active income each year, we could scale back our full-time jobs and partially retire even earlier than we had planned. This sounded great! When we actually put our information into the calculator, the results FLOORED US!”

The difference between trading time for money and trading tasks for money. [Financial Panther] — “When you think about it, doing gig work isn’t exactly trading time for money. Rather, you’re trading tasks for money, getting paid for each task that you complete. It’s a small distinction that might not look like a big deal at first. But I think it’s a distinction that matters and is worth thinking about.”

Finally, here’s a story that found amusing. Who knew that pineapples used to be symbols of wealth? Not this boy!

The rise, fall, and rise of the status pineapple. [BBC News] — “Symbols have always been used to signal one’s status. Military insignia, family signet rings and heirloom watches; impressive properties filled with original art, expensive cars and designer handbags ensure a luxury lifestyle is obvious to all. But for about 250 years, all of these signposts of wealth and good breeding were ably fulfilled by…the pineapple.” Fascinating.

Okay, that’s it for today. I’ll be back tomorrow with more of the best in personal finance. See you then!

Welcome to Monday, my nerds. We have a lot of great stuff today. In fact, this is one of my favorite batches of links that I’ve ever gathered. Set aside some time during your lunch break, because there’s a lot too enjoy here.

To start, let’s talk about Costco. (Have you noticed I have a low-key obsession with Costco? This is the fourth story about Costco I’ve shared in the past year.)

How Costco convinces brands to cannibalize themselves. [Napkin Math] — “While customers might not know it, Kirkland products are often made by the same manufacturers who make the branded products that sit next to them on the shelves. And not only that, but according to a Reddit user who worked at a Costco supplier, Kirkland products have to be at least 1% better than the equivalent branded products…Costco forces manufacturers to compete with a better version of themselves.”

In non-Costco-related news…

The battle to invent the automatic rice cooker. [Atlas Obscura] — “The automatic rice cooker is a mid-century Japanese invention that made a Sisyphean culinary labor as easy as measuring out grain and water and pressing a button. These devices can seem all-knowing. So long as you add water and rice in the right proportions, it’s nearly impossible to mess up, as the machines stop cooking at exactly the right point for toothsome rice. But creating an automatic rice cooker was not so easy.”

The collectors who spend thousands on rare Hot Wheels. [The Hustle] — “Five decades ago, Hot Wheels were America’s hottest new plaything. Today, the children of the ‘60s are fueling a small but mighty collectors’ market that wheels and deals in obscure corners of the internet…How did one-time 59-cent toy cars become 5-figure collectibles? And what drives grown men and women to spend princely sums chasing them?”

For the past decade, Brain Pickings has been one of my favorite blogs. Here, Maria Popova shares what she’s learned during her thirteen years running the site. I particularly like #3…

Thirteen lessons from thirteen years of Brain Pickings. [Brain Pickings] — “3. Be generous. Be generous with your time and your resources and with giving credit and, especially, with your words. It’s so much easier to be a critic than a celebrator. ..To understand and be understood, those are among life’s greatest gifts, and every interaction is an opportunity to exchange them.”

Lastly, I really liked this four-minute music video from Linda Diaz (and friends). It’s her submission to NPR’s Tiny Desk contest. It’s lovely.

Okay, I’ll be back tomorrow with more great stories from around the web. And I promise that this time they’ll be about, you know, money. (Or something close to it.)

It’s Friday, folks. Let’s have some fun.

And let’s start the day with a video! That has nothing to do with money! Here’s a young man (and his family) explaining what it was like for one of his baby photos to become a popular early photo meme (“success kid”) that still gets used frequently a decade later.

Speaking of kids, here are a couple of recent articles about children…

How to teach kids about saving and investing. [Refined by Fire] — “I knew I had my work cut out for me. After all, finance is supposed to be boring, right? And my son was young so to tach him I had to make it simple and quick to understand. I knew that it had to be his idea or he would not be engaged. I knew I had to wait for a teachable moment. I knew I had to capture his undivided attention…but how?” Part one of a new, ongoing series. I heard this presentation at Camp FI recently and loved it. This is going to be good!

Children are using emojis for digital-age language learning. [Wired] — “🦄🐴🦋🐛🐤🐦🐦🐧🐔🐣🐶🐱🐭🐰🐰🐰❄️❄️🌦🌈🔥💥☀️🍓🥞❣️💙💚💛🧡🔒💕💜🖤💞💞💗💖💘🕉💝☸️💟 These emoji texts are adorable, but as a linguist, I’m interested in what kids are trying to communicate.”

