Author: J.D. Roth

Hello, money nerds. Let me be the first to say: TGIF!!! I might have had just a little bit too much with my blogging buddies this week in Tahoe. Now I’m paying for it. (Rough life, I know.)

To wrap up the week, let me share a few other money stories that came up in conversation this week. I can’t remember who shared each of these, so I can’t give proper credit. But they’re all good!

Why inflation is the single biggest retirement threat. [ESI Money] — “What matters is the inflation you can expect in the future, not the past. And nobody knows with any confidence what future inflation will be because the past is not necessarily indicative of the future. Knowing the next 15 years of inflation would require either a crystal ball or a direct connection to a higher power. I don’t have either and neither does your financial planner.”

Anonymous contributors answer: What’s some underrated general life advice. [80,000 Hours] — “The following are excerpts from interviews with people whose work we respect and whose answers we offered to publish without attribution…The advice is particularly targeted at people whose approach to doing good aligns with the values of the effective altruism (EA) community, but we expect most of it is more broadly useful.”

“I made one simple financial change and it lowered my spending.” [The Atlantic] — “I came up with…an un-fun, disciplined rule and applied it to my own spending—and it has mostly worked. The rule is simple: After I buy something, I log the transaction on my phone, recording the price and what I bought. The idea is to increase the pain of paying, especially with a credit card, by forcing myself to take note of what I’m spending.”

Vicki Robin on the ABCs of wealth. [Triple Bottom Line FI] — “Abilities, Belonging and Community are the three forms of natural wealth you build intuitively in the process of aligning how you earn, spend and save money with your purpose and fulfillment. As you take your eyes off the false prize (of more, better and different stuff) you put them on the real prizes: friends, family, sharing, caring, learning, meeting challenges, intimacy, rest, being present, connected and respected. In other words, those best things in life that are free.”

To round out your week, here’s something I love. One of our attendees at the ski lodge this week has an enterprising daughter named Ellie. Ellie has created her own YouTube channel in which she’s documenting the process while she restores a 1965 Ford Falcon.

Here’s the episode in which Ellie pulls the engine from the car so that it can be overhauled.

There’s so much I love about all of this. I’m a fan of child entrepreneurs, child creators, and people who defy stereotypes. So much of that going on all at once here. No wonder I love it.

Okay, that’s all for this week. Time for me to go back to bed, to try to recover from all the fun I had in Tahoe. Bye!

Welcome to Wednesday, money nerds! And welcome once again to Apex Money, where we do our best to share the best money stories from every corner of the interwebs.

This week, I’m at Lake Tahoe, hanging out with blogging buddies. I’m handing curation duties over to them, asking them to give me their favorite recent articles. And, as I’ve mentioned all week, our talk continues to be centered around the Tim Ferriss article about fame that I shared on Monday. I’m not kidding: This piece has everybody talking.

Still, I’ve managed to get people to give me other stories worth sharing.

My business partner Tom Drake (from Maple Money) thinks you Apexians would appreciate this MSN Money article about the “Japanese art of saving money“. — “What sets this 116-year-old method apart, however, is that it doesn’t involve any budgeting software, apps or Excel sheets. Similar to bullet journaling, kakeibo emphasizes the importance of physically writing things down — as a meditative way to process and observe your spending habits.”

Mr. Josh Overmyer likes this story from MSNBC about thrift-store arbitrage. Enterprising entrepreneurs rummage through used books, clothes, and gadgets to find casually discarded treasures, which they turn around and sell for a profit online. “Reselling online touches several current trends. You don’t add to the landfill. You streamline your possessions and satisfy your inner Marie Kondo. And you side hustle, because who can’t use a few extra bucks?”

Here’s a video recommended by Lacey Langford, The Military Money Expert ®. She loves The Alter Ego Effect, Todd Herman’s recent book about using the power of secret identities to transform your life. The premise? Defeat negative self-talk by naming it and isolating it. Then, when you need to perform at a high level, pretend you’re somebody else. Pretend you’re Sasha Fierce.

Here’s a four-minute video in which Herman describes the alter-ego effect.

This video is a little cheesy, no doubt, but it’s an interesting concept, one I’d find useful for me. I’m intrigued enough that I ordered his book, in fact. I’ll read it and report back in the near future at Get Rich Slowly.

