Buying stock paralyzes some of us with fear — but alternatives exist
The thought of buying stocks scares the crap out of a lot of people. I base this claim on roughly a decade’s worth of telling people what I do for a living.
When I say I’m a bartender, they’re all about it.
“Oh my god, can you make me a drink?” or “I started making cocktails at home during the pandemic!”
Alcohol — the ultimate social lubricant — even when you’re not drinking it. The thought of beer and booze puts people at ease. And they wanna show you what they know.
I love this. It’s pretty cool. However —
When I tell people I write about personal finance and investing, they tend to clam up, often revealing how they’re “bad with money” and know very little about the stock market. …
These are some of the hardest things to do in money and life
I can see the writing on the wall. I love that expression, especially when I can use it in a positive sense.
From a money perspective, I’m hitting the point where I can see the writing on the wall. I’m not financially flexible — yet. However, I’m preparing myself to get there ASAP and as efficiently as possible.
In this article, I discuss how I plan to read the writing on the wall. …
F**k you, I won’t do what you tell me
If a bunch of money nerds rage against any machine, it ought to be mainstream personal finance, led by the retirement industry and condescending, set-in-their-ways money writers and managers who run light on effective solutions.
The more you talk down to people and treat them like fools, the more they’re not going to do what you tell them. Our response to conventional money advice and investment guidance represents resistance, even if not the conscious, take to the streets kind.
If you’re on the lower end of Generation X, a millennial, or Generation Z, you rage against the machine of bad ideas. You have no loyalty to shit that doesn’t work. That’s baby boomer and silent generation stuff. …
I didn’t know I could get so much out of randomly deciding to binge the show that made Cosmopolitans cool again
I’m experiencing relationship success right now. Assist: Sex and the City.
One of my fondest Manhattan moments came, probably in or around 2013, when I was in the city for work. I was on an Indian vegetarian kick, so I made the trek to the Upper West Side to eat at Ayurveda Cafe. (Great place and they’re not paying me to say this).
Miranda, also known as Cynthia Nixon, was there, eating lunch at an adjacent table. We were face-to-face. She finished before me and left cash on the table. …
Don’t stress over inflation and quality of life
If you read the wrong money writers, you might be putting your physical and mental health at risk.
This isn’t hyperbole. I ain’t into melodrama.
In fact, I’m not going to be the one to go and make things so complicated. When my peers who write about personal finance and investing muddy the waters, it gets me frustrated. So, you’re never gonna find me faking.
Thank you to the great Canadian, Avril Lavigne, for the lyrical inspiration. And thank you to Medium user, MIkeintherain, for saying what I want to say better than I could ever say it.
In a recent Making of a Millionaire article, here’s how Mike responded to a discussion about the best way to way to invest in…
You’ll have to fight every impulse in your body though
The Boss has a way with words. Case in point:
I think when people dream of things, they dream of them without the complications. The real dream is not the dream, it’s life without complications. And that doesn’t exist.
— Bruce Springsteen
Solid wisdom. However, I sort of disagree — on a semantic technicality. It’s about how you handle the complications.
I was an early adopter and all I got was an email from the CEO
It’s too late now.
Affirm, the company that lets you pay for purchases over time (often with zero interest), went public on Wednesday. And the stock has soared.
I’ll eventually get to an article detailing why I like Affirm and other financing platforms like it. I’ll keep today’s riff short and sweet.
I think I was a fairly early adopter of Affirm. So, this morning, I got an email from the CEO, Max Levchin. It said, in part:
At Affirm, we build honest financial products that improve lives…
Today, Affirm is taking a step forward in our journey by becoming a publicly traded company, a step we would not be able to take without you. …
Truth in a three-minute read
I read a depressing article today:
Around 65% of Americans have less than $100,000 saved for retirement… And of that group, more than one-quarter have less than $1,000 socked away…
If you reach retirement age with $100,000 in the bank, just how far will that money go?
I dislike old adages, but if you don’t learn from history, you just might be doomed to repeat it.
There’s only one thing to take out of this oh crap, look at how many old people live in relative poverty in retirement article.
It’s not that you — person who is 20, 30, or 40-something — needs to save and invest more. That’s obvious and often repeated by the old and tired retirement industry. Obvious and often repeated, though not necessarily realistic for a whole host of factors we’ll leave on today’s cutting room floor. …
It took me 32 years to figure this out
I have been investing in the stock market since I was a teenager. I’ve tried every strategy in the book. I’ve made enough mistakes to write several volumes.
In this article, I detail the two stock-picking conclusions I have come to. If I had settled on these two styles of investing 32 years ago, I’d probably be a millionaire several times over today.
One of the beautiful things about the Making of a Millionaire publication, thoughtfully conceived and crafted by Ben Le Fort, is that we tend not to prescribe fixes to personal finance problems.
You won’t see many authors on this platform preaching. Telling you, there’s only one way to do something. You definitely won’t find specific stock recommendations. …
You’d be really dumb to rent an apartment in this city
Nineties pop icons — the Goo Goo Dolls — they’re from Buffalo, New York.
I’m from Niagara Falls, about a 20-minute drive away from the heart of what Western New York people call the Queen City.
Sadly, Niagara Falls isn’t a place I’d recommend putting down roots. It served me well as a kid and has the bones to be a great small city. It just hasn’t been able to get its shit together since the fifties. But Buffalo is a another story. It has a bad rap, but it’s actually one heck of a city. …
