Apex Money Posts

Welcome to Wednesday, money mavens!

Before we start, a hearty congratulations to the winners of this year’s Plutus Awards! Although it probably sounds niche-y to many, the Plutus Awards are given to personal-finance blogs, podcasts, etc. One of my faves — Bitches Get Riches — won a well-deserved Blog of the Year trophy. But what I like most is the chance to add 10-20 new (to me) sites to the reading list that I use to curate material for this site. The Plutus nominees are a great source of new material!

Do you live in a 15-minute neighborhood? [Accidental Fire] — In this post, Dave at Accidental Fire looks at a new tool designed to measure a neighborhood’s walkability. It seems very similar to the long-extant Walk Score, but with a much simpler interface. Me? Four years ago, I lived in a very walkable neighborhood and loved it. Today, I live somewhere that is not walkable and I find it depressing.

Five things your millionaire neighbor won’t tell you. [The College Investor] — “The fact is, a lot of people aspire to have wealth, be a millionaire, or be rich – however you define it. But for many, myths about millionaires, their money, and their mindset is holding you back. Here are some common myths about millionaires you need to stop worrying about on your path to wealth.”

The man who wants to help you get out of debt — at any cost. [The Guardian] — “As Ramsey sees it, America’s debt crisis is an epidemic akin to drug addiction, and its roots lie in individual behavior. The only way to escape its crushing weight is to stop enabling yourself and go cold turkey: live on rice and beans, get a second job, sell your money-sucking car.”

Today’s video is a fun glimpse at the past. It’s a three-minute cip that looks at what it was like to be a Wall Street trader in 1980, forty years ago.

And if you like this, the same guy has a lot of great videos in which he interviews average folks about a variety of subjects. He’s been doing this stuff for a long time. These clips are like windows into the real past, not the over-produced film and television that most of us are used to seeing.

Okay, that wraps up Wednesday. I’ll be back tomorrow with more!

Good morning, money nerds! Welcome to Tuesday.

Today, I’m starting our collection of links with something that has nothing to do with money — yet everything to do with wealth. It’s a Reddit post from /r/AskDocs. And it’s just what I needed to read today. But be warned. It just might make you misty.

“My cancer lung cancer has spread to my heart. It’s over now.” [/r/AskDocs on Reddit] — “As difficult and shocking as these last few weeks have been, I regard them as positive. Only four weeks ago, I thought that the universe was a cold and cruel place. I experienced physical and mental abuse, chronic pain, and addiction. But my situation has forced a change of perspective. I see now that all our experiences, no matter how horrid, are temporary, and that we will all find the same rest and peace in the end.”

Whew. Now let’s look at some money stories, shall we?

Why you need a home inventory (and how to create one). [Women Who Money] — “If you experienced a significant loss, could you describe each item you lost? Would you recall their details and values? Even those with the best memories will forget many of their possessions when not in plain view. That’s why you need a home inventory.”

My priceless summer on a Maine lobster boat. [Outside] — “Last summer I lived alone on a tiny island in the easternmost part of coastal Maine — a region known as Down East — where I worked as a sternman on a lobster boat. I say ‘sternman’ because nobody says ‘sternwoman.’ I could count the number of female captains in the harbor on my hand — not enough to budge the traditional vernacular. I worked for one of them.”

How to say “no” (for people who always say “yes”). [NPR] — “There’s a high price for constantly aiming to make other people happy…People pleasing isn’t something that just pushovers do. Lue notes that perfectionists tend to be prone to people pleasing. The good news is that it’s a changeable habit. Here are some tips that Lue recommends.”

Today’s video comes from the always-excellent Financial Diet channel YouTube. In his 15-minute segment, Yanely Espinal (who goes by the handle @MissBeHelpful) shares five common money mistakes made by low-income earners.

That’s it for today. We’ll be back tomorrow with more great stuff for you to read and view. See you then.

Good morning, my friends, and welcome to another week of Apex Money. Jim and I are here to bring you some of the most interesting articles we’ve found on money and related subjects. To kick things off this week, we’ve got some good stuff. Take a look.

