Apex Money Posts

I don’t remember the stock market after the dot com bubble bursting in 2001 and 9/11 because I was still in college. I didn’t have much in investments, just a little bit in a Roth IRA that I foolishly put into JDS Uniphase for a minute, so I didn’t pay much attention to it. It had a bigger impact on my life in that many companies stopped hiring and I was about to graduate!

I distinctly remember the stock market during the 2008 financial crisis because by then I had a few years of work and I’d been contributing to a 401(k).

This most recent stock market crash, as a result of the coronavirus, felt a lot different than 2008. I think having it be a health crisis made it far more stressful than just a financial crisis.

While we are still living through it, I found a few good articles on what people were thinking the last few weeks as it relates to the markets, I think these articles can help when you don’t know what to do.

Peter Lynch Market Commentary:

The worst crash in history: the view from the front seat [FIRE v London] – “I’ve been actively following this crash every day the markets traded. And I’ve been trading too. Ouch. This post is deliberately something of an ermine-esque ‘reflections from the front’, recording some of my thinking/recollections, as they occur to me and while they are fresh.”

Stay safe out there Apexian!

Thanks for coming out!

🙂

Want to hear something that sounds like a joke but isn’t? Everyone seems to be making bread now.

We haven’t but for a while now I’ve been making homemade bagels. We’re out of bread flour (and so are grocery stores, which now makes a lot more sense) so we haven’t had any lately, but did you know that you can make a sourdough starter out of flour and water? If you want to give it a try, this recipe looks promising.

If you want a little silver lining in all this, it’s important to remember one fact about human behavior during a crisis – “Please remember: The idea that when disaster strikes people panic and social order collapses is very popular. It is also a myth. A huge research literature shows disaster makes people *more* pro-social. They cooperate. They support each other. They’re better than ever.”

That’s taken from this Tweet-thread by Dan Gardner, NYT bestselling author and strategic consultant. The whole thread is a good reminder for individuals and world leaders. If you want more to chew on this that isn’t via Twitter, here’s an article from Scientific American on disaster myths (Gardner linked this article along with several others).

A visual simulation of various epidemic situations, without the hype and hyperbole, that I think is useful for understanding them (but not modeling them precisely):

And before you go, if you’re missing Opening Day for baseball, Ken Burns asked PBS to make his Baseball documentary free to stream. It’s LONG (18 hours).

Personal finance is important but sometimes you just have to take a break, especially as many of us are self-isolating, and check out something new.

Here’s something new…

I love magic. My son and I have been voraciously watching Penn and Teller’s Masterclass and learning classic tricks like the French Drop. So much so that one of my wife’s favorite jokes now is to call everything the French Drop.

Small sleight of hand? “Is that the French Drop?”

The smell of pancakes in the morning? “Is that the French Drop?”

Knock at the door (which is rare now)? “Is that the French Drop?”

The only response she ever gets is our son’s groaning.

It’s only a matter of time before he discovers the most famous of magicians, Harry Houdini.

Harry Houdini and the Art of Escape [The New Yorker] – “Starting in San Francisco, in 1899, he often stripped naked in his handcuff routines. He was short but handsome, beautiful, even, with a wide brow, glittering dark eyes, and muscular arms, shoulders, and thighs. He would appear at some grim local jail or state prison, take off his clothes, and, to establish that he wasn’t hiding something on his person, undergo an intrusive inspection by a local medical examiner or police surgeon. He would then have himself locked in a cell, encumbered with shackles, and would emerge a short time later, holding them in his hand.”

How Magicians Trick Your Brain [Scientific American] – “They hijack its limited ability to deal with perceptual ambiguity.”

This lines up nicely with this next TED Talk which features one of my favorite pickpockets magicians. (I’ve shared an article about Apollo Robbins before)

Have a great day and don’t try any of these tricks on your loved ones. 🙂

No… but with the recent market volatility, it’s a question some people are asking.

We are living in interesting, and scary, times. And one of the more fascinating things I’ve seen is how quickly some people are, in the most blatant act of schadenfreude you can imagine, in asking how the early retirees (FIRE crowd) are doing.

