Apex Money Posts

Hey hey, money nerds. As promised, I’m back with a bonus Saturday installment this week because I forgot to publish links on Thursday. I can’t deprive you of your weekly quota! Here’s what I have for you today.

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. It’s all about having to focus less on money and having more time, freedom, and peace. Once you understand this, your world will change for the better.”

Secrets of a professional negotiator. [The Retirement Manifesto] — “For the final nine years of my career, I was paid to negotiate. It feels strange saying this, but the fact is that I was a professional negotiator. I negotiated for a living. It’s time to share my secrets: The secrets of a professional negotiator.”

How to detach yourself from your financial wins and losses. [The Root of All] — “The way to train yourself to detach from the emotional pull of wins and losses is to put all your energy into your response. While we can’t know whether an event is good or bad, we do know the quality of our response. It is always possible to respond virtuously in any situation. It’s always possible to do good.”

And that’s all I have for you this week. Jim will return on Monday to share more personal-finance goodness with you. See you then!

Heigh-ho, everybody. J.D. here with another day of Apex Money. I didn’t get yesterday’s edition out — sorry about that — so I’ll have a bonus Saturday installment for you tomorrow. But today? Well, I like the batch of articles I’ve collected for today. They’re all centered around a theme: happiness.

The fallacy of ‘preparing for life’.” [Accidental Fire] — “Every year is still 365 days, but damn if they don’t seem to be getting shorter and shorter. Nobody seems to be able to find the time for anything, their dreams, their passions, or their kids soccer game…Don’t suffer in a job you hate just to financially prepare for a future thing called retirement. Life is now. There is no preparing for life, there’s only life.” Preach!

The eight splendid truths of happiness. [Gretchen Rubin] — “In my study of happiness, I’ve labored to identify its fundamental principles. Because I get a tremendous kick out of the numbered lists that pop up throughout Buddhism (the Triple Refuge, the Noble Eightfold Path, the Four Noble Truths, the eight auspicious symbols), I decided to dub these fundamental principles as my Eight Splendid Truths.”

Will more money make you happier? Probably not. [Becoming Minimalist] — “Regardless of how much money contributes to happiness (and the jury is apparently still out on that), the one thing we do know is this: Prioritizing the pursuit of money NEVER contributes to overall happiness and life satisfaction. In fact, those who prioritize money over the pursuit of more value-based goals end life with less satisfaction and fulfillment.”

The best idea humans ever had. [Raptitude] — “If you look at what ancient humans say about how to live, it’s always some version of this full-time devotion to good…They don’t say, ‘Have a good time, but do enough difficult stuff to be able to consider yourself a good person,’ as modernity seems to prescribe, but rather, ‘Train yourself in each moment to always do the morally best thing, with love and without hesitation. Make this your purpose in life and sacrifice everything else for it.'”

What does success look like? (And how does it feel?) [One Frugal Girl] — “What if success focused on our emotional well-being, social connections, and job-related enjoyment? What if we weighed time, money, relationships, and health? Do you have time freedom? Do you have the flexibility to focus on your passions or share your time with people you love? Do you have time for the people and things that matter most to you?”

Good stuff, right? Well, I’ll be back tomorrow with more good stuff. See you then.

Good Morning Plutus family! Before you dive into these great articles, we want to invite all content creators, and your friends to join us for our Content Creator Happy Hour in Los Angeles on Wednesday, November 16th at 7pm.

As always, tickets are free, but extremely limited. All attendees will be entered in a drawing for a $100 gift card! That’s a new twist. RSVP in advance to qualify. Register for Plutus Voices Los Angeles here.

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

Ultimate Detailed Price Battle!!! Is Shopping at A Warehouse Club Really Saving Anything? [Chief Mom Officer] — ” When I remove all the items I couldn’t buy at Aldi’s because they didn’t have an equivalent or where I wouldn’t want the alternative option for my family, it’s clear that shopping at BJ’s is the winner for us. Those items would cost $285 at BJ’s compared with $333 at Aldi’s. The cost savings is over $100 when compared with Target, and almost $200 when compared with Price Chopper!” (Submitted by J. Money.)

