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Every once in a while, a series of mundane events accumulates to produce a moment of out-of-body, blistering clarity. “Clarity” is not a mental state I’ve experienced much recently, but on my last day in California, it arrived unannounced while I idled in a Safeway parking lot. Earlier that morning, I had been speaking with […]
This essay contains copious White Lotus season 3 spoilers. If you’re not caught up, please stop whatever else you’re doing and go spend the next eight hours in front of your TV, which is the only screen we’re celebrating today. Timothy Ratliff is screwed. While on vacation at a fictional resort in Thailand called the […]
International Women’s Day nearly escaped my awareness this year. As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one not in the spirit: About a week earlier, the “for women, by women” investing platform Ellevest announced it would be selling and transferring its roboadvisory accounts to Betterment this April. Ellevest explained in the fine print that […]
A cherished milestone of modern American adulthood is rewatching the 1990 classic Home Alone through Zillow-pilled eyes for the first time, witnessing the wings on either side of the McCallister house, and realizing, woah, those people were rich. So much so that a fun New York Times piece set out to determine just how rich, […]
When we first moved to California, our next-door neighbors—a very kind Gen X couple—knocked on our door and invited us over for dinner. In the following weeks, they’d pop over to check in, periodically lending a tool or an extra set of hands. One day while I was stuck in traffic coming back from San […]
I rarely go physically grocery shopping anymore, opting instead for the convenience of delivery orders of roughly five days’ worth of meal-making materials at a time. But this past Saturday, I decided to take the entire day off (¡escándalo!)—so why not take the time to drive across town and peruse the produce in person? Before […]
Listen, Rich People, something you should know about me is that my brain is owned and operated by a trio of opposing, hustling forces (the Three Grind Mice, if you will), constantly grappling with one another for control. The first mouse is Curiosity, genuinely open-minded and steering me in the direction of truth, no matter […]
“You can’t do anything with five [million dollars], Greg. Five’s a nightmare.” Wow, two Succession quotes in one month? Someone cancel her Max subscription! Look, one day you’re waltzing through life downplaying Kim Kardashian’s private jet purchase (it’s a write-off!); the next you’re asking 180,000 people where we should draw the line on wealth accumulation. […]
The other night, my dog Georgia wouldn’t stop throwing up. Georgia, also known as Beans, and more recently known as Bad Luck Beans, has suffered a string of health issues so unfortunate that most vets shake their heads in pity as they work their way down her chart. Here’s the short version, if you can […]
Imagine a group of kids: some short, some tall, some gangly, some sturdy, each with a varying level of athletic ability. Some are coordinated and quick on their feet, while others resemble me as a child (read: running on wobbly knees and timid in the face of physical threat, destined instead for drama club). There […]
“Some beliefs that are objectively false can be practically useful.” —Nick Maggiulli, “Why Luck Isn’t Real” Most of us probably have that friend that complains constantly about their job. Their financial situation. Their relationship. When you first met them, you probably sympathized. You probably wanted to help! Though after some time passed, you might’ve noticed […]
As a personal finance hobbyist forged in the flames of fairly extreme FI/RE rhetoric, my perspective on wealth as a source of confidence was always unemotional, mathematical: By the time I’m worth $X, I can withdraw between 3% and 4% per year and comfortably live on $Y. It was a straightforward way to derive financial […]
Ever since that cursed Shein brand trip last summer in which American influencers toured the company’s Guangzhou factories and marveled aloud at how “not-sweaty” the workers were, the center of the Venn diagram between sustainability and personal finance came into full focus. For most people, financial health is contingent upon managing consumption habits—producing more income […]
A few weeks ago, I received an email from a listener who was grappling with the hollow trappings of prestige. She described graduating from an MBA program and starting a fancy management consulting job. She felt like she had really made it—for a little while. “Even though information about how management consulting sucks is widely […]
In the fall of my senior year at my all-girl Catholic high school, we went on a mandated retreat. It was hosted at St. Anne Convent in Melbourne, Kentucky, the location where they shot the movie Rain Man, something they inexplicably reminded us throughout the weekend. The weekend-long retreat was designed to manufacture vulnerability: We’d […]