We haven’t even hit peak Coronavirus… and people were piling on.

Recession, Coronavirus and the Future of FIRE [Our Next Life] – “For anyone who’s been paying attention, the biggest lesson that 2008 taught us is that relying on your job for financial security is dangerous. Many of us who’ve pursued or achieved early retirement were spurred directly by the Great Recession, and the realization that there truly is no safety net anymore. The idea that this recession, with the massive job losses we’re already seeing and the many more to come, will make anyone want to be more reliant on work is simply foolish. Yes, a work-optional life will be harder to achieve for a while. Your journey may have just lengthened considerably. But this financial crisis will not be the end of the FIRE movement.”

If you’ve had just a passing interest in early retirement, you have to read that post.

This next story is about a bank robbery but it highlights an important fact – safe deposit boxes are not insured. They are not FDIC insured and the bank usually doesn’t insure it either.

The Great Buenos Aires Bank Heist [GQ] – “They were an all-star crew. They cooked up the perfect plan. And when they pulled off the caper of the century, it made them more than a fortune—it made them folk heroes.” This heist was as elaborate as it was ingenious. Just when you think you’ve reached peak cleverness, it keeps going. (the fact that you know their names throughout the story gives you a hint of how it went, but it’s still fun!)

And ever notice that bank robbers always ask for pizza? In movies, in real life, all the same – everyone loves pizza. And with that in mind, here’s a history of pizza!

A History of Pizza [History Today] – “The world’s most popular fast food has ancient roots, but it was a royal seal of approval that set it on the path to global domination.” (and a favorite of bank robbers everywhere!)

Stay safe this week!

Say it with me, money nerds: “Thank god it’s Friday!” Some weekends feel especially good, and this is one of them.

Yes, I know we’ve all been holed at home for a while now, doing what we can to avoid the spreading plague. The notion of a weekend seems a little strange at this point. Yet, here we are. At the weekend. Let’s celebrate by taking a look at some of my favorite recent articles about personal finance.

The value of low-cost financial experiments. [CityFrugal] — “If you’re like me, there are a dozen areas or your life that you could improve (if only slightly) by conducting financial experiments. Continuing to do so is crucial to fighting inertia as you become more successful. Thinking differently and testing that thinking is what got you to an unprecedentedly strong financial position in the first place. Continuing to test means continuing to improve.”

The invisible city: How a homeless man built a life undergrounds. [The Guardian] — I couldn’t find a good pull-quote for this piece, but it’s worth reading if you have the time. It’s long. This is the story of how a homeless Londoner set up an underground bunker in a public park — and then lived there for several years. I find it fascinating.

The cost of thriving. [American Affairs] — “Alongside both the formal concept of “inflation” that measures the economy-wide price level, and a technical ‘cost of living’ that aims to price a fixed level of material consumption, an accurate depiction and understanding of economic trends requires a measure that tracks the evolving basket of things a family needs to achieve the financial security and social engagement typical of a flourishing middle class. Call it the ‘cost of thriving’.”

People who grew up rich but turned out poor, what is your story? [/r/AskReddit] — Nothing to summarize here. Just a simple question with 6300 responses. People lose their wealth for a variety of reasons. They make poor choices. They have bad luck. The economy crashes. But often the answer is: It’s complicated. The stories here are interesting and instructive.

Well, Apexians, we’ve done it. We’ve made it to Friday. For a while there, I wasn’t sure we’d reach the end of the week, but we have. And, fates willing, we’ll be back again on Monday with more of the best stories about Monday. See you then.

Today is Thursday, money nerds, and it’s not the end of the world.

While my girlfriend and I self-isolate (with three cats and a dog), we’re watching the news way too much. When she gets up in the morning, she pours coffee, sits down at her laptop, and asks, “Has the world ended yet?”

It hasn’t. And here’s proof. Here are some great money stories I’ve been reading lately.

How advertising molds and manipulates our identities. [/r/technology on Reddit] — “I think that we should really consider to what extent advertising has an effect on one’s identity and identity-shaping process. As someone who wrote their thesis on the subject of how advertising affects a persons autonomy, let me leave you a few breadcrumbs on this.” This reddit comment is a terrific look at how advertising molds and manipulates us.