11 Ways to Teach Kids About Money This Winter. [Debt Free Guys] — “Now’s a great time to teach kids about money – when they’re kids. With school back in session and months of snowstorms and indoor activities, here’s a list of fun activities that will subtly teach kids about money, finance and even the basics of running a small business.” (Submitted by Tarsha.)

My First 6 Months of Early Retirement Sucked Shit: What They Don’t Tell You about FIRE. [Bitches Get Riches] — “My body and my subconsciousness understood exactly what was happening to me. “You are very, very depressed,” they told me with crystal clear enunciation. “Sleep ten hours a day, invest 200 hours into a video game you don’t particularly like, and put cheese on EVERYTHING until these passes.”(Submitted by J. Money.)

Today is Tuesday, money nerds. I’m J.D. Roth and this is Apex Money.

Generally speaking, Jim and I don’t like to promote our own stuff here at Apex. This is a place to promote the work of other people. Today, I’m going to link to two pieces in which I play a big role. They’re not from any of my sites, but they both feature interviews with me. But I think they both contain good info, so I’m going to do it.

First up is an interview I did with Jess from The Fioneers:

Money doesn’t magically fix our problems. [The Fioneers] — “Today, that’s exactly how I see money: a tool. No, that’s not quite right. I see money as fuel. That’s a better analogy. A tool is durable and reusable. Money is not. Money is consumable. It’s a fuel source to help you fund the life you want. If you burn this fuel making detours to stops that don’t matter (buying things you don’t want or need, for instance), then you’re compromising your ability to reach the destination you have in mind.”

Second is an interview about writing that I did with Jacob from The Root of All. It’s at the end of his longer piece about spending in the time of COVID.

Spending in the time of COVID. [The Root of All] — “The most important to become a good writer is simple: Write. Write all of the fucking time. I talk to a lot of people who say they want to become writers, but they don’t ever write. They just talk about it. If you want to be a writer, you have to write. More than that, you have to share your writing with other people, and you can’t be precious about it.”

Okay, enough about me. Let’s close things out today with a couple of other interesting money articles from other sources:

How our perceptions of time and money change as we age. [Retire Before Dad] — “Our perceptions of the value of time and money shift as we age. In early adulthood, time is abundant, while money is scarcer. We want more money and are willing to sacrifice our time to get it. By middle age, a thriving career helps us earn more, but job and family obligations consume our time. Life is expensive, and working middle-aged people never seem to have enough time or money. Approaching retirement, we’re more willing to spend money to save time.”

“The best stuff won’t make you happier. I know because I tried it.” [Vox] — “It isn’t just a display of wealth; it’s your morality: that you are indeed the Informed Consumer, able to not only afford the best but to know what ‘the best’ even is. It’s a marketing strategy that is not new, of course, but that seems to work particularly well at the present moment.”

That’s it for today! Tomorrow, the folks from the Plutus Foundation will drop by with their weekly round-up. I’ll be back on Thursday with more great stuff. See you then.

Hey, everyone. It’s J.D. again. Thanks to Jim for carrying all of the Apex Money duties during the past month while I was preoccupied.

You see, my mother died on October 3. This wasn’t unexpected — her health had been declining for a long, long time — but October has been difficult nevertheless.

I spent all of last week doing nothing: walking the dog, staring into space, browsing Reddit for hours at a time. I feel listless and apathetic. I have so much to do but no will to do it. The best way to get back in the swing of things, though, is simply to take action. So that’s what I’m doing. Let’s see what sorts of goodies I’ve found for you today…

The people making millions off Listerine royalties [The Hustle] — “Most types of intellectual protections (trademarks, copyrights, patents) have a built-in expiration date: Patents automatically expire after 20 years, at which point a company can no longer charge a royalty. Listerine’s formula, however, was a trade secret — and a trade secret, the court ruled, can have a perpetual royalty contract.” This is a fascinating story, and one of my favorite pieces of the year.

Does shopping at a warehouse club really save anything? [Chief Mom Officer] — “This week I’m going to do a bit of an old school series on warehouse clubs. Today I’m going to share with you the research I did to look critically and closely at a typical BJ’s shopping trip and see what, if anything, we saved over other options in town. On Wednesday I’ll go through a bunch of warehouse club shopping tips. And on Friday I’ll talk about how to figure out what kind of shopping options work best for your family.”