The quiet, grinding loneliness of working from home. [The Guardian] — “After four months of long days alone at the tiny desk in her bedroom, Mackenzie had a panic attack. She had lost weight and become depressed. ‘At first, I thought it was because the job was demanding, but I realised it was more the isolation and not being able to interact with people,’ she says. ‘I hadn’t realised I’d relied on that so heavily for my mental health.'” This article is important. More and more, I’m beginning to believe that one of the reasons I’ve been struggling with depression in recent years is because I moved out of the city and now spend 90% of my time alone. It kind of sucks.

The prestige trap. [Wes de Silverstro] — “Prestige is a measure of how much status a group assigns to something. From this definition, a lot of interesting qualities of prestige can be discerned. Since prestige depends upon what the group thinks, then it follows that it is not a fixed nor immutable quality. Groups of people differ everywhere, so what is prestigious in one place is not necessarily prestigious in another.” This article is slow to get going but makes an excellent point.

How to cope with financial infidelity. [The Scope of Practice] — “If you or a friend have a spouse that has committed a serious act of financial infidelity, it can be hard to describe the depth of betrayal that you feel…It’s important to address all three of those areas in order to minimize the risk of financial infidelity in your relationship. But, how do you deal with financial infidelity if it has already taken place?”

Last but not least, here’s yet another Dolly Parton video. You know that I think Parton is a national treasure, and this GQ segment in which she directly answers fan questions on social media is a good example why I subscribe to that view. She’s wonderful.

That’s it for day one. I’ll be back tomorrow with yet more money stories that I hope you’ll find useful and informative. See you then!

Are you superstitious?

I’m not superstitious but I also don’t tempt fate by NOT being superstitious. I also turned thirteen on Friday the 13th… but nothing bad happened (thankfully).

9 Bizarre Money Superstitions People Actually Believe [Wise Bread] – “Do not place your purse on the floor. This superstition is considered to be bad feng shui, because your purse is seen as a symbol for your wealth. Putting it on the floor is therefore a sign of great disrespect and disregard for your money.”

It’s only bizarre if it doesn’t work, right? 🙂

The Difference Between Lifestyle Creep and Improving Your Life [We Want Guac] – “Are You Buying This for Your Own Happiness, or Because it’s Expected of You? Check in with yourself to make sure you’re making this decision conscientiously. You don’t want to just go through the motions of purchasing what society tells you is good to buy. If I did what others expected of me I’d have stayed around my hometown Fearsville. I would have continued to practice a religion I don’t believe in and socializing with people who didn’t have my best interests at heart. No part of that scenario would make me truly happy. For your own self esteem and overall life satisfaction, make sure this isn’t just something you feel you need to check off of your Life To-Do list.”

Super-Concierge Doctors, High-Design Home Classrooms, and Catered Backyard Dinners: Lifestyles of the Rich and Quarantined [Washingtonian] – “Covid-19 has wrought lasting, horrific damage on the country—pushing millions of people out of work and killing more than 200,000, a disproportionate number of them people of color. But if the disease has upended our society, there are some slivers of Washington where people can afford an extra measure of comfort (on the hush-hush, of course). The parties are still on (now the tasting menu comes to you), the kids are still in classrooms (they just might be newly installed, high-design “homerooms”), and getaways still happen (they just might involve a new yacht rather than airplane tickets).”

On Needing to Find Something to Worry About [The School of Life] – “It sounds paradoxical and absurd to think that some of us might need to find something to worry about in order to recover our equilibrium. Worry is, after all, something we should rightly hate to have to suffer and should engage with only when absolutely necessary.”

That’s it for me! Stay safe and have a great weekend Apexian!

Cash management accounts are really popular now – it’s when a company offers bank-like services on top of their existing offering.

Companies like doing this because it gives your cash balance some interest and it can make that relationship slightly closer.

But there are risks, especially if the company runs into some trouble:

Beam Financial vanishing act a cautionary tale for partners of fintechs [American Banker] – “In a report CNBC published Thursday, several Beam customers told of realizing the app was down temporarily and unsuccessfully trying to withdraw their money. The report jibes with the Better Business Bureau’s entry on Beam, which says the bureau has received “a pattern of complaints” from customers about delays in receiving funds when closing accounts and issues when contacting customer services. The Beam iOS App Store page contains dozens of complaints from users who couldn’t withdraw their funds.”