Lastly, here’s an article submitted by Apex reader Craig, who is not a blogger and not present here in Tahoe. At The Atlantic, Annie Lowrey writes about the great affordability crisis breaking America. “Beyond the headline economic numbers [of the 2010s], a multifarious and strangely invisible economic crisis metastasized: Let’s call it the Great Affordability Crisis…In one of the best decades the American economy has ever recorded, families were bled dry by landlords, hospital administrators, university bursars, and child-care centers. For millions, a roaring economy felt precarious or downright terrible.”

Do you have something you think your fellow readers would enjoy or find interesting? Send it to us! We love reader submissions.

¡Hola, amigos! Welcome once more to Apex Money, your source for the top money stories from around the web.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m hanging out with a bunch of blogging buddies at Lake Tahoe, on the Nevada-California border. For fun, I’ve asked them to share some of their favorite recent articles with me. Everyone keeps pointing out the Tim Ferriss piece we linked to yesterday. It’s on all of our minds. But I can’t link to that twice in two days, right?

So, here’s what we have for today.

My new friend Michelle Black had several suggestions, including a piece from Brave Saver: Why should moms have to justify their choices? “I and many moms have gotten the message loud and clear,” author Elyssa writes, “that we must sacrifice and burn ourselves out to warm everyone around us.” Michelle says this article spoke to her, that she could relate to it.

Robert Farrington from The College Investor likes this recent post in the /r/fatFIRE/ subreddit: What’s in your safe? “It’s really interesting to see what people keep in their safe,” Robert says. “I don’t have one. But many people do. Some of this stuff is obvious, but some of it isn’t. I think your readers might find this useful.”

The awesome (and heavily-bearded) Nick True pointed me to this l-o-n-g PDF document — which may be slides from a presentation? — about the state of tech in 2020. I’ll be honest: While I can’t grasp the larger narrative thread here, scrolling through the slides (if they are slides) is fascinating. Some of you will find this tedious. Others will love it.

To wrap things up for the day, here’s something completely non-financial worth watching. My pal Philip Taylor turned me on to Kraig Adams, a YouTuber who creases (mostly) silent travel videos as he hikes around the world. For instance, here’s an awesome video of him hiking alone for three days in Perú.

This brings back memories of my own 2011 trek in Perú (which was not solo). One of the highlights of my life. The country is beautiful and filled with amazing people.

That’s it for today. I’ll be back tomorrow with more great stuff for you. See you then.

Hey, all! It’s J.D. here, back for another week of top money stories from around the web. This week, I’m in Lake Tahoe with some of my favorite blogging buddies. We’re taking a mid-winter break to hang out and enjoy one another’s company.

As we filtered into Reno over the weekend, there was one article that everybody wanted to talk about. Author Tim Ferriss — famous for The Four-Hour Workweek recently shared 11 reasons not to become famous. It’s a vulnerable (and sometimes disturbing) look at the price of fame.

Nobody in our blogging group is famous famous. We’re not movie stars. We’re not even Tim Ferriss. But each of us has stories of strange things that have happened — haters, stalkers, over-enthusiastic fans — and how that’s altered the way we present ourselves publicly. Some people (like me) haven’t made many changes. Others have made drastic changes. And the women, especially, have learned to be cautious. (See also: this article on sexual terror and how it costs women at The Dumpster Dog Blog.)

Okay, that’s a little dark and deep to start the week, I know. Let’s turn our attention to more mundane money stuff, shall we? Here’s some cool recent stuff.

A retrospective on the history of work [since 1950]. [Atlassian] — “You’ve made it to a new decade of work and life. Buckle up because it’ll be like no other that’s come before it. Things have changed so much in just a few decades, influencing how we approach our work in ways you can only see when you stop and take a look back. What has changed, what hasn’t, and what does the future of work hold?”

The biggest lie in personal finance. [Of Dollars and Data] — “The biggest lie in personal finance is that you can be rich if you just cut your spending. And the financial media feeds this lie by telling you to stop spending $5 a day on coffee so that you can become a millionaire.” Preach! Unless you earn an out-sized income, a hard-core devotion to frugality will never make you rich. It’ll just make you miserable.

What is an investment policy statement? (And how do I write one?) [Women Who Money] — “An investment policy statement (IPS) is your investing roadmap. It’s a document outlining your financial goals and strategies, with guidelines for achieving them. And it will help you stay on the right path as you move forward, despite what the market or everyone else is doing. An IPS can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. It provides an overall vision of your investment strategy and holdings.”

Finally, to get your week started right, here’s a ten-minute film I love. While that Tim Ferriss article captures the dark side of humanity, this story captures the light. And that’s the side I prefer to see, the side I prefer to focus on.