The power of a “what if we didn’t own this?” bag. [Rich in What Matters] — “Many things enter our home that don’t actually serve a purpose in our lives. We don’t use them, love them, or need them. The purpose of material possessions is to be used for some good. If we’re holding onto things that have no value, we are keeping them from fulfilling their true purpose in someone else’s life.”

Lastly, here’s a YouTube rant from the GiantGrantGames channel that I really, really liked: “YouTube ads are getting insane, and I hate it.” This video explores the growing problem with YouTube ads and suggests some solutions.

As somebody who’s prepping to dive (back) into video, I found this fascinating. I was a Google early adopter. I told everyone I could about how awesome the company was. No more. Google long ago discarded their “don’t be evil” motto and embraced the Dark Side. I hate it.

I’ve slowly been shedding everything Google from my life…even gmail! Doing so is difficult, though, and makes it tougher for content creators to earn a living. My aim is to have zero percent of Get Rich Slowly’s content on Google platforms, but I still need to puzzle out how to make this happen. Will people really go to Vimeo to watch videos instead of using YouTube? I don’t know.

It’s not every day we share a post from a big bank but this one is useful in that it helps me understand why we it seems Americans are able to continue to spend despite higher prices. Despite all the talk of recession and a slowdown (and the Fed doing its best to urge it along), people seem fine.

But that’s because we are spending down more of our savings… which can spell more acute pain later. 🙁

Eating the Seed Corn: How Long Can Consumers Rely on Savings? [Wells Fargo] – “Consumers have yet to lose their staying power, and our analysis of household finances suggests consumers still have the ability to rely on their balance sheets for some time yet. The catch: The more consumers rely on their balance sheets to spend today, the larger deterioration we’ll see in overall household finances and the worse the eventual economic downturn may be.”

We love our gas stove and so I was saddened to read about all the studies on gas stoves and indoor air quality. The prognosis isn’t great, considering you are burning stuff, but the solution isn’t bad. Fortunately, we use our range hood all the time (we went from probably 75% of the time to now 100%). Just a heads up if you didn’t know.

Your Brain on Gas Stoves [Slate] – “They release a slew of pollutants that aren’t great for kids—but there’s a simple way to improve the situation.”

In a shock to no one, stressful jobs increase depression risk. 🙁

In stressful jobs, depression risk rises with hours worked, study in new doctors finds [Sciency Daily] – “The more hours someone works each week in a stressful job, the more their risk of depression rises, a study in new doctors finds. Working 90 or more hours a week was associated with changes in depression symptom scores three times larger than the change in depression symptoms among those working 40 to 45 hours a week. A higher percentage of those who worked a large number of hours had scores high enough to qualify for a diagnosis of moderate to severe depression.”

OK, I can’t leave you all doomy and gloomy… ever curious about The Economics of Pumpkin Patches?

Default mode matters a lot. Too many people accept the default option and so we should design systems in which the default mode is better for user, if all other things are kept equal.

Also, recognizing default mode is important if you want to avoid making big mistakes in your life. There are a lot of bad default options.

Default Mode [Accidentally Retired] – “Whether it is a default presented to you in your favorite app, the on-boarding for a new job, or in every day life. We accept the default. What administrators, app developers, or healthcare providers choose for our defaults can make a huge difference.”

Why It’s So Tough to Save Money When You’re Poor [Money Ning] – “We can all agree that living paycheck-to-paycheck is not an ideal situation. And it’s just as obvious that individuals doing this still need to save their money and build a financial cushion so they can finally feel secure. Unfortunately, the basic rules of saving money are simple but not easy – particularly if you’re already behind the financial ball. Here are three reasons why it’s so difficult for people in poverty to improve their situation…”

That new watch really makes you less likeable [Klement on Investing] – “I don’t think I will surprise anyone when I say that the studies showed that people who posted about the stuff they bought were rated as less likable than people who posted without mentioning a recent purchase. But people who were showing off their material purchases also were less liked than people who posted about their experiential purchases. And, importantly, whether people were posting about material purchases or experiential purchases, they become less likable the more often they posted about their purchases. The people who posted without mentioning any purchases, on the other hand, became more likable over time.” More accurately, posting about how you just got a new watch makes you less likeable.

