Apex Money Posts

This first post is refreshingly honest and while I’ve never had a $6 million dollar windfall, I imagine any major seven-figure windfall probably feels a lot like this. Too bad it’s anonymous but I get why it is.

Confessions of an Overnight Millionaire [New York Magazine] – “Since July 2020, nearly 750 companies have gone public, raising more than $200 billion and minting thousands of new paper millionaires. Amid the frenzy, one millennial tech worker on the verge of unexpected wealth shared what was going through her mind.” I love the little dig towards banking too and the family stuff is a bit sad.

You Are Your Life’s Creative Director [All About Your Benjamins] – “We’re taught from an early age that we’re supposed to go to school, get good grades, graduate college, find a good job with great benefits, maybe make a few job/career changes, get married, buy that house, have 2.5 kids, put the kids through college, and one day retire…the American Dream. Your life’s path has been predetermined, who the original director was, I’m not sure—I leave off creative because it’s not— and it’s already been paved by the generations who have come before you. Stay on the paved path and you’ll be good.”

Feel Better [Humble Dollar] – “Money can be maddening—if we let it. There will almost always be some parts of our portfolio whose performance disappoints. There will always be some folks who are wealthier. But whether it’s our investment performance or our overall net worth, we shouldn’t let ourselves be bothered by our relative standing. Why not? Here are five reasons.” #4 is an important one.

This last one is presented without explanation, just play with it for a few minutes – Groove Pizza.

Have a great weekend!

The Most Important Rule in Investing [Compound Advisors] – “With all due respect to Warren Buffett, the most important rule in investing is not anything close to “never lose money.” In fact, the entire notion is absurd.”

How People Get Rich Now [Paul Graham] – “Every year since 1982, Forbes magazine has published a list of the richest Americans. If we compare the 100 richest people in 1982 to the 100 richest in 2020, we notice some big differences. In 1982 the most common source of wealth was inheritance. Of the 100 richest people, 60 inherited from an ancestor. There were 10 du Pont heirs alone. By 2020 the number of heirs had been cut in half, accounting for only 27 of the biggest 100 fortunes.” Read the whole thing.

Perfect is not the same as perfectionism [Seth Godin] – “Perfectionism is a way to berate others for not meeting imaginary standards. Or berating ourself as a way to avoid shipping the work.”

Lastly, which muppet is your favorite? 🙂

A Ruthless Ranking Of The 25 Best Muppets, According To Listeners [NPR] – “When we asked our trusty Pop Culture Happy Hour listeners to vote for the Best Muppet, we knew they’d come through. Over 18,000 votes were cast; over 150 different Muppets received votes.”

I don’t know who my #1 is but I think Dr. Teeth is underrated. 24th? Absurd!

A Game Where the Odds Are Always in Your Favor [Wealthy Retirement] – “The investment firm Dimensional Fund Advisors studied stock market performance from 1926 to 2020. The study looked at the odds of an investor having either positive or negative returns based on how long they were invested in the S&P 500. The results are conclusive…”

How People Learn to Become Resilient – “Perception is key to resilience: Do you conceptualize an event as traumatic, or as a chance to learn and grow?​”

The three types of burnout [Ness Labs] – “Burnout has been traditionally defined as a combination of exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficiency. When we are burned out, we don’t have the emotional energy to invest ourselves into work, we distance ourselves from colleagues and customers, and we may feel incompetent as a result. […] A team at the Department of Psychiatry from the University of Zaragoza in Spain decided to design a more helpful framework to understand the many subtypes of burnout, based on how we cope when burning out.” These are discussed as it pertains to work but I think you can see its parallels elsewhere in life.

How To Be A Digital Nomad In 2021 [Mr Porter] – “Even before the past year, the world of work was undergoing a quiet, mobile revolution. A new breed of employees and freelancers were rebranding themselves as digital nomads, and setting up shop on the road – or the beach. Now, as entire industries race to adapt to a world without offices, the revolution is everywhere. Where restrictions permit travel, the pioneers are pushing boundaries and taking their jobs with them. Meanwhile, employers and destinations are working fast to meet soaring demand. But what does the digital nomad need to know before taking off?”

Do you struggle with decluttering?

