showcasing top money stories
Hello Apexians!
It’s Christmas Eve and I wanted to wish you all a happy holiday season, a restful holiday season, and one where you can spend it with family and friends.
We will be doing the same and so Apex Money will be on break until the new year plus a few days.
We’ll be back on the 5th!
Remember all those stories of small Italian towns selling homes for €1?
Having stayed in Italy a few times and probably ventured past one of those homes in the countryside, it felt like a LOT of work. But there is a romantic allure to buying a home for a song, fixing it up, and enjoying the fruits of your labor for years.
Last year, Business Insider published a video looking at what happened with a couple who took Sicily up on their offer.
Morgan Housel shares five insights from his new book, The Art of Spending Money: Simple Choices for a Richer Life.
5 Simple Spending Habits for Happier Living [Next Big Idea Club] – “Money can enhance your life, but it doesn’t create lasting happiness. Genuine contentment comes from meaningful relationships, a sense of purpose, and the ability to appreciate what you already have.”
I really like #3 – Spending money can buy happiness, but it’s often an indirect path.
“Money itself doesn’t buy happiness, but it can help you find independence and purpose, which are both key ingredients for a happier life. A big, nice house might make you happy, but mostly because it makes it easier to have friends and family over. The friends and family are what actually make you happy.” (emphasis mine)
Jordan Grumet shares his personal journey through financial independence and there’s a lot we can all learn from his journey, especially as it relates to spending in “season two,” where he became financially independent.
How I Finally Stopped Caring About Spending [The Purpose Code] – “The financial independence world has a funny relationship with spending. On paper, we obsess over investments, spreadsheets, and safe withdrawal rates. There are arguments about whether 4% is too conservative, whether 4.7% or 5% is mathematically more accurate, and endless threads about how to optimize asset allocation down to the decimal.
But beneath all that noise, I think there’s a simpler truth:
We don’t actually want to spend.”
Whose Cup Are You Filling? [Derek Thompson] – “It is easy to lie to ourselves about our values and our priorities. But attention cannot tell a lie. Our attention is the revealed preference of our values. Many people spend their whole lives emptying themselves without taking stock of the water levels of the cups into which they pour their existence. They spend hours, days, and decades watering cups that they never meant to water and leaving empty other vessels they always meant to fill.”
This is a fascinating question… and Ray of CityNerd takes a crack at it.
By the way, JD sent this in!
“Resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”
The Science of Forgiveness: Why Letting Go Heals Your Brain [Greater Good] – “We all carry emotional baggage. But what if holding on to that pain is hurting you more than the person who caused it?”
It involves snails. It’s kind of wild.
The snail farm don: is this the most brazen tax avoidance scheme of all time? [The Guardian] – “Terry Ball – renowned shoe salesman, friend to former mafiosi – has vowed to spend his remaining years finding ways to cheat authorities he feels have cheated him. His greatest ruse? A tax-dodging snail empire.”
When I was younger, I was very much an optimizer. I had the time to analyze and study and deliberate on what was best.
As I’ve gotten older and my responsibility has increased, I’ve slowly morphed into a satisficer. That’s someone who is quick to make decisions and that may mean you don’t get the optimal result, but a “good enough” one.
This is why I invest in index funds, have just a few credit cards, and automate practically everything.
What’s a ‘Good Enough’ Financial Plan? [Morningstar] – “I was meeting a dear friend for coffee one morning a few months ago. She had suggested a spot equidistant to our two houses, telling me that she used an online tool to ensure that neither of us had to go further out of our way than necessary. When I got there, I quickly surveyed the coffee options and picked a cup of dark roast, my go-to. My friend, on the other hand, took a few minutes to make a choice. She peered closely at the menu and asked for a sample of the dark roast and then the light, tasting each thoughtfully. She proceeded to order a cup of the first one.”
