Good morning, Apexians! It’s Friday, and I have some interesting stories about personal finance for you. (this was originally scheduled for yesterday but WordPress does what WordPress wants!)
The impending retail apocalypse. [Axios] — “Because of the coronavirus and people’s buying habits moving online, retail stores are closing everywhere — often for good. Malls are going belly up. Familiar names like J.C. Penney, Neiman Marcus and J. Crew have filed for bankruptcy. Increasingly, Americans’ shopping choices will boil down to a handful of internet Everything Stores and survival-of-the-fittest national chains.” [Related: The pandemic is re-writing the rules of retail.]
Target-date funds are performing well, but choosing one can be difficult. [Barron’s] — “For all of their apparent simplicity, target-date funds aren’t all that simple. Funds with the same retirement year can have very different allocations to stocks and bonds, and how managers execute on that top-down view also varies dramatically.”
“How self-isolation taught me about happiness.” [Millennial Revolution] — “With no gold stars to strive for, no accolades, nothing scheduled in the horizon, for the first time, I’m happy just being instead of doing. I’m happy being me. I don’t need to prove anything anymore. Not to myself. Not to anyone.”
Lastly, here’s a twenty-minute video from Beat the Bush in which he discusses “the too frugal mental disorder”. “I feel like I really do have some sort of mental illness with spending money,” he says. He feels like he was too cheap in the past.
This is an interesting video to me, mostly because I have the opposite problem. Yes, I go through cheap phases, but mostly I’m inclined to spend too much. So, it’s interesting to hear the other side.
Anyhow, that’s enough from me! I’ll have one post on Monday and then Jim will be on to share more of the best of the financial web for two weeks. Me? I’m on my way to Colorado for a couple of weeks of money nerdery with other money nerds like you. I’ll see you folks at the end of July!