This mindset towards it might be the very thing that “clicks” for you (because it did for me):

The Joy of Decluttering [No Sidebar] – “When I was in high school, I owned a puffy vest from The Gap. The color was a shade of powder blue, with vertical elastic ribbing on the sides. (They literally ‘don’t make them like that anymore.’) It was a staple of my wardrobe at the turn of the millennium. It carried me through school days, to hike in the woods, and to spectate evening high school football games. It even had pockets! In the year 2000, who needed a coat when you had a puffy vest!? I wore mine constantly….until one day, I didn’t wear it anymore. At all.”

The Best Items to Resell for Profit [Flea Market Flipper] – “I started doing a little bit of research on eBay. I noticed a consistent pattern; the larger items listed on eBay with freight shipping as an option were selling quickly and for much more money than the local sales. This is where I had my “aha” moment.” I love how a side benefit of this is that they are keeping things out of the landfill.

Choosing, tracking, and data visualizing all of the happiness [Accidentally Retired] – “A few years ago, I started tracking my happiness using Jim Collins’ system that he devised and spoke about on The Tim Ferriss Show. And, last month I launched the Happiness Spreadsheet, so that you too can track your happiness. If you track your happiness long enough using this method, as I have, then you will eventually start to see the patterns in your good days and bad. From there you can start to make some tweaks.” Brilliant.

The title of this post will only make sense if you read the entirety of the first post we’re sharing today:

How to Live With Dying [The American Scholar] – “In hindsight, I ought to have listened to Aristotle: all virtues, intellectual or physical, are realized by aiming for a particular goal or mark, like taking aim at the center of a distant target. The bull’s-eye is obviously in the perfect midpoint, equidistant from all of the target’s edges. To hit this specific mark, to become virtuous, one must find a compromise between radical opposites. Aristotle argues that this is the essence of all virtuous behavior—determining the golden mean or midpoint between two degenerate extremes.”

64-year-old retiree who left the U.S. for Mexico: 7 downsides of living in a beach town for $1,200 per month [CNBC Make It] – “It all started during a vacation there in 2005; I’d felt a deep happiness I couldn’t ignore. This radical decision changed my somewhat ordinary life a million degrees for the better and I have absolutely no regrets. I wanted an adventure, and boy, am I having one!”

As restaurants reopen and life returns to normal…

Six Rules for Dining Out [Tyler Cowen in The Atlantic] – “A BAD OR MEDIOCRE meal is more than just an unpleasant taste, it is an unnecessary negation of one of life’s pleasures—a wasted chance to refine our palates, learn about the world, and share a rewarding experience. Virtually every locale offers some good meals at a good price. But too often, amidst the clutter of our days, we don’t find them—at least not consistently.” I have a food rule that I don’t order a dish at a new restaurant if it’s already a favorite at my local spot. Chances are it won’t live up to my favorite place and if it is better, then I’ve ruined my favorite place for it. It’s a lose-lose.

Howdy, friends, and welcome to Friday.

Yesterday, I got to see my mother for the first time in over a year. Mom is only 72 but suffers from dementia and is unable to care for herself. She’s been in an assisted living facility for the past decade. We haven’t been able to visit her for more than a year because of COVID. Yesterday, we got to spend some time with her.

Mom’s dementia has turned her into…well, I don’t know how to explain it without sounding rude. (Which isn’t what I mean to be.) She’s not fully human anymore. This saddened me at one time, but I’ve had 10+ years to adjust to it. But visiting her makes me think about aging and how that relates to personal finance.

My pal Cameron Huddleston is doing the best work today on how to help aging parents with their money. But here are some recent articles that cover similar topics…

The four pillars of retirement. [My Money Blog] — “Imagine each pillar as one of the legs of a square table. We have to maintain and shore up any cracks before it gets serious. If you are lacking in any one of these pillars, your retirement gets wobbly. If any two are crumbling, that’s enough to make the entire thing tip over.”

How to build wealth in your fifties. [Banker on Fire] — “For some reason, wealth-building strategies for middle-aged folks don’t seem to get a lot of airtime in the personal finance space. What gives? If anything, building wealth becomes more important as we move into our 40s and 50s, not less.”

Do we become better investors as we age? [The Evidence-Based Investor] — “There’s an old adage that with age comes wisdom. But do we tend to become better investors as we age? Unfortunately, research has found that, in general, the answer is no, older investors are no better than younger investors, although it’s not all one-sided.”

