Welcome to Friday, my friends. You’ve made it to the end of another week. Before you check out for some much-deserved down-time, however, let’s look at a few final links…
How to convince yourself to continue investing during a falling market. [Wallet Hacks] — “The pandemic juiced up a lot of stocks. Now that pandemic restrictions are lifting or have been lifted, now that life is moving back towards normalcy, a lot of those stocks have fallen from their highs. Some of stocks have fallen very far from their highs. But that assumes that highs mean anything.”
How to insulate yourself from advertisements. [Bitches Get Riches] — “Perfection isn’t the goal here. You will always see some advertisements. That’s just life. Instead, think of this as a tiered approach. Ideally, advertisers will have no idea that you even exist. But once they do, every scrap of information about yourself is a meal to them. Luckily, there are many ways to starve them. Here are the four main kinds of data that advertisers collect on you, and how to thwart each one.”
The cheapest way to own a car. [The White Coat Investor] — “I grew up believing in the conventional wisdom that the cheapest way to own a car is to ‘buy used and drive it until the wheels fall off’. But as I started digging into this topic a lot more in preparation for replacing both our cars (they went bad at the same time), I found that this isn’t strictly true. Let me explain.”
Our final link today isn’t really about personal finance, but it’s fun. It’s an article about the psychology of Apple packaging.
As a guy who is firmly entrenched in the Apple ecosystem (and has been for nearly thirty years), I’ve always been amazed at just how perfectly Apple packages everything. I really see the difference when buying similar products from other companies. There’s just no comparison. Apple packaging (and the “unboxing” experience) are a world apart. This is by design. It’s part of the Apple experience. And it’s the reason so many people — including myself — don’t throw away Apple packaging. (True story: I have two shelves in my basement devoted to my Apple boxes. sigh)
Okay, that’s it for this week. It’s been good to be back in the thick of things. Jim will return to share stories with you on Monday, and I’ll be back the following week…just like normal.