Apex Money Posts

Running your own business, whether it’s online or off, is tough.

Being a freelancer, which is a business, is oftentimes even tougher. It’s a grind and many times it’s a solo grind.

I enjoyed reading this first post for today by Laura, a freelance writer and blogger at Every Day by the Lake, on what she learned in the first five years of being a freelance writer:

A Freelance Writer Reflects on Five Years In [Women Who Money] – “As a few dollars turned to thousands, I realized I had met the goal of my sabbatical: finding a location and schedule-independent way to earn a living. That way, I could fully show up for myself and those I loved.”

Rule #1 of Building Wealth: Play Defense With Your Money [Darius Foroux] – “To me, this is Rule #1 of building wealth. As the investing legend Warren Buffett says, “Never lose money.””

Doing Less Is Hard, Especially When We’re Overwhelmed [Behavioral Scientist] – “Jumping right to “more” means we fail to consider “less.” Even when less would be a far better choice.”

Do you remember WannaCry?

Back in 2017, it was a massive cyberattack that targeted Windows PCs in one of the largest ransomware attacks we’d ever seen. I vaguely remembered how it ended but the first article for today details how it all went down and is fascinating.

It’s a long article but well worth reading.

The Confessions of Marcus Hutchins, the Hacker Who Saved the Internet [Wired] – “At 22, he single-handedly put a stop to the worst cyberattack the world had ever seen. Then he was arrested by the FBI. This is his untold story.” Despite the sub-title, the two things (stopping a cyberattack and his arrest) are not related… but the story is a fascinating look into the world of fraud and redemption.

Six Important Reasons Not to Retire Early [Clipping Chains] – “When I first discovered financial independence, the thought to retire in my 30s warmed my soul like a batch of hot stew on a late February night. If I could rely on the wondrous and fantastic powers of compound growth to build a bitchin’ snowball of money, I’d never need to work again.”

Michael Jordan’s car collection is as baller as you’d expect [GQ] – “Along the way, he’s played himself in a Michael Jackson music video, starred in the 1996 hit movie Space Jam and been the subject of 2020’s Emmy-winning docuseries The Last Dance. He’s the principal owner of the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets and has recently made the leap into Nascar with his own race team – because, as you’re about to find out, No23 loves to spend his hard-earned dollars on some slam-dunk sports cars.” I’m not a car guy but this article was cool in showcasing some amazing cars.

When I invest, I think of my investments as being in buckets. I’m in my early forties and not yet in retirement but it turns out that the bucket strategy applies to retirement as well (in fact, probably more so because you’ll need more buckets).

How to Build A Retirement Paycheck From Your Investments [The Retirement Manifesto] – “A common approach to setting your investments up for the withdrawal phase is to establish a “Bucket Strategy”, originally conceived by financial planning guru Harold Evensky (for a video of him discussing the strategy, click here). Even though I’m still several years away from retirement, I’ve already been working on setting this up, and will share the specific approach I’m using.”

When Diversification Dies [Young Money by Jack Raines] – “Nothing is done for the sake of the thing itself, everything is just a stepping stone for whatever comes next. And, like the donkey chasing the carrot on a stick, we convince ourselves that we are just a couple of steps away from pursuing some dream of ours that we never seem to reach. Optionality for the sake of optionality. It’s a sick, twisted game when you sit back and think about it, because there will always be another option. Until there’s not.”

They say that stocks go down during the day and up at night. [Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science] – “If you invested $1 in AIG at the start of 1990 and received only intraday returns (from market open to market close), you would be left with one-twentieth of a penny, suffering a cumulative return of -99.95%. If you received only overnight returns (from market close to the next day’s market open), you would have $1,017, achieving a cumulative return of roughly +101,600%.” Fascinating though while this is a cherry picked example, I wonder how widespread it is. 😂

Fun video about the economics of buffets!

Do you remember the GME short squeeze and all the Robinhood traders?

During that craze, I did dabble in some stocks (bought some shares of Carvana when it was near it’s peak) and then took the gains and bought some NFTs.