To close things out for the week, I’ve saved the best for last. Here are a collection of 98 videos documenting the rules of sports in clear, easy-to-understand visuals.

The rules of formula one racing — explained! The rules of roller derby — explained! The rules of bull riding — explained! The rules of cricket — explained! The rules of quidditch — explained!

More common U.S. sports are explained too, obviously. But these are the five videos that most interested me.

Anyhow, that’s it for this Friday. It’s been a pleasure serving you here at Apex Money this week. I hope you’ll join us again on Monday for another round of great money stories from across the web. See you then!

Ahoy, mateys! Welcome to Pirate Money!

Wait. That’s a different site. This site is Apex Money, where we bring you the best from the world of personal finance — and beyond. Here are some recent money articles I’ve enjoyed…

Top tips for those seeking an early retirement. [Making Sense of Cents] — “The people I’ve asked to share their early retirement tips are bloggers, authors, and business owners who have been working towards financial independence and/or early retirement. These people are experts on finding ways to make more money and save money…One of the biggest things you’ll learn from these experts is that reaching FIRE is about changing your mindset.”

The omnipresence of work. [More to That] — ” The home is no longer an environmental cue to put work aside. It is a place that constantly reminds you that there is always more work to be done. We are now living amidst the omnipresence of work. Even if we aren’t sitting down working, we are prone to continue thinking about it since the physical environment no longer reminds us to shift our mind state.”

Beware of the bubble. [Mr. Money Mustache] — “There are currently a series of giant, stupid bubbles forming in the financial world that nobody except the elders seems to be brave enough to question. And it leads to the following cycle of natural human behaviors, which everybody falls into – except, if we are lucky, those of us who have seen it all before.”

Today’s video feature cracks me up. It’s a Soviet-era adaptation of the first third of The Lord of the Rings. It’s split into two hour-long episodes: episode one and episode two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZh7nwEUOeg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS6RZg_AqaY

I couldn’t sit through the whole thing — not even close! — but I had a lot of fun after I tured on the closed captions and switched them to English translation. I jumped around from scene to scene, laughing at…well, everything about this.

(If you don’t want to sit through any of the video, The Verge has text/photo recap of this madness.)

Buckle up, my friends. Today’s Apex features some deep and excellent reading. These articles are long and/or thoughtful, so they’re going to take more time than normal to browse. (They did for me, anyhow.) In the end, though, I think you’ll find them worth it.

Why housing prices continue to skyrocket. [/r/toronto on Reddit] — This is a long comment in a thread about the rising cost of housing. The commenter has been following and documenting the issue for years, and they’ve collected all sorts of links that explain why home prices are soaring even as supply has increased and demand diminished. Short version: Institutional investment in housing is completely changing the housing market. I had never considered any of this before. I find it fascinating…and a little scary.

Rent prices versus income in major U.S. and Canadian cities. [The Measure of a Plan] — This is an interactive widget (no real text to speak of) that plots average rent in major cities against average household income. It’s all averages and it’s all stats, but it’s still fascinating. Kim and I are about to rent for the first time in decades, and we don’t know where we want to live, so this is a useful tool for us.

Are index funds hurting the economy? [The Atlantic, so possible paywall] — “Economists, policy makers, and investors are worried that American markets have become inert—the product of a decades-long trend, not a months-long one. For millions of Americans, getting into the market no longer means picking stocks or hiring a portfolio manager to pick them for you. It means pushing money into an index fund.” This is an interesting (if alarmist) article.

How insurance works. [/r/povertyfinance on Reddit] — “This week, I will help you understand how insurance policies really work without you falling asleep. This will enable you to make better informed decisions as to what insurance coverages you should get, and what are simply a waste of money…The key concept underlying all insurance is the principle of pooling risks. In a nutshell, it is the practice of spreading out risk amongst a group of participants.” This is an excellent intro to insurance.

Okay, after all that heady, serious stuff today, let’s have a little fun. Here’s a fun video from the Twitter feed of Missy Elliott in which the insanely-talented W.A.F.F.L.E. Crew dances to one of her songs on the NYC subway.