This is a dramatized version of a popular Reddit comment. It’s simply called “Today You, Tomorrow Me”.

Screw all the bickering and strife in this country lately. People are people, man. Can’t we all just get along?

Good morning, money nerds! It’s Friday, which means the end of the week. But not for me. You see, I’m currently in the midst of creating an audio-only course about financial independence and early retirement for Audible and The Great Courses. My first deadline — for half of the material — is today. I’m not finished.

Fortunately, my project manager has extended my deadline to Monday. Also fortunately, I’m nearly finished. I’ve completed three lectures and have written the bulk of the other two. But that still means I’ll be hacking away in the word mines for most of the weekend. I’ll be working.

But don’t you worry about that. You enjoy yourself. And before you head home, here are some recent top money stories for you to enjoy.

How to create sustainable money habits. [Frugalwoods] — “It’s not good enough to do good with your money one month, you’ve got to do good with your money all the months. That’s the only route to true improvement. Frugality can become your default and you can train yourself to do the right thing with your money. It’s about establishing habits that are easy to follow.”

The secret tricks used by restaurant menus. [BBC] — “You may not realise it, but the menu probably played a far greater role than you’d credit. Far from being glorified pricelists, restaurant menus are sophisticated marketing tools that can nudge customers towards certain choices. Restaurant menus can even tell us what to think.”

How poor Americans get exploited by their landlords. [CityLab] — “It is a mistake, Desmond and Wilmers argue, to see slums as a byproduct of the modern city, rundown areas that occur by accident. Instead, they contend that the slum has long been a ‘prime moneymaker’ for those who profit from land scarcity, racial segregation, and deferred maintenance.”

Magnitude matters. [Humble Dollar] — “Why don’t we spend our time and energy on financial issues that have the greatest impact? We’ll drive to a more distant gas station to save 10 cents a gallon, but fail to do all the maintenance needed to extend the life of our car. What lies behind this sort of behavior? The savings from getting the best price per gallon is concrete and immediate, while maintaining our car is long term and abstract. It’s simply easier to focus on the 10 cents.”

Let’s end Friday with a special treat. Or, at least it’s a treat for me. You see, I used to be a devoted fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I videotaped every episode, audiotaped every episode, and took detailed notes on every episode, which I then entered into a spreadsheet. (How many episodes was O’Brien in? What about Keiko?) Yes, I am a nerd, thankyouverymuch.

Well, as you probably know, there’s a new series called Star Trek: Picard. At the moment, it’s only available through the subscription service from CBS, and I refused to pay for yet another streaming service. So, I’ll wait a year for Picard to be released on iTunes. (That’s what I did with Star Trek: Discovery.)

Fortunately, for a limited time, CBS has posted the first episode of Picard on YouTube. You can watch it for free! I haven’t done so yet, but I will this weekend…

Speaking of weekends, it’s time for you to start yours. We’ll be back next week with more of the best of the web. See you then.

Good morning, sleepy-head, and welcome to another edition of Apex Money. We’re always here, always working to bring you the best money stories from around the web.

Today, let’s start with our video feature instead of finishing with it.

My ex-wife was (and still is) a huge fan of Antique’s Roadshow, the public television show where people bring in their treasures to find out they’re worth a lot — or a little. Well, here’s a fun segment from AR in which a guy learns that the Rolex watch he bought for $350 in 1974 is today worth…are you ready? The watch is worth half a million dollars. Holy cats!

Every job looks easy when you’re not the one doing it. [Collaborative Fund] — “‘Easy’ makes a good story. It’s short, persuasive, and comforting. But it’s a deceiving story. Everything worthwhile has a cost, so few things worth pursuing are even a shade of easy.”

How the IRS chooses you for an audit. [The Wealthy Accountant] — “It is impossible to completely avoid a tax audit. They happen…If you are unfortunate enough to face an audit, nothing shortens the audit faster than good records. When the taxing authority realizes there is no low hanging fruit they lose interest fast. Clean records also avoid a deeper look into your finances. You just don’t want the hassle.”

Owning a home is not for everyone. [A Wealth of Common Sense] — “There are plenty of good reasons to own a home but peer pressure and price appreciation shouldn’t be at the top of that list…Everyone considering buying a home should run the numbers to understand how the math works out in their area. But even if the numbers look immaculate, you shouldn’t take the plunge into homeownership unless you’re emotionally ready to make this purchase.”

