"Happy 400th birthday to the world’s oldest bond"
Four hundred years ago — on New Year's Day in 1624 — drifting ice on the river Lek in the Netherlands smashed up a dike outside Utrecht. This was a pretty big problem in a country that is roughly one-third below sea level.
Soon, the region was flooded, with even Amsterdam threatened by the water. The locals eventually managed to staunch the flood, but they still needed to do a full, durable rebuild — which would be extremely expensive.
Fortunately, the Dutch were brilliant, sophisticated financial pioneers, and had developed the era's most vibrant bond market. The local water authority — called Hoogheemraadschap Lekdijk Bovendams — swiftly sold over 50 bonds that raised about 23,000 Carolus guilders to finance the repairs.
|
Yesterday, Katie and I canceled our Sounders season tickets. We've had them since 2013. This isn't me winding up to make some screed about how angry I am at the club. The reality is, it just became a luxury we couldn't afford anymore, and the friends who have been buying tickets with us have dwindled.
At the peak, we had ten seats which we bought and friends bought in to us. But that has dwindled to fewer and fewer until we had one other couple who came to games with us this season and they decided they weren't going to renew for next season. And, we completely got it. We were in the same place. Them deciding to cancel gave us the permission we needed to also cancel.
We'll still go to games. We'll still watch nearly every game. We still love the Sounders. We just won't hold tickets to every game next season.
It's a bummer. Talking with a friend who was considering canceling his ticket, he struggled with the decision to do so because it was very much a core element of who he was. A sentiment I very much understand as a die-hard fan. But, for us, we just took a hard look at our finances and realized it was a sizeable spend we could cut.
Maybe we'll be back in a future season, we'll see.
Go Sounders.
|
Frugal parenting
I admire these parents. My parents taught me about money but didn't include me in their decisions about it.
|
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing will reimburse mutilated US currency
I can remember a segment on TV. I feel like it was a piece on Discovery (back when they did educational content) but I can't be sure. But, as it turns out, if you have more than half of a valid piece of US currency, the US government will reimburse you for mutilated currency.
The BEP’s Mutilated Currency Division provides free mutilated currency redemption services for individuals and institutions, such as businesses and financial institutions, in possession of United States mutilated currency notes.
On average, BEP receives more than 22,000 requests for examination of mutilated currency for possible redemption each year, with an estimated value in excess of $35 million.
And yes, my wife and I just had reason to use this. For a $5 bill one of our dogs decided to chew on.
|
Cost of retirement for every US state and many global countries
Came across these graphics. The linked page is the source. It was written in February 2023.
|
"Harry Browne’s 17 Golden Rules of Financial Safety"
I saw this and threw it in my wallabag to read later. Having read it this morning, the reality is that it is for people in a better financial positions than I am. However, it is very good and salient advice.
|
You can now buy me a coffee
Without any real goal, I have started a 'Buy Me a Coffee' should any readers feel inclined to support my writing. I don't drink coffee, so I need to modify the "Buy me a [blank]" to something else. I currently have it as 'Buy me a book' but I'm not sure if that is what I want it to be.
|
Pizza parlor owner arbitrages Doordash when they misprice his own pizzas
And so the story unfolds. “If someone could pay Doordash $16 a pizza, and Doordash would pay his restaurant $24 a pizza, then he should clearly just order pizzas himself via Doordash, all day long. You’d net a clean $8 profit per pizza [insert nerdy economics joke about there is such a thing as a free lunch],” wrote Roy. They order 10 pizzas this way, and it worked! The money was free, a seamless transfer from SoftBank’s deep venture capital-lined pockets to Roy’s friend’s business bank account. Eventually, in another series of what Roy hilariously calls “trades,” they just ordered pizza dough through DoorDash for $75 in pure profit.
|
"If Money Doesn't Make You Happy Then You Probably Aren't Spending It Right"
I came across this paper by this video on Ali Abdaal's YouTube channel and I held off posting about it, wanting to do my own write up on it. I like Ali's channel and find his videos much further on the info side of the infotainment scale, but I thought I would do it better. However, digging into the paper, it's just them distilling the research of others - which Ali then distills even further and the truth is - I think he did a fantastic job and encourage you to watch his video, even with the ad placement in the middle of the video.