It’s hard to know what will happen with Beam but the money should still be FDIC insured. What’s tricky is the partner bank said that they don’t know the account information – which I was surprised to learn. If Beam has all the information and they “lose” it somehow, how do depositors prove how much they had?

I suspect that it will all eventually unravel itself but that may take a while.

Make Money Fleecing Casinos on Your Next Trip to Nevada [Trip of a Lifestyle] – “We normally don’t gamble much since it’s generally a losing proposition. On this drive though, we came up with an interesting strategy to beat the house and make a profit in every casino we stopped at — without risking any of our own money.”

Me and my wife used to do this too on our trips and you don’t come out rich (a $350 haul is pretty good!) but it was still fun!

Common Causes of Very Bad Decisions [Collaborative Fund] – “Italian psychologist Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini was once asked why people keep making the same mistakes. He said: ‘Inattention, distraction, lack of interest, poor preparation, genuine stupidity, timidity, braggadocio, emotional imbalance, ideological, racial, social or chauvinistic prejudices, and aggressive or prevaricatory instincts.’ Let me add some more:”

Have a good day!

I don’t organize my inbox with a few exceptions (I label tax-related stuff) – and now one of my favorite authors has validated my approach!

Why you shouldn’t organize your email [The Washington Post] – “When I left my desk I think [my inbox] had four emails. But what I don’t have is lots of folders. You can leave your email in your inbox or delete loads of stuff, put stuff you need to act on in a folder named action, and everything else you just archive. I think either works. It’s partly a matter of personality and partly a matter of habit. But what doesn’t work is this weird situation of, in trying to get your inbox to zero, you take your 17,000 emails and you start categorizing them and putting them into folders, which takes forever and makes precisely no difference in the likelihood you will find anything.” I’ve long been a fan of Tim Harford and this conversation covers a lot of different topics, more than just email.

The Opposite of the Latte Factor [Four Pillar Freedom] – “The problem with the latte factor, though, is that it emphasizes cutting out a tiny expense that is enjoyable for most people. So, despite investing more money each year using this method, your overall quality of life might take a dip.

Instead, what if you considered the opposite of the latte factor? That is, instead of cutting $1,825 from your existing level of spending each year, try earning an additional $1,825 each year.”

In times of need, you forget how badass you are.

To remember, try the Cookie Jar Method by David Goggins (it’s got some language packed into the two minute video):

If you don’t know who David Goggins is, this is his website and he certainly is a badass.

Now go be a badass and fill up that cookie jar!

Today is a bit of a grab bag of articles but the lead one is an interesting look into one of the biggest figures in personal finance – Dave Ramsey.

Some people love him. Some people hate him.

I think article does a great job showing you why people feel so strongly about him.

The man who wants to help you out of debt – at any cost [The Guardian] – “Millions turn to financial guru and radio host Dave Ramsey for his ‘tough love’. Many say he saved their lives. Critics say he ignores the structural reasons so many are in debt and poverty.”

5 Things Your Millionaire Neighbor Isn’t Telling You [The College Investor] – “It’s currently estimated that there are about 3,000,000 millionaires in the United States today. And given that there are about 300,000,000 Americans according to the latest Census data, that means about 1 in 100 are millionaires. Even more startling is that means that you probably know someone who is a millionaire, and you probably live within a stone’s throw of other millionaires that you don’t know.”

What Day of the Dead tells us about the Aztec philosophy of happiness [The Conversation] – “For the Aztecs, then, a happy life is achieved through balance. Individually, this means balancing one’s “face” and “heart,” but socially this involves friends, family and ancestors. Day of the Dead rituals help with this social balance.” The found the part about the ecosystem of minds absolutely fascinating.

Life’s Work: An Interview with Jerry Seinfeld [Harvard Business Review] – “If you’re efficient, you’re doing it the wrong way. The right way is the hard way. The show was successful because I micromanaged it—every word, every line, every take, every edit, every casting. That’s my way of life.”

See you tomorrow!

Every few years, you’re reminded about things that have shaped the arc of your life.

Just last week, something popped up on the homepage of Hacker News that was like meeting an old friend again. It was a link to Youtube to Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture and it’s amazingly powerful to watch. It marked one of the first times I really thought about how I did things, rather than the thing itself.