Nearly half of all Americans didn’t participate in outdoor recreation in 2018. [The Colorado Sun] — “While the Outdoor Foundation’s 2019 Outdoor Participation Report showed that while a bit more than half of Americans went outside to play at least once in 2018, nearly half did not go outside for recreation at all. Americans went on 1 billion fewer outdoor outings in 2018 than they did in 2008. The number of adolescents ages 6 to 12 who recreate outdoors has fallen four years in a row, dropping more than 3% since 2007.”

That last article made me think: Do I get out as much as I used to? Honestly, I’m outside more than ever. But nowadays, I’m outside with a purpose — not for recreation. Maybe it’s time for me to re-incorporate some outdoor hobbies into my life again. Sounds like a good goal for 2020. Well, once this Oregon rain lets up, that is…

See you again tomorrow! Until then, be good.

Today is Tuesday, and this is Apex Money.

Like what we do here? Enjoy your daily dose of top money stories from around the web? Help us out! Share us with your friends and family. Better yet, when you find something that other Apexians might like, send it in. We love reader contributions. It helps us create a buffet of delicious links.

Speaking of buffets, let’s get started.

The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets. [The Hustle] — “Few things epitomize America more than the all-you-can-eat buffet. For a small fee, you’re granted unencumbered access to a wonderland of gluttony…But one has to wonder: How does an industry that encourages its customers to maximize consumption stay in business? To find out, we spoke with industry experts, chefs, and buffet owners. As it turns out, it’s harder to ‘beat’ the buffet than you might think.”

Most dietary supplements do nothing. So, why do Americans spend $35 billion a year on them? [The Washington Post] — “Every year, Americans spend something like $35 billion on vitamins, minerals, botanicals and various other substances that are touted as health-giving but mostly do nothing at all. Nothing at all! Could the entire category really just be a rip-off?”

A glossary of personal-finance terms. [Women Who Money] — “When you begin taking control of your money and reading about personal finance, you may come across terminology you aren’t familiar with. This can end up frustrating you or lead to mismanagement of your funds. And we certainly don’t want that! Below you’ll find a fairly comprehensive list of definitions to help you grasp numerous personal finance terms.”

How to future-proof your career in 2020 (and beyond). [Fast Company] — “Future-proofing one’s career doesn’t just mean studying STEM, learning to code, or becoming a data scientist (although, for people with the aptitude for STEM, that is a good place to start). In fact, surviving and thriving in the economy of the future may come down to many of the old-school tactics that helped guide my career a generation ago.”

Lastly, here’s a TWO-HOUR video that shows a time lapse of TEN YEARS of U.S. weather. No, I don’t expect anybody to watch all two hours, but it’s certainly fascinating to watch a minute or two. And then I had fun looking for specific weather events I remember from the past decade.

That’s all folks! We’ll be back tomorrow with more fun and games. See you then.

Good morning, money nerds, and welcome to another edition of Apex Money. That’s right: Jim and I are back with another collection of excellent articles from around the web.

I particularly enjoyed today’s stack of stuff. All four of these pieces is great. So good, in fact, that I didn’t include my typical “bonus” non-money story at the end of the post. I want you to dive into these stories, not get distracted by funny animals.

Why you should quit the news. [Mark Manson] — “The news doesn’t show that the vast majority of people are good. They will help if they can. They care even if they’re confused about how to care or why. The news doesn’t teach you that most people won’t hurt you and even if they do, you will recover and be fine and be stronger than before. But most of all, the news doesn’t teach you that moral outrage, while strangely satisfying, gives people a sense of accomplishing something without actually accomplishing anything.” Yes, yes, 1000x yes.

Wealth is what you don’t spend. [Collaborative Fund] — “Financial wellbeing can’t be measured by merely looking at how much you earn. The gap between what you earn and how much you avoid offsetting those earnings is the figure that matters most.”

Why deep work matters in early retirement. [The Frugal Engineers] — “When you leave your day job in the dust and open up an extra 40-60 hours per week of time for yourself, it’s incredibly easy to slip into a state of sloth. I’m not talking about taking a vacation to decompress – I’m referring to the tendency for activities to expand to fill the time we give them…The value of deep work should not be ignored even if it’s not billable, paid work.”

The rise of dogvorce. [GQ magazine] — “As more couples opt out of or delay the traditional markers of relationship maturity (marriage, babies), many of them seem to be compensating by adopting dogs instead. When unmarried couples decide to split, however, without the formality of an official legal process to divide up the assets, figuring out who gets to walk away with the pets in tow can be especially dicey.” This article is surprisingly good.

