Category: General

Good morning, Apex Nation!

I’ve spent the past ten days hunting for houses in a town 90 minutes south of Portland. As a result, I haven’t had much time to read about personal finance. That said, I have seen a handful of videos that I’ve enjoyed, so today’s edition of Apex Money is 100% video for the first time ever. Let’s take a look.

In this 57-second clip, Louis Rossman explains why the “right to repair” is so important. More and more, bit corporations — including Apple, a company I love — are making it difficult (or impossible) for everyday people to repair their products. In fact, they’re making it difficult for even professionals to repair their products. Why? Profit. Here, Rossman explains why this is an issue.

Why should you care? Because stripping the ability to repair items drives up costs…and creates a “disposable” society where instead of repairing things, we replace them. It sucks.

Anyhow, here’s Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak lending support to Louis’ video. This is a longer video (nearly ten minutes) but it provides more context into why the right to repair is so important.

Next up, I like this clip from the Dave Ramsey show in which the conversation veers to a very important subject: why telling people what to do doesn’t work.

I’ve seen this from both sides. I’ve seen people who want to tell others, and I’ve seen people who have been on the other end. It’s always the same. Generally speaking, folks are happy to hear your story (if it’s genuine and heartfelt) but they hate being lectured. That’s it. That’s all you need to know.

Lastly, here’s a video that has nothing whatsoever to do with money. It’s the video for the song “Oh!” by The Linda Lindas (a punk rock band made up of teen-age and pre-teen girls).

I can’t explain it, but I love everything about this: the music, the video, the sheer dorkiness of everything going on here. Sign me up!

And that’s it for this Monday. I’ll be back tomorrow morning with more great stuff. See you then!

One of the things I noticed during the pandemic, a period of high stress, was that I was getting terse and annoyed at our kids more often.

It’s like a house guest that stays too long… things that you could endure for a little bit start to magnify. And when they stay for 24-hours a day for 18 months, it’s not surprising that all the annoying things that your kids do become really really really annoying. (thankfully we have camps and whatnot now so the kids are, for the most part, back to a regular schedule)

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? Presence, especially 24 hours and 18 months, makes the heart … something else. 🙂

This is all to say that this next finding is not at all surprising to me and a good reminder that I have to be better:

Word gap: When money’s tight, parents talk less to kids [Berkeley News] – “While parenting deficiencies have long been blamed for the word gap, new UC Berkeley research implicates the economic context in which parenting takes place — in other words, the wealth gap. The findings, published this month in the journal Developmental Science, provide the first evidence that parents may talk less to their kids when experiencing financial scarcity.”

I bet you could replace financial scarcity with general chronic stress (which is harder to measure) and find similar results.

a million chances to fail [The Reformed Broker] – “Poisoning an audience and selling it the antidote takes very little talent. Holding the audience’s hand, through thick and thin, ups and downs, through years and decades of fear and greed – that’s about the hardest thing you can do in this industry. It’s what Jack Bogle did for longer than anyone. It’s admirable because it’s so hard.”

Ethereum Co-Founder Says Safety Concern Has Him Quitting Crypto [Bloomberg] – “Di Iorio, 48, has had a security team since 2017, with someone traveling with or meeting him wherever he goes. In coming weeks, he plans to sell Decentral Inc., and refocus on philanthropy and other ventures not related to crypto. The Canadian expects to sever ties in time with other startups he is involved with, and doesn’t plan on funding any more blockchain projects.” Hmmm…

Finally, how forgery experts determine if a painting is fake, specifically a Jackson Pollock.

If the idea of being shown ads for something you only talked about with your friends was creepy…

From Macy’s to Ace Hardware, facial recognition is already everywhere [Vox] – “While you may not have heard of it before, stores using facial recognition isn’t a new practice. Last year, Reuters reported that the drug chain Rite Aid had deployed facial recognition in at least 200 stores over nearly a decade (before the company suddenly committed to ditching the software). In fact, facial recognition is just one of several technologies store chains are deploying to enhance their security systems, or to otherwise surveil customers. Some retailers, for instance, have used apps and in-store wifi to track users while they move around physical stores and later target them with online ads.” I wasn’t aware this was happening and it kind of reminds me of the ads in Minority Report.