Hey Plutus family! Have you ever racked up medical bills and wonder how you were going to paid It? Have you ever wondered how someone can pay off $100k in medical debt? Well, we were wondering too and came across this great article on how Ana paid off $100k in medical debt.

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

Creating a Safety Net for Your Life. [Physician on Fire] — “We all know that life is unpredictable. In fact, the only thing that’s certain is that things will be uncertain. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, I think the majority of people are risk-averse. We’re concerned about the future and its potential for unfortunate circumstances. If we weren’t, there would be no such thing as insurance–and there’s insurance for just about everything.” (Submitted by Tarsha.)

How Ana Paid Off $100k of Medical Debt. [Her First $100k] — “What I thought would be a quick visit to the emergency room to get a cast suddenly turned into a three-day hospital stay with around the clock care – a stay that would have to be paid out of pocket because I didn’t have health insurance.” (Submitted by J. Money.)

The Biggest Risk of All. [Money Flamingo] — “In the personal finance community we often talk about risks. The risk of running out of money in retirement; the risk of picking the wrong investment or getting the timing wrong; sequence of return risk; the risk of losing our job during the accumulation phase; leverage risk – you name it.” (Submitted by Tarsha.)

I (Jim) really like this idea of reverse waiting.

Reverse Waiting [Mitchell Landon] – “If “comparison is the thief of joy” then waiting is its partner in crime. Sure, it’s great to have things to look forward to, but not at the expense of our happiness today.”

How to Be More Resilient, According to an Elite Performance Coach [GQ] – “What is a better conception of toughness than “push through the pan to get on the other side of it?”

It’s creating space so that you can navigate. When we go through challenging things, it’s almost like the wind compresses and we feel like we have to react. We feel some anxiety and then our immediate reaction is, “Get me out of this situation. Escape, escape, escape.” Toughness is creating the space so that you don’t default to that easy decision, but instead can figure out, okay, how do I work through this in a productive manner?”

Bored? Here are some of the most viral videos of all time.

The Greatest Achievements in Dumb Internet Video [Polygon] – “This list aims to define a canon of funny videos created for the vast expanse of the internet. Ignoring nostalgia and their virality, it’s an attempt to carve out a Criterion Collection of completely stupid, but absolutely genius internet content. This is a list you could confidently show an alien who just landed on Earth and asked, “so what’s the internet like?””

When we (Jim) purchased our first home, I considered the rental aspect of it but not in the same detail as the Frugalwoods (as you’ll see in their update post). When we moved out, we rented it to our friends who needed a place to stay for six months.

I’m not going to lie, it was fun collecting rent. We broke even but it was nice to “build equity” in the house. Also, since it was our friends, there was no risk of them messing up the house.

I think this review by the Frugalwoods is great because of how comprehensive it is (or more to the point, how comprehensive they were in their analysis).

What’s Happening With Our Rental Property? [Frugalwoods] – “When you buy a home to live in with a plan to later rent it out, you’re doing two things at once. You have to consider the property more from an investment perspective and less from an emotional “I love this house” perspective. This isn’t always possible (or advisable), but, if you live in a hot rental market and have aspirations of building a passive income stream, buying a home that can be turned into a rental can be a great option.”

This next one is scary. We’re all just “little” one accident away from financial ruin.

How Ana Paid Off $100K of Medical Debt [Her First $100K] – “I sent the text, washed my hands, and was just about to head back to the table when I stepped on a wet spot on the floor and slipped. The next thing I knew, my date and I were at the hospital and I was unknowingly going to take on $100,000 of medical debt. “A catastrophic elbow fracture” were the exact words the doctor used.” Read the whole thing because it actually contains a solid playbook for how to deal with medical debt like this – this isn’t a “she paid off the whole $100k,” she took steps to lower it and then paid it off. It’s brilliant.

Research: Simple Writing Pays Off (Literally) [Harvard Business Review] – ” Financial writing is full of jargon and complexity. But a series of research suggests that investors are drawn to simple, clear writing with short sentences. The simple reason is that complex writing is off-putting — people tune out and find it dull, a fact confirmed by neuroscience research. The author reviews a series of studies on the financial value of good writing and offers a few tips to companies looking to communicate more clearly with investors, or with anyone else.”