Lastly, and simply to justify the title I chose for today’s edition (which I chose before collecting and writing everything), here’s Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong doing a quarantine-inspired cover of Kim Wilde’s classic “Kids in America”.

True story: When my brother Jeff and I were young and discovering pop music, this was one of the first songs we both loved. And I love it to this day. For twenty years, one of my favorite music playlists has been built around this song.

Okay, I’m out. This weekend, I have a fallen fence to demolish. And maybe a kayak to paddle. Wherever you are, I hope that you enjoy a fun and productive end to July (and start to August). We’ll see you again next Monday.

Welcome to Thursday, Apexians. It’s high summer here in Oregon. It’s hot. Blackberries are ripe. Tomatoes are coming on. The hydrangeas are showing their stuff. And nothing sounds better than relaxing in a lawn chair with a cool beverage in hand…

A brief history of the lawn chair. [Valet] — “The rise of this all-American staple coincided with the growth of suburbs after World War II, when homes with larger lawns were suddenly more affordable. Aluminum production soared during the war, since it was used in the structural framing of military aircraft. After the war, manufacturers sought other uses for the strong yet lightweight material. Turns out, narrow aluminum tubing was great for making chairs.”

And hey — why not? — let’s put today’s video in the middle of the list! Here’s a seven-minute video from The New York Times that explains how Americans learned to love their front lawns.

You know, as long as we’re doing the whole 1950s suburbia thing, how about this story that has nothing to do with money and everything to do with bowling?

The most amazing bowling story ever. [D Magazine] — “He had 33 straight strikes entering the 10th frame of the third game. Out came the cell phone cameras. There were whispers, but as soon as Fong picked up his ball, it was dead quiet. He turned to look at the crowd behind him, now well over 100 people, densely packed from the end of the snack bar to the vending machines 80 feet away. That’s when the magic left him…” [Related: Bowling a perfect game in 90 seconds.]

“Decorating our home with thrift-store finds.” [Financial Mechanic] — “I have recently been shopping to furnish our new apartment. I am perpetually taken aback by every price tag…Sticker shock aside, thrifting is about more than just money. Every item you thrift is another item that doesn’t need to go to a landfill.”

A half million dollars by thirty. [A Purple Life] — “Now, enough with those squishy emotions. Let’s get into some nerdy analysis! I was curious how much of my net worth is from after-tax savings from my earnings, compared to how much the market contributed, so let’s look at it!”

And that’s all for today! I’ll be back tomorrow to take you into the weekend — a weekend during which I hope we will all relax after bowling by sitting in thrift-store lawn chairs purchased with our half-million-dollar nest eggs! 🙂

Welcome to Wednesday, money nerds, and welcome to another edition of Apex Money. As always, we’ve collected some money news worth reading to share with you. Ready? Let’s go!

Secrets of a successful, strategic, and short job search. [Bitches Get Riches] — “A successful job search means treating the search like it’s literally your job, like you’re getting paid to do it. Yes, being temporarily unemployed is a great time to relax a bit and catch up on important shit like house work, your mental and physical health…But once you’ve recharged your metaphorical batteries, you need to buckle down and get organized to have a prayer of being hired.”

Things to remember once you decide to take charge of your financial life. [The Simple Dollar] — “The truth about turning around your financial life is that it gets easier as you go. At first, it feels like the changes are endless and very difficult, but as time passes, not only do the changes feel easier, the impact of those changes begins to multiply.”

Earning more is not cheating. [The Escape Artist] — “I’m here to tell you that earning more money is not impossible…nor illegal…nor unethical. I’d go as far as saying that earning more is A Good Thing. The time it takes to get to financial independence depends on your savings rate. And, let’s be honest, its easier to save 50+% of your income when you’re on a higher income.” This is such an important point. It baffles me that there are people who feel guilt over their high incomes. [See also the second part in this series.]

Myths (and truths) of the 17th century tulip craze. [Smithsonian Magazine] — “For decades, economists have pointed to 17th-century tulipmania as a warning about the perils of the free market. Writers and historians have reveled in the absurdity of the event. The incident even provides the backdrop for the new film Tulip Fever, based on a novel of the same name by Deborah Moggach. The only problem: none of these stories are true.”

Our last item today is something completely different. From the blog of film director Steven Soderbergh, here’s a look at how “staging” affects a film. Soderbergh has taken Raiders of the Lost Ark and stripped it of color and sound. He wants us, the audience, to watch this stripped-down version to analyze why Steven Spielberg made the choices he made.