Some Fascinating Retirement Statistics… [The Retirement Manifesto] – “Today, I’m pleased to publish the resulting work and share what I’ve found during my research. A variety of fascinating retirement statistics, dedicated to all of the fellow retirement nerds in the house.” Some big eye openers in this one… and one reason likely why “society” scoffs on the idea early retirement.

As you may know, I love a good list of hacks… 🙂

33 Invaluable Travel Hacks From Experienced Jet-Setters [InsideHook] – “So, to make things moderately less frustrating, we went ahead and asked some of expert jet-setters — agents, bloggers and various other industry professionals — for their top tips and tricks for navigating the often rocky terrain that is travel. The result is a compendium of wayfaring wisdom that will make budget-friendly travel feel more accessible and the process as a whole hopefully more palatable. We hope that you’ll soon find the opportunity to put them to good use.”

Challenge your assumptions!

Could You Live on Half Your Income if it Would Make You Free? [Financial Success M.D.] – “When I discuss living on half of one’s income, I’m almost always met with, “that would be impossible for me.” They say it as if it were a fact, that some outside source is preventing them from living on significantly less than they make. This outside source is somehow keeping them from saving a good sum of their income. Non-physicians point to the fact that I’m a physician, and I can do it because doctors make a lot of money. I then point out that when I was a resident, and our combined household income was below $50,000, my wife and I lived on half of our income.” It’s important to challenge one’s assumptions about what’s possible.

This powerful video about The Chicken & The Eagle is all about assumptions and your decisions:

Thoughts on Free Will [David Perell] – “My friend Chris Sparks says: “When it comes to creating your environment, assume you have free will. When it comes to living in it, assume you have no free will.”” I love this quote.

If you get advice from social media, it’s not 100% bad but you have to realize that they’re usually just regular people who may not know 100% everything accurately. Donna shares a few ideas to keep in mind if you get advice from influencers.

TikTok is not a fiduciary! A cautionary tale. [Donna Freedman] – “According to a poll from CreditCards.com, 28% of Gen Zers look for advice from “social media platforms and influencers.” Of the other demographics, 24% of millennials, 10% of Gen Xers and 4% of Baby Boomers get advice there.”

What would you pay for autonomous driving? Volkswagen hopes $8.50 per hour [ArsTechnica] – “Volkswagen’s real moneymaker might be autonomous driving, though. “In autonomous driving, we can imagine that we switch it on by the hour. We assume a price of around seven euros per hour. So if you don’t want to drive yourself for three hours, you can do it for 21 euros,” said Klaus Zellmer, chief sales officer of the Volkswagen brand.” Yes, 100% I’d pay $8.50 an hour especially if it means the car itself is more affordable. No brainer.

The Bank Robbers Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight (Or Do Anything Right, Really) [Narratively] – “When the Duffy Brothers were deported from the U.S, they hatched a plan to bring Bonnie-and-Clyde-style armed robbery across the pond. Their plan had more holes than a bullet-riddled safe.” Enjoy this one. 🙂

I like things to be simple.

When you’re young and feel like you’re smart, you like things complicated. You can figure it out, when others seemingly can’t, and it’s fun.

As you get older and have more responsibility, complications just weigh you down physically and mentally. That mental weight is especially pernicious because it’s also invisible. You can’t see it, you only feel it. And it can lead to feelings of inadequacy.

The solution isn’t to power though, it’s to simplify. To reduce your meaningless (or low value) burdens so you can devote your energy to high leverage decisions.

33 Ways To Simplify Your Life (And Be Happier For It) [Mr Porter] – “Research shows that the average person makes about 35,000 remotely conscious decisions each day. While many are complete no-brainers, “decision fatigue” is a recognised form of stress. By rationalising your daily routine you can streamline the process and make better choices that will ultimately leave you feeling happier and with more time to do the things that really matter. Read our list below and consider adopting some new practices for better mental (and physical) health.” Don’t try to do them all, just cherry pick what is easiest for you to implement today and try one.

(for all the O.G. content creators out there, do you miss the days when someone would put “and #8 will BLOW YOUR MIND” in titles as clickbait???)