“Lose Control” This video so much energy I was hyping them up through my phone😂🤣 but they SNAPPED Hard!🔥 I Love seeing so many of yall dance to my songs! I loved me some yall🤗💜 pic.twitter.com/RxDBf1OAmC

— Missy Elliott (@MissyElliott) April 4, 2021

True story: I desperately wish I could dance…but I can’t. I’m like the world’s worst dancer. But I love watching others who know how!

That’s a wrap on Wednesday. I’ll see you tomorrow with more of the best from the world of personal finance (and beyond).

It’s Tuesday, money bosses, and this is Apex Money. To start things off today, here’s a l-o-n-g but excellent article on how to become better at whatever it is you do (or want to do).

The ultimate guide to deliberate practice. [Farnam Street] — “Deliberate practice is the best technique for achieving expert performance in every field—including writing, teaching, sports, programming, music, medicine, therapy, chess, and business. But there’s much more to deliberate practice than 10,000 hours. Read this to learn how to accelerate your learning, overcome the ‘okay’ plateau, turn experience into expertise, and enhance your focus.”

How did Frasier afford his apartment? [GQ] — “How could Frasier possibly pull off that design, let alone his mortgage, on a local radio personality’s salary? Sure, the ‘90s were an economic boom time—but not even that can make up for his out-of-control sherry and opera habit. There was only one way to find out: a demented one-woman investigation about a fictional apartment on a TV show that went off the air over 15 years ago.”

Lessons from the World Happiness Report. [Physician on Fire] — “The Gallup World Poll measures happiness with a global survey of people in most nations by asking about both emotional wellbeing as well as life satisfaction…All of this data is compiled and analyzed, and cities and countries are ranked on various metrics for the current year and for a composite of the most recent three years’ worth of polling. What have we learned from all of this polling and number-crunching?”

People love the idea of 20-minute neighborhoods. Why aren’t there more of them? [The Conversation] — “Walkable neighbourhoods are an important part of 20-minute neighbourhoods, but only one part. Increased neighbourhood densities and more mixed-use development across local active transport and public transport catchments, together with better walking, cycling and local public transport opportunities, need far greater attention if 20-minute neighbourhoods are to be created in outer and middle suburbs.” [This article is Australia-centric but applicable to the U.S. and elsewhere.]

To close things out today, here’s an episode of a 1958 NBC television series (The Subject is Jazz). This 30-minute episode is all about the future of jazz. Be warned, though, that while interesting, this is very low-key academic stuff. But I’ll bet a few of you will like it just as much as I do!

And that’s it for Tuesday. I’ll see you tomorrow with more great stuff. Come back, won’t you?

Greetings, y’all! Are you ready for another week of great money stories?

Today, let’s lead with our video…because our video is damn good. From the Veritasium channel on YouTube, here’s a look at why we can’t have nice things.

This 17-minute video isn’t what it first appears. It starts as a look at the history of light bulbs, but soon turns to the curse of planned obsolescence (and, by extension, the growing “right to repair” movement).

Interesting stuff. It takes a lot to get me to watch a 17-minute video, but I watched this one!

Now, on to our stories for today…

After being poor, your financial anxiety remains. [We Want Guac] — “It’s hard to think about how much this still affects me years later. Logically, I’m very obviously ahead of the financial curve. But logic alone doesn’t conquer the deeply ingrained money psyche I’ve developed throughout my first two decades of life. Even today I still struggle with just buying things I want for myself. I’ve repressed the desire for things for so long and so thoroughly that now it’s a struggle to even identify the things I want.”

New Money [Essaying on Substack] — “Imagine my shock to learn, as I did recently, that I had too much money to fold neatly into a purse. Not enough to keep from being called a thief in a store, but officially too much to keep track of at any given time. Even more utterly terrifying for me is that everyone knows about my money.” [See also: The logic of stupid poor people.]

The financial order of operations. [Bitches Get Riches] — “Money decisions are always intimidating. Every financial decision you make compounds over time! That can be good, like when investments grow. But it’s also terrible, because financial mistakes can haunt you for years after you’ve made them…Today I’m going to take you through my financial order of operations. It’s a basic blueprint of ten steps most people could follow to transform their finances for the better.”

Okay, that’s it for today. I’ll be back tomorrow with more great stuff. See you then!