Anyhow, I didn’t watch the whole thing (it’s two hours long!) but I did watch a few minutes. It was fascinating. (Also: Raiders looks amazing in black and white!)

That’s it for Hump Day, my friends. I’ll see you again tomorrow.

Good morning, my friends, and welcome to another day of Apex Money. As always, we’ve collected some excellent money stories from other corners of the web. Let’s jump right in.

Is there a passive-investing bubble? [Early Retirement Now] — “If you buy a total market index then you will automatically hold all of the overvalued and all of the undervalued stocks. In the end, everything just averages out…In other words, too much passive investing may create misvaluations within the stock market, not necessarily a misvaluation of the market overall.”

The best side gig is spending less. [The White Coat Investor] — “As a doctor or other high-income professional, you’ve already done very well in the income game. Before you try to generate more offense, at least take a quick look at the defensive side of the game and plug the holes in the dam. (How’s that for a mixed metaphor?)”

When your true hourly wage is more important than your salary. [The Fioneers] — “Once you get to the point where you make enough to live on and save, you can begin to focus on increasing your true hourly rate beyond increasing your salary. You can cut costs associated with working and decrease the time you spend doing work-related things. When you do this, it can free up your time to focus on things that you enjoy and find meaningful.”

Finally for today, from the Stories of Animals channel on YouTube, here’s a two-minute clip highlighting a dog who was raised by cats…and now thinks he’s a cat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkBObiwQddc

I don’t know why, but I find this entire story charming. I love the idea of a dog doing cat things. It tickles my funny bone.

Okay, that’s all for Tuesday. I’ll be back tomorrow with more great stuff. Come on back, y’here?

Hello, friends! It’s J.D., and I’m back from two weeks in Colorado. (Okay, ten days in Colorado. I spent two days driving there from Portland, then two days driving home.) As I return to my normal routine, I’m reading lots of great money stories. Stories like these…

The origin, development, and regulation of the U.S. banking system. [The Gilder Lehrman Institution of American History A.P. U.S. history study guide] — “There were no modern banks in colonial America. Colonial Americans gave credit to each other, or relied on credit from merchants and banks in Great Britain. Money consisted of foreign coins and paper money issued by the governments of each colony. There were no American banks as late as 1781…” As a money nerd, I found this brief history of banking interesting. You may disagree. 😀

How to use apps & websites to sell your stuff locally for free. [TicTocLife] — “Even if you really don’t think your old things have any value, why not give it go and see if they’re sellable? If it’s really worthless why not donate to Goodwill to get the tax deduction or put it up on the freebies section of Craigslist? Follow me down the surprisingly simple path to learning how to get rid of your old ‘junk’ which might just have a diamond in the rough, too!” I like this one a lot!

How to go car-free. [Financial Panther] — “One thing that is worth taking away from this is to think about your own car use and how you use your car. Can most of your trips be replaced with an electric micromobility option? If you’ve never tried an e-bike or scooter before, you probably don’t understand how much distance you can cover on these vehicles.”

Lastly, here’s something fun that’s not related to money. This is a kid with perfect pitch, and in these 90 seconds he not only names notes and simple chords but also complex polychords.

As a guy who struggles to sing even a single note on-key, I find this impressive.

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

It’s Monday, y’all! And, as always, I’m here to start the week with some of the best recent money stories from around the web. Here’s what I have for you today. Jim takes over tomorrow.

“I lost my job and it might be the best worst thing that’s ever happened to me.” [Bitches Get Riches] — “Two years ago I was celebrating leaving my job of nearly nine years at a nonprofit publishing house and finally going corporate. I was riding high and making more money at a large, for-profit publishing house, working remotely full-time and generally kicking ass. It was the shit. Aaaaand then I lost my job.”

Which leads us naturally to this next piece…

Nine steps to take if you lose your job. [Dough Roller] — “If you’re one of the millions of those unemployed across the U.S., you may wonder what to do next…While losing a job is distressing, the best thing you can do is take action. Get yourself moving in the right direction so you can get back on your feet quickly. Here’s what you need to know if you find yourself without a job.”

Behavioral Scientist‘s summer book list. [Behavioral Scientist] — “For your intellectual pleasure (and to help you achieve some normalcy), we compiled a list of our favorite reads from 2020 so far, including a few books to have on your radar in the coming months. Hope you enjoy.”

The most dangerous phrase. [Tawcan] — “Years ago, it would have been easy to simply convince myself to stop spending the money, use the most dangerous phrase, also known as ‘we’ll do it next time’, as an excuse and call it the day. But we are more knowledgeable now and we know how to take a more balanced approach as we work our way toward financial independence.”