How to Do Long Term [Collaborative Fund] – “Saying you have a 10-year time horizon doesn’t exempt you from all the nonsense that happens during the next 10 years. Everyone has to experience the recessions, the bear markets, the meltdowns, the surprises and the memes at the same time. So rather than assuming long-term thinkers don’t have to deal with nonsense, the question becomes how can you endure a neverending parade of nonsense.”

Now for something fun – SkyMall! (kinda)

Instagram Has Become SkyMall [Debugger] – “The thing is, SkyMall was a blast. It was so consistently unhinged — night-glow toilet seat! seabreacher customized boat! wine-glass-holder necklace! — that I began to look forward to thumbing through the catalogue while nursing a plastic tumbler of scotch. It was the high point of my flight.” I’m not active on Instagram and while I don’t need more consumerism in my life, I do appreciate that the “SkyMall” experience is back for the next generation.

It’s Friday! Friday! Friday! And although I’m a few hours late, I’m here (as always) with some of the best money stories from around the web. Stories like these…

TikTok is not a fiduciary. [Surviving and Thriving] — “No matter where you get your money edumacation, remember that it’s never one-size-fits-all. It can’t be. A guy who’s just finished a two-year HVAC program is likely to have lots of job offers and maybe even a signing bonus. His options are completely different than those of a 23-year-old with massive student loans and a modest starter salary.”

How to stop letting the news control your life. [Steve Adcock] — “I slowly began to realize a giant flaw in my assumption. I wasn’t staying informed at all. I wasn’t helping society a bit, and it damn well wasn’t improving my overall happiness. Instead, I was letting myself fall victim to information warfare, designed – not just reported, by hugely-profitable entities with a direct and verifiable interest in keeping me tuned in.”

Some Chinese have shunned grueling careers for a “low-desire life”. [Associated Press] — “The trend echoes similar ones in Japan and other countries where young people have embraced anti-materialist lifestyles in response to bleak job prospects and bruising competition for shrinking economic rewards.”

Welcome to the church of Bitcoin. [Rolling Stone] — “Ask Bitcoiners (and I mean real, hardcore Bitcoin acolytes, not cryptotourists dabbling in dogecoin) what Bitcoin means to them and you’ll find that they grow passionate and misty-eyed. Often, becoming a Bitcoiner is not all that dissimilar from the transformative awakening of someone who’s undergone a radical spiritual conversion.”

And I will leave you today with this lovely — almost fake — 34-second video of fireflies on a summer night.

Kim and I saw something similar to this (but better!) in northeastern Oklahoma during our 15-month RV trip. It was amazing. We don’t get lightning bugs here in Oregon. I’m not sure they exist west of the Rockies. So, it’s always a pleasure to experience them in real life.

That’s it, my friends. I’m out of here. Jim will be back on Monday with another week of financial goodness. See you then.

Good morning, my friends, and welcome to Apex Money. Once again, I’m here to share some of the best personal-finance stories from around the web. Here’s what I have for you today.

What does it mean to live a rich life? [Financially Balanced] — “As I journey toward Financial Independence I try to keep in mind just how important it is to be in the present. It’s great to plan for the future, but time is most certainly finite. It’s ultimately the time we spend and memories we make with those we love that will leave us fulfilled and make us truly rich.”

Optimization vs. optionality. [Retirement Field Guide] — “There is this pervasive idea in the financial advisor industry that everyone should be ‘optimizing’ their financial strategies. [But]…what if clients don’t want to optimize every little piece of their financial life? What if they’d value optionality more than optimization?”

When should you self-insure? [Can I Retire Yet?] — “Some people have an affinity for insurance and buy all the coverage they can get. It gives them peace of mind, at a price. Others are suspicious of insurance and loathe paying premiums for services they may never use. Count me in that latter camp.” [I too am skeptical of insurance.]

What you need to know about inflation. [The White Coat Investor] — “The rate of inflation went up this Spring and that has caused some significant fluctuations in the market as well as a lot of talk about inflation. Given the fact that inflation has been low for so long, novice and young investors may not know a lot about inflation, so today we’re going to take an in-depth look at it.” [A thorough exploration of the topic.]

True story: I’ve entered a transitional stage of life. Over the past few months, my interest in online life has been fading. Fading. Fading. (For real!) My free time has instead been spent learning about art and design. I think I may even go to art school!