The hidden value of gratitude and your money. [Wallet Hacks] — “As I write this, it’s mid-March 2020, and we are in the early stages of dealing with the coronavirus. Our kids are home from school for the foreseeable future, we are thankfully still in good health, but we’ve chosen to isolate ourselves. There are a lot of things to complain about but there’s also a lot to celebrate and be grateful for.”

Be the friend who talks about money. [NerdWallet] — “I know my friends’ joys and anxieties and Hogwarts houses. I can even identify their shoes from under a bathroom stall. (“Is that you, Lindsay?”) They know my family members and preferred pizza toppings. But we know squat about one another’s finances. That’s pretty wild, given the enormous role money plays in our lives.”

There is not perfect personal-finance plan. [My Own Advisor] — “There is no getting out of this healthcare and economic crisis unscathed – everyone is impacted to a degree. I suspect how much you’re impacted depends upon how much you’ve planned over the years for events (that could be…) like this. Even then, nobody knows how this might play out – for you, for your family, for your loved ones and friends. That thought can be downright scary. This means there is no perfect personal finance plan to combat something like this.”

To wrap things up, here’s something that has nothing whatsoever to do with money. It’s simply a cute golden raccoon snacking on cherries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rQumvG5TBg

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything as adorable as that. Such a happy little critter!

Well, that’s all folks. I’ll be back tomorrow with one last roundup for the week. Until then, stay healthy and grow wealthy.

Happy birthday, money nerds! Well, it’s probably not your birthday but it is mine. Today I am 51. To celebrate, I’m going to do something a little bit different. Today, instead of sharing some favorite recent money stories from around the web, I’m instead going to share some favorite money blogs.

I know you’ve probably heard that blogging is dead. As a blogger, I hear this all of the time. And there’s no doubt that blogging isn’t what it was ten or twenty years ago. But good blogs do still exist. That includes good money blogs.

Today, I want to share a few of the sites I love. These are ten money blogs with strong personal voices, blogs that haven’t shifted to the “income over readers” model that’s become so prevalent. (I have no qualm with blogs that have made this change. I just don’t enjoy reading them.)

Ready? Let’s go.

Dave at Accidental Fire has been producing top-notch material for several years now. He does a fantastic job of exploring common subjects in early retirement, but I like it best when he wanders farther afield, when he talks about his personal journey and struggles. Good stuff.

Bitches Get Riches is an irreverent (and hilarious) source of financial advice for everyone — but especially for young adults, and especially for young women. It’s no secret that Piggy and Kitty write my favorite blog right now. I like it so much that I donate $50 every month to them via Patreon. (For real!)

John at ESI Money is a frickin’ workhorse. For years now (previously at another money blog), he’s been churning out high-quality (almost) daily content. At ESI Money, his focus is on earning, saving, and investing for early retirement. Particularly impressive is his weekly “millionaire interview” series, which is now up to 179 installments!

At The Fioneers, Jess and Corey document their personal journey to financial independence. They do so with thoughtful, introspective pieces that cover traditional FIRE topics while diving into new ones. (They popularized the notion of Slow FI, for instance.) They’re doing great work.

At Four Pillar Freedom, Zach frequently tackles the technical side of personal finance. Some of his best articles dive deep into the numbers with custom charts, graphs, and spreadsheets.

Frugalwoods has been on fire lately. I know many people are already familiar with Liz and her adventures on a 66-acre farm in Vermont. If you’re not, you should check her out. She and her husband have done FIRE the right way — high incomes, low spending, and a dedication to the things that bring them meaning.

Minafi documents “the intersection of financial independence, minimalism, and mindfulness”. It’s filled with great info and Adam adheres to some of the highest ethical standards in the biz.

Strictly speaking, Raptitude isn’t a money blog. It’s a site about “getting better at being human”. But David Cain’s thoughtful approach to life and its challenges has plenty of applications to the world of personal finance.

Retire by 40 has been around since 2010, and has quietly become a favorite for many other money bloggers. It’s easy to see why. Joe is a quiet and unassuming guy, but he’s full of good advice and interesting stories. My favorite articles are the ones where he talks about teaching his son about money.