All in all, broke even, had fun learning a few new areas, but it’s hard to sit on the sidelines when there’s all this excitement. I felt like I safely scratched that itch… some people did far more:

The Retreat of the Amateur Investors [Wall Street Journal] – “Amateur trader Omar Ghias says he amassed roughly $1.5 million as stocks surged during the early part of the pandemic, gripped by a speculative fervor that cascaded across all markets. As his gains swelled, so did his spending on everything from sports betting and bars to luxury cars. He says he also borrowed heavily to amplify his positions. When the party ended, his fortune evaporated thanks to some wrong-way bets and his excessive spending. To support himself, he says he now works at a deli in Las Vegas that pays him roughly $14 an hour plus tips and sells area timeshares. He says he no longer has any money invested in the market.” The headline might grab the attention but it covers quite a few retail investors and how they’ve reacted.

The Forgotten Lessons of 2008: Seth Klarman [Investment Talk] – “Two years after the great financial crisis of 2008, Seth Klarman shared a memo explaining how he felt that investors were quick to forget the lessons learned from one of the greatest financial meltdowns in modern history. He would remark that these lessons “were either never learned or else were immediately forgotten by most market participants”. Not quite a like-for-like comparison, but today we are ~2 years post one of the strangest exogenous shocks to ever hit the market. In this short time, we witnessed excess, despair, and everything in between. Some are now calling for a recession and a prolonged bear market while others suggest we are on the precipice of a young bull market.”

Different Types of Mistakes [Rational Walk] – “There are an infinite number of ways to make investment mistakes and each market cycle reveals new opportunities for speculators to immolate their money. Playing with leverage and derivatives will eventually end in tears for nearly all individual investors and professionals are hardly immune from occasional bouts of speculative fever. The details change but the desire to get rich quickly is perennial.” (emphasis mine)

Hey Plutus Family, look what we have for you this week!

9 Ways to Teach Your Children About Contentment in a Consumer-Driven World. [Money Savvy Mamma] — “We have access to too much information. We have too many options for what to stream and watch. We have endless podcasts and audiobooks to listen to. YouTube provides us with unlimited videos of everyday experts on every topic imaginable. We can be constantly entertained, educated, enlightened and engaged.” (Submitted by Tarsha.)

Perfect is the Enemy of Good. [A Wealth of Common Sense] — “When it comes to income it’s not how much you make that determines your feelings towards money; it’s how much you make relative to those around you.” (Submitted by J. Money.)

The Best Debit Cards for Kids. [Family Money Adventure] — “Debit cards for kids are helpful financial literacy tools for teaching your children about money management. Cards are typically either tied to a checking account or are reloadable prepaid cards. The best debit cards for kids offer tools and features useful for children to learn money management skills. They also include monitoring and parent-control features so parents can protect their kids from making bad money decisions. There are free debit cards for kids, prepaid debit cards for teens, and other options to choose from.” (Submitted by Tarsha.)

Everything You Can’t Have [Morgan Housel] – “In 1905, author William Dawson wrote in his book *The Quest for The Simple Life* about how the hardest thing to understand about money is the thrill of the chase. Something you can easily afford brings less joy than something you must save and struggle for. “The man who can buy anything he covets values nothing that he buys,” Dawson wrote.”

Why Did We Care? 10 Things We Let Go of As We Age [Partners in Fire] – “One of the most significant benefits of getting older is realizing what matters and what doesn’t. Some of the things we cared so much about as kids seem unimportant as we age, making us wonder why we ever even bothered in the first place.”

Gone Fishing. [Cole Schafer] – “I think the reason the world feels less magical than it ever has before is because we aren’t in it for the process nor the craft nor the work nor the experience. We’re in for the tricks. […] What nobody realizes though––and I think this was something my Fly Fishing guide was trying desperately to teach me––is that the magic isn’t in the trick but the process.”

I love the Helsinki Bus Station Theory.

If you’ve never heard of it, be prepared for it to reframe your thoughts around creative work. There’s no way to summarize it succinctly but it’s a fairly simple idea, so I recommend reading the original writing by Arno Rafael Minkkinen in the link above.

Next, check out James Clear’s treatment of it because it’s great (he goes through the theory too, so if you are in a time crunch, just read below).