The lecture was given in September 2007… it was no small coincidence that I’d quit my job and be working for myself by January of 2008.

I had the pleasure of going to Carnegie Mellon and I even tried to take Randy Pausch’s course, Building Virtual Worlds, but never made it off the waitlist (it was the first few years it was available and everyone wanted to be in it… and there were far more deserving students than me). Sometimes I wish I had tried harder to get in the class but that’s the benefit of hindsight.

If you’ve never heard this lecture before, I’m excited for you. 🙂

Have a great day!

It’s the end of another week! But before we quit work, we have one final batch of interesting money news to share with you.

Let’s kick things off with a podcast…

How to invest like a girl. [Smart Money Mamas] — “In this episode I am talking with Amanda Holden, author, speaker and expert in equipping women to make smart investment decisions. Amanda is super relatable and super passionate about you being financially free as a woman in retirement. We’re talking about why investing needs to be a priority for women, the biggest takeaways from the stock market in 2008, and how to know if you’re ready to invest.”

What if you only bought stocks after down years? [Four Pillar Freedom] — “Here’s a fun thought experiment: What if you only invested in stocks after the stock market had a down year?…This is a simple market-timing strategy. The logic behind this strategy is that if the stock market experienced a negative return in the previous year, perhaps it’s more likely to experience a positive return in the coming year.”

For once, today’s video is related to money. It’s a famous (and kind of cult classic) bit from Alan Watts about the illusion of time, money, and ego. This will seem like trippy stuff for some, I’m sure, but if you’ve ever read The Power of Now or books of its ilk, this will be interesting to you.

“We are psychologically perverted in such a way that some of us would like to have money rather than real wealth.” Preach!

And here’s an article that half of the country is going to need, no matter how the whole election thing settles haha…

How to move to Canada. [Maple Money] — “So you want to move to Canada, eh? Something tells me you’re not alone. It’s a topic that seems to garner plenty of attention every four years or so…But while moving to Canada is easier said than done, there are several paths you can take to the Great White North. Before exploring further, however, let’s brush up on your knowledge of this land I call home.”

Here’s one final non-financial link to take you into the weekend. As autumn settles and winter looms, many of us will be spending more time inside. And, in many cases, we’ll be curled up in front of the television. The Atlantic has put together a list of 25 comfort movies worth watching again and again. Although I’ve seen several of these, none of them are on my list of comfort films. Movies I watch over and over include Star Wars, When Harry Met Sally, The Godfather, Fiddler on the Roof, and All About Eve.

That’s all for this week, my friends. We’ll be back on Monday with more of the best from the world of personal finance.

Why, hello there! As you can see, I missed yesterday’s installment of Apex Money, and I’m late with this morning’s edition. That’s because I’ve been wrapped up in election results. And, as of this moment anyhow, there’s still no definitive answer about who will be the next President of the United States.

I guess that means I should return my attention to personal finance. Here are a few interesting money stories from the past few days…

20 years of home price changes in cities across the U.S. [Visual Capitalist] — Let’s start with this interactive chart that draws on Zillow’s home value index. It uses this data to plot how home prices have changed in major metropolitan areas across the United States. How have things changed in your area? (Interesting to read the accompanying article to get some of the breakdown.)

What happens when you get everything you want? [Why We Money] — “Sometimes after we get to where we wanted to go, we long for the journey that got us there. We don’t take the time to soak it up and celebrate where we’re at right now. I’ve found it more helpful to just be in that space for a while. Not easy, necessarily. But it helps to clarify what is and think about what could be before taking any rash steps and adding more to life.”

Contentment is the greenest grass of all. [Clipping Chains] — “We all must deal with difficult and complicated emotions. We will all face our versions of tragedy and loss. As such, our goal should be contentment, not an unattainable and unsustainable status of unadulterated joy.”

Last but not least, here’s the HBO Max ranking of the top 10 Bugs Bunny moments in history. When my brothers and I were young, we lived for Bugs Bunny. One local TV station would play the cartoons in the mornings and afternoons, and we loved them. I haven’t watched them in decades though.

That’s all for today. We’ll be back tomorrow to take you into the weekend.