Apex Money Posts

I’ve long viewed credit cards, and their reward programs, as useful tools if you know how to use them.

If you pay off your balance in full each month, rewards programs are great. You get a little tiny rebate on every purchase.

If you don’t and are paying interest each month, reward programs are red herrings. They get you to stick around and use a card that’s paying you a few cents but “robbing” you of dollars.

Your credit card rewards might not be worth it [Vox] – “Rewards cards are only really useful for consumers who are generally credit-savvy. Less financially sophisticated consumers — meaning people with higher unpaid balances or who don’t pay off their cards month to month — ultimately end up losing out. They wind up subsidizing the rewards of people who are a little better at credit, wherever they fall on the income spectrum. More than half of credit card customers are “revolvers,” meaning they don’t pay off their full balances each month.” eeek.

I’ve long viewed travel insurance as a bit of a “scam” in the sense that it was largely unnecessary. Then Covid happened and we are not big fans. What Thomas describes is not even the stuff you pay extra for!

How To Travel In A Safe And Wise Way (What I Learned From The Southwest Failure) [The Long Game] – “I was apart of the horrible Southwest cancellations in late December. And when I say horrible, I mean horrible.” Use your card benefits!

This next one… Hmmmm… 😡

U.S. military-run slot machines earn $100 million a year from service members overseas [NPR] – “The slot machines, operated by the U.S. Department of Defense, earn the DOD more than $100 million each year in the name of “morale, welfare, and recreation” for service members, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office that was written in response to demands from Congress.”

Have a great weekend!

Jim here – one of the fun parts of reading a lot of personal finance articles around the start of the year are the annual recaps where people share what they’ve learned in the past year.

Today’s first article is similar, except it’s a bit grander. It’s ideas that have changed Morgan Housel’s life… which I’d argue are ideas that will have a massive impact on anyone.

Check it out:

Ideas That Changed My Life [Collab Fund by Morgan Housel] – “Everyone belongs to a tribe and underestimates how influential that tribe is on their thinking. There is little correlation between climate change denial and scientific literacy. But there is a strong correlation between climate change denial and political affiliation. That’s an extreme example, but everyone has views persuaded by identity over pure analysis.”

I very rarely use checks, usually to pay estimated taxes (speaking of which, I should look into that), and it turns out my friend Mike at Oblivious Investor just had an arduous 3 month ordeal dealing with check fraud! I didn’t know this type of thing still happened and it turns out it happens quite a bit!

My Experience with Check Fraud – And What You Can Learn From It [Oblivious Investor] – “Apparently somebody intercepted the check, chemically “washed” it to remove the ink on specific portions of the check, and wrote in a new payee, amount, and (partial) memo.” (JD sent this one along!)

How To Use Money Journaling: Improve Your Mindset And Your Finances [Clever Girl Finance] – “Money journaling is about more than just keeping a ledger. It’s about keeping a journal that’s purely dedicated to your finances and spending habits. When you start journaling, you commit to writing down everything you spend every day. To make it a money journal, you also need to write down how you feel about all your spending in addition to the numbers. This is the secret ingredient.”

Happy Hump Day Plutus Family! Thank goodness its Wednesday. So, take a quick break and read these great articles we gathered for you.

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

The Art and Science of Spending Money. [Collab Fund] — “There is a science to spending money – how to find a bargain, how to make a budget, things like that. But there’s also an art to spending. A part that can’t be quantified and varies person to person.” (Submitted by J. Money.)

How To Find a Job That Fulfills You. [Worklife] — “While it’s helpful to get feedback from current and former employees, reviews on sites such as Glassdoor or Yelp might skew overly negative or positive, cautions Trey Barnette, a regional vice president at staffing and talent solutions firm Robert Half. Seek out objective sources, he said, not “an ex-employee that just got let go and is ranting and raving.” (Submitted by Tarsha.)

#14. Knowing Your (Net) Worth. [The Sytch] — “Think of tracking your net worth like the annual doctor checkup. It may not be a necessary step to achieve financial success for some, but if you want to get nerdy with your finances and optimize every dollar, tracking your net worth is a must. Knowing your net worth every year requires you to do a deep dive into your finances. This forces you to diagnose any issues you are having.” (Submitted by Tarsha.)