Let’s start the week with something non-financial. From Mental Floss, here are 24 things you might not have known about the musical Hamilton. And in case you haven’t been playing the show on repeat like I have, here’s Lin-Manuel Miranda debuting the show’s opening number all the way back in 2009. At the White House. For the President. Hey man, no pressure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8_ARd4oKiI

And thus a legend was born.

Seriously: As any of my close friends will tell you, I’m a life-long fan of musical theater. I don’t know if Hamilton is my favorite show (that honor probably goes to Once), but it’s certainly in the top three. So amazing. (The other show in my top three? Probably Into the Woods. Or The Music Man. Or West Side Story.)

Anyhow, that’s it for me! Jim takes over tomorrow for two weeks while I galivant.

Good morning, Apexians! It’s Friday, and I have some interesting stories about personal finance for you. (this was originally scheduled for yesterday but WordPress does what WordPress wants!)

The impending retail apocalypse. [Axios] — “Because of the coronavirus and people’s buying habits moving online, retail stores are closing everywhere — often for good. Malls are going belly up. Familiar names like J.C. Penney, Neiman Marcus and J. Crew have filed for bankruptcy. Increasingly, Americans’ shopping choices will boil down to a handful of internet Everything Stores and survival-of-the-fittest national chains.” [Related: The pandemic is re-writing the rules of retail.]

Target-date funds are performing well, but choosing one can be difficult. [Barron’s] — “For all of their apparent simplicity, target-date funds aren’t all that simple. Funds with the same retirement year can have very different allocations to stocks and bonds, and how managers execute on that top-down view also varies dramatically.”

“How self-isolation taught me about happiness.” [Millennial Revolution] — “With no gold stars to strive for, no accolades, nothing scheduled in the horizon, for the first time, I’m happy just being instead of doing. I’m happy being me. I don’t need to prove anything anymore. Not to myself. Not to anyone.”

Lastly, here’s a twenty-minute video from Beat the Bush in which he discusses “the too frugal mental disorder”. “I feel like I really do have some sort of mental illness with spending money,” he says. He feels like he was too cheap in the past.

This is an interesting video to me, mostly because I have the opposite problem. Yes, I go through cheap phases, but mostly I’m inclined to spend too much. So, it’s interesting to hear the other side.

Anyhow, that’s enough from me! I’ll have one post on Monday and then Jim will be on to share more of the best of the financial web for two weeks. Me? I’m on my way to Colorado for a couple of weeks of money nerdery with other money nerds like you. I’ll see you folks at the end of July!

Welcome to Wednesday, Apexians.

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve finished work on a “financial independence and early retirement” course for Audible and The Teaching Company. Right now, it’s tentatively scheduled to release in October.

As part of that course, I went on a five- or ten-minute digression about the history of homeownership in the United States. In fact, I’ve spent much of this year diving deep into the history of personal finance and home economics. It’s fascinating. (I’ve begun toying with the idea of writing a book or a course on this topic, even though I know the audience for it would be small.)

Anyhow, our first story today here at Apex is all about homeownership through the ages.

Homeownership through the ages: A look at homeownership then and now. [Ancestry] — “The Homestead Act of 1862, the introduction of the 30-year mortgage, and the GI Bill are all among the milestones that brought home ownership within the reach of millions of Americans. Today, more than 63.5 percent of all Americans own their homes, up from 44 percent in 1940. Here are some of the important landmarks in this history.”

Fifteen things to consider before moving to the country. [Frugalwoods] — “There is no perfect location and no perfect lifestyle, but for me, where we live now comes pretty darn close. I’m not out to convert you (well, maybe a little…) but I do want to reassure any rural-curious folks that it is possible to take the plunge without much experience, without having lived rurally before, without owning so much as a shovel, and without knowing how to drive a tractor.”

The life-changing magic of doing just enough. [MSN News] — “In Norway, I discovered a new emotion I can best describe as ‘enoughness’—a neologism whose source I have yet to determine—alien to most New Yorkers. My tolerance for nonproductive activities increased. So did my appetite for solitude in nature, a transformation I have put to good use in pandemic social isolation.”

To round out the day, here’s a fun video of a kid outside Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia. He’s hawking souvenirs in twelve different languages. Not sure why I like this so much, but I do.

And that’s all we have for Wednesday. I’ll see you tomorrow with more great stuff from the world of money. Bye bye!