As you can tell from its name, Women Who Money is a team blog focused on financial advice for, well, women. But the advice is generally useful for everyone. Amy and Vicki produce consistently excellent articles with practical advice about real-world situations. Highly recommended.

These are my ten favorite personal personal-finance blogs, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out the great work being done by advisors and advisory firms. Michael Kitces, of course, has been blogging for a while and continues to produce in-depth, interesting pieces. But many of his colleagues are producing great work too.

In particular, Ritholtz Wealth Management — a company about which I know nothing — has a stable of excellent sites.

• Co-founder Barry Ritholtz writes The Big Picture, which has been covering investing-related material since 2003.
• CEO Josh Brown offers quick thoughts about money (and other topics) at The Reformed Broker.
• At A Wealth of Common Sense, Ben Carlson writes about the stock market and market history.
• Director of research Michael Batnick calls himself The Irrelevant Investor. He too tends to focus on big-picture stock market topics. He also hosts a podcast.
• Blair Duquesnay shares her thoughts at The Belle Curve (love the name!). She’s particularly focused on women and money.
• Tony Isola’s A Teachable Moment is aimed at helping educators save and invest.
• Nick Maggiulli writes the outstanding Of Dollars and Data, which is probably the best-known of the Ritholtz blogs. He tries to explore personal finance (and investing) using data analysis. I look forward to every post.
• Last — but far from least — is Tadas Viskanta, who writes Abnormal Returns, a twice-daily source of curated links. If I could only read one of the blogs I’ve featured in this installment of Apex Money, it would be this one. It’s a gold mine.

In my dream world, the Ritholtz folks would join us all at Fincon, the annual conference for money and media. They’re doing great work, and I think the exchange of ideas between them and traditional bloggers could be amazing.

What are your favorite money blogs right now? Shoot me an email. Or, if you prefer, leave a comment here. (That’s right. For the first time in the history of Apex Money, comments are on for this post.)

Wow. What a week. On the surface, not much should have changed for me. Generally speaking, I work from home. (Or, more precisely, I’m perfectly capable of doing all of my work from home.) As a writer for the web, it’s not like I have to go into an office.

Still, I haven’t been able to get much done for the past ten days. Current events are just too distracting. I can’t focus on the things I’m supposed to do. Crazy.

In an effort to get some of this out of my system, today at Apex we’re going to share a few of the very best resources we’ve found for our current coronavirus economy. Then — maybe — we can get back to regular personal-finance stories for the rest of the week.

Coronavirus statistics and research. [Our World in Data] — “The mission of Our World in Data is to make data and research on the world’s largest problems understandable and accessible. While most of our work focuses on large problems that humanity has faced for a long time – such as child mortality, natural disasters, poverty and almost 100 other problems – this article focuses on a new, emerging global problem: the ongoing outbreak of the coronavirus disease [COVID-19].” This enormous page of information includes tips, but its best feature is all of the charts graphs and up-to-date statistics.

Coronavirus pandemic page at the World Health Organization. [World Health Organization] — There’s a metric shit-ton of misinformation on COVID-19 floating around. Some of this misinformation is obvious — those conspiracy theories your cousin posts on Facebook — but some of the bad advice actually sounds plausible. Will warm weather kill the disease? Are you safe if you can hold your breath for ten seconds? The WHO is an excellent, reliable source for the facts. (Check out their mythbusters page!)

Similar to the World Health Organization page, there’s a coronavirus hub from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Plus, Consumer Reports has set up their own guide to the coronavirus.

If you’re a nerd with too much time on her hands, you might want to spend a few minutes playing with this epidemic calculator. You can change variables — death rate, recovery times, communicability — to see how different factors affect the spread and severity of a pandemic.

Finally, our pal Erin Lowry from Broke Millennial has spear-headed and effort to collate as much personal-finance info as possible related to this crisis. She’s collected it all into a handy Google spreadsheet. You might want to bookmark it. (Yes, I know Jim shared this same link on Friday. But it’s so useful and important that we’re sharing it again today.)

We’ll close things out today with our usual bonus video. This one isn’t much fun though. It’s an animated look at what the coronavirus does to your body — and what you can do to prevent its spread.