Happy Tuesday!

More Powerful than Financial Advice [Retire Before Dad] – “Success in building wealth is less about how much you know (or can google) and more about consistently applying what you’ve learned toward a defined objective over many years. It’s not so much the plan. It’s the execution.”

As Derek Sivers once famously said, “If more information was the answer, then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs.”

At any age, a healthy diet can extend your life [The Washington Post] – “No matter how old you are, or how much junk food you consume, it’s never too late to start undoing the damage caused by a poor diet.”

What Your Net Worth Statement Is Telling You [Morningstar] – “A summary of all your assets and liabilities is a crucial first step toward getting a better handle on your finances.”

Welcome to another beautiful week!

First one today comes from a thread written by David Perell and is a fascinating look at time.

Mechanical time vs body time [David Perell on Twitter] – I’d never given “time” that much thought but as I age, it’s becoming clearer that body time is the time I prefer to follow.

11 Steps To Perfectly Manage Your Finances As A Millennial [The Long Game] – ““What would you do if you were me?” This is the top question I get asked from friends and family.

Here’s exactly what I would do if I was starting out as a millennial.” This advice applies to anyone.

From beginner money steps for the millenial to the concept of Swedish Death Cleaning!

Your coffin isn’t hitched to a U-Haul. [The Minimalists] is the post where I discovered this concept but it’s really captured in an 8-minute video.

Happy Friday the 13th money nerds!

I’ll be headed to Boston to visit my sister and her family in a trip that’s been long overdue. My brother in law built an ice rink in his backyard (he’s done it before) and so the kids may try their hand at ice skating. Or graceful falling. Either way, it should make for a fun weekend!

I really enjoyed the first post this week in changing the mental framing around various “taxes.” Some are monetary. Many are not. It’s a good one to think about.

Everything’s Taxed [A Teachable Moment] – ““Criticism is a tax on success. If you’re getting criticized, appreciate it. It means you’re winning more than you’re losing. No one criticizes the underdog, the eight-seed, the perennial loser. Don’t let that [criticism] get you down. Enjoy it. You’ve earned it.””

The Secrets of Stealth Wealth [Financial Imagineer] – “Stealth wealth is the opposite of conspicuous consumption, it’s about finding true wealth and quality of life which financial freedom helps to unlock. It’s all about having the ability to do what you want, when and where you want with whomever you like to.”

5 Behavioral Tricks for Long-Term Investors [Validea] – “Over time, I have found several things can be helpful in helping to achieve that goal. There is no magic bullet when it comes to behavior, and what works for one person won’t work for another, but here are some approaches I have seen that can help.”

See you next week!

Our first post isn’t one offering any type of advice or guidance. In fact, it really just looks like a “here’s what I’m doing” type of update post.

But I want to point out the thinking behind it because it’s powerful. There’s a lot of content online about hustling and grinding your face off. There’s less about the freedom to not have set goals but to go where your heart and your mind feels like.

The Year of The Flow 🤙 [Budgets Are Sexy] – “So all this to say, I’m nixing my schedule for the upcoming year and will only be writing whenever I’m dying to get my thoughts out. Which will probably be less than I’m writing now, but still more than I was the last few years when I was gone 😉 In fact, my hope is that by going this new route I’ll be able to stay here with y’all for the long run since there’s no way I can get burned out again if I only blog when I feel like it! Haha…”

Build Legacy and Generational Wealth By Teaching Kids About Money [The Money Takes] – “Just as you nurture your children physically, ethically, and mentally, it is equally important to nurture them financially to instill valuable financial lessons in them. Remember, how children handle money from a young age determines whether they can make sound financial decisions when they grow up. If you are wondering how to go about raising financially responsible children, here are some tips to guide you:”

Did you know that Kohler sells a $8,625 toilet??? The Numi 2.0 “combines unmatched design and technology to bring you the finest in personal comfort and cleansing. Kohler’s most advanced toilet now offers personalized settings that let you fine-tune every option to your exact preferences, from ambient colored lighting and built-in audio speaker system to the heated seat with hands-free opening and closing. Other upgrades include power-save mode for energy efficiency, emergency flush for power outages, and an intuitive remote that complements the KOHLER Konnect® app for advanced control. From its striking form to its exceptional water efficiency, the Numi 2.0 smart toilet marks a new standard of excellence in the bathroom.”