Anyhow, I’m starting as a total art newbie. I don’t know anything. All the same, I’d love to learn how to draw comic strips. That’s probably why I found today’s video so much fun. It’s all about how to draw yourself as a Peanuts character with advice from actual Peanuts artists.

I followed along and here are my results.

Fun! You should try it too.

Okay, that’s it for this Thursday. I’ll be back tomorrow to see you into the weekend. TTFN!

Nerd alert! Nerd alert! Today’s edition of Apex Money contains a lot of nerdy stuff. And it’s not all about money. But I promise you: It’s all interesting. (To me, at least.) Let’s start by looking at the nature of time.

Being in time. [The New Yorker] — “Thoughts of the future are often associated with anxiety and dread, and thoughts of the past can be colored by regret, embarrassment, and shame. Still, mental time travel is essential…ast, present, future; history, this year, the decades to come. How should we balance them in our minds?” [Related: The mathematics of mind-time. Oh yeah, and this: Past, present, and future time perspectives.]

How to remember you’re alive. [Raptitude] — “The state of Being Alive also comes with a rich and distinct sense of possibility. You can make any number of interesting things happen by sheer will. You can scrawl sentences on a scrap of paper that will trigger certain thoughts later, for you or someone else. You can touch a few buttons on your phone and be speaking to any of a hundred people you know, and whatever is said would change each other’s day, or life, in some way.”

U.S. consumer prices surge in June by the most since 2008. [Associated Press] – “Consumer prices in June rose 0.9% from May and 5.4% over the past year — the sharpest 12-month inflation spike since August 2008.” More newsworthy — and not in the headline — is the fact that prices for big-ticket items have surged tremendously. Hotel stays are up 15.1% in the past year. Airline fares are up 25%. Used cars are up 10.5% in one month. Furniture is up 8.6% for the year. And although it’s not listed in this article, home prices are up 13.2%.

Here in Portland, inflation is obvious — especially with food. Grocery prices are outrageous. Restaurant prices even more so. During the pandemic, some of this made sense. You could make the argument that we’re not yet out of the pandemic, of course, but I’m skeptical that prices are going to drop (or hold steady) any time soon. I think we’re in for a year or two of high inflation…and it’s going to suck.

But hey. Maybe I’m wrong. I’ll be very happy if that’s the case!

Lastly, let’s dive into plant intelligence. Yes, that’s right: I said plant intelligence. Hardcore J.D. fans know I’m deeply interested in animal intelligence. A closely-related subject is the intelligence of plants. Do they have any? Turns out: maybe. Quit possibly. Here’s a short (two-minute) video about how trees talk to each other.

And on a related note, here’s an article about the hidden memories of plants. Crazy stuff, eh? Maybe Tolkien was onto something when he created Ents.

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

Today is Tuesday, my friends, and we’re almost half way through July 2021. Can you believe it? I can’t. Last year c-r-a-w-l-e-d but this year seems to have flown by.

Let’s get to today’s money stories.

Why do we buy what we buy? [Vox] — “I recently spoke with Juliet Schor, a sociologist at Boston College, about the history of modern American consumerism — what it’s rooted in, how it’s evolved, and how different groups of people have experienced it…In her view, marketers have less to do with what we want than, say, our neighbors, coworkers, or the people we follow on social media.”

Keep only the best. [Becoming Minimalist] — “An only the best approach to possessions is beneficial, but can still be difficult, especially for people with particularly sentimental personalities. If that is the case, here are a few tips to help you along in the difficult process.” [As a corollary, I’m learning to only buy the best when I have to purchase something.]

Time freedom (and choosing how to spend your time). [One Frugal Girl] — “What if we measured success in terms of time rather than money? What if we stopped focusing on how much we earned and instead paid attention to how much we loved, laughed, and enjoyed the moments that make up each day?”

And our last story today? Well, it has nothing to do with money. It has everything to do with magic.

Disney adults don’t care if you hate them. They’re having fun. [Buzzfeed News] — “Disney has had quite an effect on Blackham, who even interned at Disney, where he eventually met the woman he would marry. (Naturally, they honeymooned at Disney World.) He said that Disney is also responsible for exposing him to identities outside of his own.”

That’s it for now. I’ll be back tomorrow with more great stuff. Join me then, won’t you?