That’s it for a rather melancholy Monday. We’ll be back tomorrow with more of the best money stories from around the web.

A recession is a lagging indicator. You’re already in one before it’s “official.”

(A recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP “growth”)

A recession is coming. Everyone knows it.

We expected it after so many years of economic growth but the coronavirus was the straw that broke the economy’s back. And in a very serious way.

There are steps you can take right now to better prepare for the coming months. We won’t know how deep or how long the recession will be but you can prepare for when it comes.

First, here’s a massive resource you can use for some coronavirus relief, courtesy of Erin of Broke Millennial:

Broke Millenial’s Covid-19 Relief Hub – It has everything you could possibly need to get up to speed and assistance dealing with COVID-19.

Next, to help with the coming recession, an article from the May 2010 issue of HBR that was meant for businesses but there are lessons you can take and implement in your personal finances too:

When You’ve Got to Cut Costs—Now [Harvard Business Review] – “You’ve been a good manager of a large department for some time now. You’ve run a tight ship. When possible, you’ve cut costs. But now an order has come down (from high enough above that you don’t have the liberty of debating its wisdom or feasibility) decreeing that you must find an additional 10%, 20%, or even 30% in administrative cost reductions, severance aside. You just don’t see how it can be done.”

Next, we have what the Frugalwoods are doing right now:

How We’re Managing Our Money During the Coronavirus Pandemic [Frugalwoods] – “Nothing good comes from panicked investing/un-investing. Pulling our money out of the market right now would be the equivalent of selling at a loss. Additionally, trying to time the market and shoveling more money into it could prove unwise since we have no idea if the market has hit bottom yet. For me, the key to weathering a storm like this is to stick with the plan I created when the markets were good.”

This last one is again focused at business but you can do this yourself to help with thinking of the future. Make sure you get to the part where you take two axes and write headlines, that’s when I had my “a ha” moment:

How Futurists Cope With Uncertainty [Amy Webb on Linkedin] – “Futurists use a simple tool in times of deep uncertainty. It’s called the Axes of Uncertainty, and it’s easy to understand and apply. I’m going to walk you through how to use the tool in your organization, and even to help you grapple with disruption in your personal life. Some of what you surface in this activity will highlight opportunities you didn’t see before, and you will likely also see existential risk you’d never imagined. The more plausible outcomes you can discover, and the more flexible you can be in your thinking and planning, the more assured you will feel about your futures. That’s how you break the vicious cycle of corporate anxiety. And there’s an added benefit: if you identify existential risk early, you have time to take action.”

From the Axes of Uncertainty to the Axis of Awesome, a fun video about how many pop songs are the same four chords:

(I know I’ve shared this video before but I couldn’t help the cheesy “Axes to Axis” line!)

One of the unfortunate effects of the coronavirus and mandatory lockdowns is that some of the most vulnerable small businesses will be lost.

We’ve all probably heard how slim the margins are in restaurants but did you know how slim they were?

What Does It Really Cost to Run a Restaurant? [Eater] – “Restaurants have notoriously slim margins. Mei Mei in Boston reveals just how slim they really are. […] Today, every single staff member, from the dishwasher to the line cook, can interpret and speak to the restaurant’s entire profit-and-loss statement because, for two years now, Mei Mei has been opening its books to its staff.”

That said, we still need to maintain our distance:

The Power of the Individual in an Exponential Crisis [Kottke]

This image sums it up:

The Quick and Ubiquitous Economics of Bodegas [Mel Magazine] – “Convenience stores: Imagine a world without them. You wouldn’t wanna live in it! Whether you’re cruising in for a six-pack, or you live in the big city and depend on your corner store for, well, just about everything, they’ve usually got you covered. But how do they survive selling nothing but inexpensive merchandise? Also, what’s with all the random stuff on the shelves — detergent, a key-making machine, old DVDs, dollar-store toys — and how’d they get there?” A surprisingly fascinating look at the corner store and the price of convenience (20-30%).

And just because we need a little fun in our days, enjoy this 6-minute video comparing the relative sizes of fictional buildings: