.The Three Sides of Risk

May 19, 2020 by Morgan Housel

Igrew up ski racing in Lake Tahoe. I was on the Squaw Valley Ski Team, and it was the center of my life for over a decade.

At a conference a few months ago I was asked what skiing taught me about investing. This was on stage, where you can’t ponder your answer – you have to blurt out whatever you can think of.

I didn’t think skiing taught me anything about investing. But one incident came to mind.

“Well, let me take this to a dark and tragic place,” I said before telling a group of 500 strangers a story I hadn’t talked about much in almost 20 years.

A dozen of us had grown up skiing together. Most had known each other since we were young children.

By 2001 we were in our late teens, having spent the majority of our waking hours over the previous decade never far from each other. We skied six days a week, 10 months a year, spending summers on the glacier of Mt. Hood, Oregon and in New Zealand, where the seasons mirror our own.

Skiing took precedence to everything. Most of us were in an independent study program that let us bypass traditional high school. After skiing all day we read a few books and filled out a few forms in the evening in what – to our amazement – led to a diploma.

.I Got Better With Money Once I Cared

March 6, 2020 By Big Freddy Smidlap

Sometimes in life you need a reason to do better

Last week I gave you a year by year chronological account of when I Used to Be Terrible with Money. This follow up explains some of the rationale and motivation to get better with the All American Greenbacks. It was never a question of understanding or ability before 2005 but more a matter of motivation.

Here I was at 37 years old and just married and newly employed as a low level chemist at a good paying contract job with Big Brother Corporation. I also had accumulated $40,000+ in student debt that went all the way back to the 1980’s! Of course I disclosed all of this to Mrs. Smdlap when we even started discussing getting hitched in holy matrimony.

In the time since I had moved to her place in Buffalo we had survived mostly on her decent salary at an independent record label plus whatever I scraped together form a series of crappy jobs. I saw this doubling of our combined income as a grand opportunity to set everything right and atone for my financial sins of the past. This part is key: you will get some opportunities in life. You might as well seize a few of them!

.Have I Told You I Used to Be Terrible with Money?

February 25, 2020 By Big Freddy Smidlap

I wasn’t a stupid dumb dummy about money. I just didn’t care!

Let’s take a chronological journey year by year to see what not caring about finances looks like. I took the hard way. I hope you took the easy way or at least easier than I did.

1986 – Start college 800 miles from my rural home in Northern, NY State. College was in Norfolk, VA and as soon as I got there I found out you could just sign up for unsecured credit cards right on campus. I must have signed up for 2-3 cards with about $1,000 limit each. That might have been a nice way to build credit but I went and used them. I don’t know what I bought. I think the student loan this year was about $2,500.

1987 – More college in Virginia. I had fine grades and was in an Academic Honors Program. I also had a full tuition scholarship but borrowed another $2,500 for room and board.

Life Changing Economic Theories, Applied To Personal Finance

The Woke Salaryman

My parents always insisted that I should make economics a core part of what I learnt in school.

So when I went to Ngee Ann as a Mass Communication student, I absolutely disappointed them.

That said, it’s never too late to start learning.

As part of my commitment to becoming a specialist with a generalist skillset, I’ve started to pick up economics along the way by reading articles and watching videos, just to see what I’m missing.

And it turns out, my parents were right. I was indeed missing out on a lot. Here are six theories that made me wish I went to JC and learnt the subject earlier.