That’s it for today! I’ll be back tomorrow with more top money stories from around the web.

Hello, Apexians! It’s Monday, and we have money stories for you. Are you ready to dive into some of the best personal-finance articles from around the web? I am!

A midwife in the North Country. [The New Yorker] — “Sunday Smith is likely the only certified nurse-midwife offering out-of-hospital births in a hundred-mile radius. Her services are in high demand, yet she has trouble making ends meet.” This is a l-o-n-g article (and it may be behind a paywall for you) but it’s fascinating. It touches on many different aspects of personal finance. Well worth reading, if you have the time.

Five lessons from the “witch” of Wall Street. [Morningstar] — “During the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, a woman named Hetty Green was one of the most powerful financiers in the world. She made the vast majority of her $100 million fortune ($2.3 billion in today’s dollars) herself, investing in railroad stocks and bonds, government bonds, and mining stocks. She also provided loans to cash-strapped businesses and bailed out the city of New York on several occasions…Here are five lessons we can learn from Hetty Green about investing and life.”

The aggregation of marginal gains. [Josh Overmyer] — “The guys on the ChooseFI podcast talk about it all the time, how life doesn’t just suddenly become wonderful overnight. Each and every small change or improvement we make adds up and compounds over a lifetime. And because of the power of the Aggregation of Marginal Gains, Brad posts a prompt every Friday morning asking ‘What was the ONE THING you did this week to make your life easier, happier, wealthier, more efficient, etc?’ I’ve gone back to almost every week in 2019 to gather what I posted on each of the Friday Facebook prompts from Brad. Here’s a look back.”

It’s time to let go of commuter culture. [Jalopnik] — “Cities across the world are re-examining the role of the automobile. More specifically, and especially among American cities, they’re trying to get more people to commute like Leo. This is happening because, in many cases, policymakers have realized that they cannot continue to grow by adding more people who use cars as their sole transportation method, to say nothing of mitigating the never-ending gridlock and poor air quality that exists today.”

To wrap things up this Monday, here’s a very important non-financial article from Audobon: When is a bird a “birb”? — “Birb is a slightly daffy word from the same school of internet absurdity that gave us LOLCats and Doge. Yet unlike these online gags, or memes, birb functions as a category rather than a stock character. It is roughly akin to ‘doggo’ or ‘snek’, yet all dogs and snakes are contained within those words; birb remains amorphous.”

Jim and I are here to help you with all of life’s important matters. 😉

Thank goodness it’s Friday, money nerds! That means it’s time for another round-up of top personal-finance articles from around the web. Here’s what we have for you today.

How to create a retirement “paycheck”. [Liz Weston at NerdWallet] — “Your expenses don’t end when your paychecks do, but creating a reliable income stream in retirement can be tricky. The right choices can result in sustainable income for the rest of your life. The wrong choices could leave you uncomfortably short of cash.”

How to be the best at what you do. [Inc. magazine] — “When you’re confident about what you do and clear about where you’re going, the right strategy will make itself known. Hence, when your ‘why’ is strong, you’ll figure out ‘how’. The how comes from the why. Not the other way around. If you’re looking for how to be successful, you’re going about it all wrong.”

We’ve just had the best decade in human history. Seriously. [The Spectator] — “Let nobody tell you that the second decade of the 21st century has been a bad time. We are living through the greatest improvement in human living standards in history. Extreme poverty has fallen below 10 per cent of the world’s population for the first time. It was 60 per cent when I was born. Global inequality has been plunging…famine virtually went extinct; malaria, polio and heart disease are all in decline.”

A list of works that entered the Public Domain now that it’s 2020. [Open Culture] — “Copyright terms didn’t always last nearly a century. Before the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act they lasted only 75 years, and for the additional two decades of waiting for works to enter the public domain we usually blame Disney. That entertainment giant did indeed do much of the lobbying for copyright extension, seeking to retain its rights to Mickey Mouse’s 1928 debut Steamboat Willie.”

To finish things this Friday, I thought it’d be fun to share this nine-minute video that explains how to get a world-famous actor to appear in your short film.

Colin Levy created this ambitious ten-minute short film called Skywatch:

The project took him six years. And he capped it off by getting Jude Law to make a cameo in the film. Here’s how.

Fun, right?

Speaking of fun, we’ll be back on Monday with more top money stories to share with you. Got something other Apex readers might like? Send it in!