😂😂😂😂😂😂

Hey Plutus Family! Have you ever thought about retiring early, but life brought you back to reality.  Check out this great article, “Failing at Early Retirement”.

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

It’s Time to Work. [Of Dollars and Data] — “Most people don’t get rich through their investment decisions; they get rich through their income. They get rich through their work. Even those who do get rich from their investments, typically, had to work to get the money they used to invest in the first place.” (Submitted by J. Money.)

Experts Say This Is a Key Sign You Have an Unhealthy Relationship with Money. [The Zero Report] — “When it comes to money and budgeting, it’s often easier said than done. You may have the best of intentions — you’ll eat out less this month and put the money into your savings account instead. But then life happens. Just like working through any other life, fitness, or wellness issue, a little introspection is often the ticket. If you want to get your finances back in order, a financial psychologist or money mindset coach can help. It all starts with getting your head in the right place.” (Submitted by Tarsha.)

Failing at Early Retirement. [Go Curry Cracker] — “The idea that earning some income is equivalent to failure for an early retiree is common, but I think it is misplaced. There is no right/wrong or moral weight to the decision to add or subtract dollars from a retirement portfolio, so if something doesn’t feel right and you think work would help… then work.” (Submitted by J. Money.)

What would you do if you heard the happiest retirees had just over $500,000 in liquid assets? If you are like Steve(ark), you’d be surprised and then dig deeper to find out why.

Our first post does something most people don’t, think critically behind some of the numbers we hear.

How Much Money? [Slightly Early Retirement] – “So considering that happy retirees have more than one source of income, have learned to control their expenses, have a reduced cost of living, have no or a managably small amount of debt and have affordable government provided health care, I believe that having a $500,000 retirement nest egg is enough for them to be financially secure.”

Joint Bank Account Pros and Cons [Marriage Kids and Money] – “”Before you and your partner rush to open a joint bank account, it’s worth exploring the joint bank account pros and cons. Then, you want to consider your financial goals and the unique needs of your relationship.”

The Creator Economy Was Way Overblown [Big Technology] – “While today’s economic downturn is causing broad pain, the creator economy is suffering in particular because its middle class hasn’t yet emerged. Online content creation is still mostly viable for the very top echelon of online creators only. And when mid-sized creators can’t make it, the VC-funded platforms meant to serve them can’t scale. So it’ll likely be a while before “link-in-my-bio” startups raise at $1.3 billion valuations again.”

Our first article digs into the math behind the well worn “statistic” that active funds don’t beat index funds.

The statement is still mostly true, the math behind lacks a bit of… shall we say, rigor.

Even “Experts” Measure Stupidly [The Best Interest] – “how many mutual funds beat more than 75% of other funds in each of 5 straight years, 2017 – 2022. Answer: none.

The average person might say, “Well shit! All the more reason to drink the passively-managed Index Fund Kool Aid!”

Go ahead and drink. It won’t hurt you. Index funds are great. But the NYT is (probably unknowingly) using terrible, misleading math. It’s the third kind of lie. Bad math obfuscates a more important, nuanced truth.”

Practice Frugal Wealth [Financial Tortoise] – “But one of the big dilemmas that many of us will face once you have a sizable amount of wealth is this; the temptation to let the world know how successful we are. Before you couldn’t afford it, but now that fancy new car keeps catching your eye. Maybe your parents might finally come around to praising you instead of criticizing you for your frugal lifestyle? Or how about that huge home down the street that always seemed to have all the toys? It’s finally on the market. And you can finally afford the downpayment. Why not go for it right? You only live once.

But this is where I would caution all of us and recommend we all continue to practice the principle of Frugal wealth. Where despite how wealthy you become, you continue to live out the life of frugality.”

10 Things That Are 100% A Scam But Accepted In Society [A Dime Saved] – “Have you ever been living your life and then suddenly thought, this is a scam? This can’t be real? There are some things that are so part of our society and our everyday life. Still, we just accept them as normal because they’re so ingrained in our society or because everyone else accepts it, and we can’t really do anything about it?” This post got me angrier the longer I read it! 😂