Happy Friday, money nerds! You’ve made it through the first week of December. Let’s celebrate by sharing some outstanding money stories from around the web, shall we?
How to lower housing costs. [The Fioneers] — “Buying a home has helped us on our journey, but it is not the right decision for everyone. The important lesson we took away from this is to keep our housing costs low while our income has increased. If you are looking to improve your financial situation, you should consider lowering your housing costs. Figuring out how to lower your housing costs will depend on your unique situation.”
“My emergency fund isn’t just money.” [Tread Lightly, Retire Early] — “So beyond saving up every free dollar and slowly building up that cash emergency fund, what can you do to make your financial situation more resilient? Beyond just more dollars, there are definitely other things you can do to weather those expensive storms. Here are a few things we have in place.”
The ultimate productivity hack is saying “no”. [James Clear] — “If you have trouble saying no, you may find the following strategy proposed by Tim Harford, the British economist I mentioned earlier, to be helpful. He writes, ‘One trick is to ask, “If I had to do this today, would I agree to it?” It’s not a bad rule of thumb, since any future commitment, no matter how far away it might be, will eventually become an imminent problem.'”
Don’t throw it out until you’ve smelled it! [Surviving and Thriving] — “Would anyone I knew have thought that milk too close to its sell-by date should be thrown out? Nope. In fact, we might have hoped it was close to its sell-by date, because it might be discounted. The freshness of bread was a moot point because ours came a dozen loaves at a time from the bakery outlet.”
To send you into your weekend, we’ve got one last feature that has nothing to do with money. In this video, a former Secret Service agent explains how officers keep the President (and other VIPs) safe in a variety of situations. Interesting stuff.
That’s it for this week. Jim will be back with more great stuff on Monday, money nerds. See you then…