The Proven Path to Doing Unique and Meaningful Work [James Clear] – “I write frequently about how mastery requires consistency. That includes ideas like putting in your reps, improving your average speed, and falling in love with boredom. These ideas are critical, but The Helsinki Bus Station Theory helps to clarify and distinguish some important details that often get overlooked.”

Next, enjoy this video by Ira Glass called The Gap, which speaks to the gap between your ability to create and your ability to critique:

Our first post coasting into the weekend is a gem.

I love analogies. Especially very simple ones.

So when Kevin Mahoney’s short post started with a spinning chair and ended with a simple concept that I hope to internalize, I knew I had to share it.

Searching for the Horizon [Kevin Mahoney] – “Our investment decisions, for example, regularly feel like they’re going haywire. When the stock market jumps in value, we’re sure that a steep decline lies ahead. So we hold off on investing, and then miss out on future gains. And in times of economic crisis, we become certain that the market has further to fall. So we abandon our investments, locking in losses that could have been temporary.

But it was only that uncomfortable feeling of an uncertain outcome that made us want to “throw the controls over, to make the spinning stop.””

The Real Story Behind the 17th-Century ‘Tulip Mania’ Financial Crash [History] – “But according to historian Anne Goldgar, Mackay’s tales of huge fortunes lost and distraught people drowning themselves in canals are more fiction than fact. Goldgar, a professor of early modern history at King’s College London and author of Tulipmania: Money, Honor and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age, understands why Mackay’s myth-making has endured.” I’m not sure what is more surprising, that tulip-mania was mostly made up or that History Channel has something about history. 😂 (I kid, I kid!)

You got canned [this is the top] – “Losing your job sucks. When the income faucet turns off, things get weird real quick. The stress and pressure mounts and you’re easily at risk of making short-term mistakes that impact your long-term financial landscape. But all is not lost (just your job). I help people navigate these murky waters all the time. Let’s look at what you can do when you show up to the office and your swipe card stops working.” Good practical advice on what to do if you’re fired. Hope you never need it!

Have a great weekend!

I love a good pun and our first one is an interview with a friend of mine, Nick True.

I’ve known Nick for a few years and can attest to how genuine and kind he is. The interview talks a lot about his experiences building a blog and podcast but the part that stands out is the “why?” behind it. It’s a good look at what underpins a lot of why folks choose to pursue financial independence.

The True meaning of financial freedom [ConvertKit Blog] – “It’s not just about the budgeting. For Nick True, sharing his lifelong passion of finances is about helping people win the game of life.”

Always great to see folks like that enjoy success – check out their blog Mapped Out Money!

Being Triggered By A Mess [Natalie Bacon Podcast] – “What are your thoughts when your home is messy? What do you interpret a mess to mean? It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you are greeted with a mess, and you might feel the need to “fix” it. But it might surprise you to know that it isn’t the mess that is causing you to feel the way you are and have the reaction you have; it’s your thoughts about the mess.” So true.

How Much Life Insurance Do I Need (As A Fire Seeker)? [Eat Sleep Breathe FI] – “Before you can work on the numbers, you first need to think about the type of lifestyle your beneficiaries will have after you’re gone. Getting clear on this will make the rest of the life insurance planning process that much easier.”

Plutus Family, we hope we did not keep you waiting long. We searched high and low for just the right articles for this week. Please enjoy!

Here’s what we wanted to share with you this week.

How to Organize Your Tax Documents for Your Accountant. [Tucan Dream] — “You have received all your tax slips (w-2’s, 1099’s, etc.), and you have records of your other income and expenses, but now what? How do you organize your tax documents so that your accountant can prepare your taxes with ease?” (Submitted by Tarsha.)

Prepare for the Unexpected Mini-Retirement. [Jillian Johnsrud] — “Life can be unpredictably fragile and short. You just never know. You never know if you’ll have a hundred other chances to experience your dream, or perhaps this is the last chance for that dream. Save the money, make a plan, and when the opportunity arises, grab your go bag. And go” (Submitted by J. Money.)

Social Media Is Destroying Gen Z’s Finances. [A Dime Saved] — “The main reason cited for this was that people are constantly bombarded with photos and videos of others living a lifestyle that is seemingly unattainable. This can lead to feelings of inadequacy and frustration, especially for those who are struggling to get by…” (Submitted by Tarsha.)