However, as you'll note, I've linked the actual paper itself in case you want to go through and read it yourself. I might still write a larger post, as I think there is something to be said about a mental shift for healthy and proper budgeting to put happiness closer to the front - not in a hedonistic sense, but just in the mentality with which you approach budgeting. But I don't have that post figured out yet. Look for that sometime later.
From the paper's Abstract:
The relationship between money and happiness is surprisingly weak, which may stem in part from the way people spend it. Drawing on empirical research, we propose eight principles designed to help consumers get more happiness for their money. Specifically, we suggest that consumers should (1) buy more experiences and fewer material goods; (2) use their money to benefit others rather than themselves; (3) buy many small pleasures rather than fewer large ones; (4) eschew extended warranties and other forms of overpriced insurance; (5) delay consumption; (6) consider how peripheral features of their purchases may affect their day-to-day lives; (7) beware of comparison shopping; and (8) pay close attention to the happiness of others.
|
“I want to be rich” means
you want to get rid of the alarm clock
you want to leisurely spend time with people you love
you want to stop worrying about the rent or whether you can buy healthy food
you want to be able to help
you want to do more of what you love
|
Cory Doctorow discusses money, debt, what they are, and why governments are not the same budgetarily as individuals or businesses
Even though I had read Debt: The First 5,000 Years on which the start of the entry is based, the post goes into other areas I understood but did not have as clear a way of explaining. He then turns to Crypto and why seeing it as a form of money is bad.
This article is quite good, definitely worth a read!
|
The Alchemy of Deposits
Patrick McKenzie works for Stripe (the payment processor). He wrote an excellent post about what actually happens when you make a bank deposit.
The most basic product offered by banks is also one of the least understood. You’ve depended on its orderly operation your entire life. It runs society at microeconomic and macroeconomic levels. It required hundreds of years of trial and error, plus an edifice some would describe as the world’s largest conspiracy theory that is actually true, to make it safe enough to bet society on.
[...]
Let’s start dissecting this transaction. You don’t deposit a $20 bill. You purchase a $20 deposit, coincidentally using a piece of paper with the same number on it. The deposit is a liability (a debt) of the bank to you. The bill which you gave the bank in return for the deposit is now theirs, the same as if you had bought a cup of coffee from Starbucks. On their balance sheet, it is now an asset.
|
An actual bank memo about hiding money offshore
Mother Jones is highlighting a memo from a bank in Jersey (Isle of Jersey, not the US state) that discusses 11 ways that rich people can hide money offshore, some more legal than others. Mostly an interesting read, I don't have the finances to take advantage of these.
|
Tax Software Megathread on Reddit
When it comes to paying your taxes every year, lobbyists and corporations have pushed the IRS to not make it simple. People end up paying for tax software they don't need, and the tax software companies find newer and newer ways to add fees for the "convenience" they provide.
If you make $72,000 or less annually, you DO NOT HAVE TO PAY FOR TAX SOFTWARE. Go to the Reddit thread, it will help you.
|
Janet Yellen Offers US Senate a More Nuanced Take on Crypto
First off, I had no idea there were articles on NASDAQ's website. Second, I agree with Yellen. Cryptocurrencies aren't going away, it is in the interest of the government to figure them out and figure out how to extend their reach into them.
"I think we need to look closely at how to encourage their use for legitimate activities while curtailing their use for malign and illegal activities," she wrote. "If confirmed, I intend to work closely with the Federal Reserve Board and the other federal banking and securities regulators on how to implement an effective regulatory framework for these and other fintech innovations."
|
