What caught my eye this week.
I would have had this post to you much earlier on Friday, but for consumerism. You see I got totally distracted trying to get the best out of my new Sage Barista Express:
Real life: Messy.
Having done a barista training course a few years ago, I improbably fancied myself as pretty hot stuff with a coffee grinder.
I’ve enjoyed flat whites knocked out by a friend on this well-reviewed model many times, too.
But it turns out I didn’t know my friend as well as I thought I did!
I’ve discovered he’s great at making coffee – but perhaps more shockingly that he’s modest about it. (What other talents does he boast, I now wonder? Or rather does he not boast?)
Seriously, I know it takes a while to get the hang of DIY espressos on new kit, so I’m not too perturbed. It’s only eaten a couple of hours so far, and that includes washing the bits and bobs, figuring out how it fitted together, and collecting beans I spilled on the floor.
No, the other reason why I fell behind was because as soon this new toy finally arrived from Amazon, I went out for a three-hour hike around West London.
Did you sign for it, sir?
You see I’ve been in all week waiting for deliveries – and it drives me crazy.
I’m on edge all-day, until the deliveries do (or don’t) arrive.
A laid-back friend who doesn’t understand my hair-trigger control freak personality asked me what the big deal was.
“Imagine waiting all day to be slapped in the face,” I said. “You don’t know when it’s coming, but you will be slapped in the face. That’s me waiting for the door buzzer.”
It’s not even that I can’t do the social interaction bit. It’s worse: I usually talk the delivery person’s ear off. (A common failing among those of us who work from home.)
Rather it’s the waiting and uncertainty that kills me – and the unexpected and unscheduled state change.
Years before the Millennials I kept my mobile on silent always, for the same reason.
A totally unexpected phone call to my mobile feels like being tapped on the shoulder by a suddenly apparating supernatural nosy neighbour. I hate it.
Now at this point you’re either nodding along (a very few of you) or you’re aghast with incomprehension. Which is fine.
(I’ve said before when explaining why I invest actively and nearly everyone reading shouldn’t that I’m wired differently. I didn’t say it was easy!)
Economy class
Anyway, the reason I’m sharing these asides – and the rare from real-life picture above – is to give a quick update on my embrace of consumerism.
The story so far: You’ll remember I bought a flat, I still haven’t written up why, and I set about spending some of my 20-odd years of winnings (well, savings and winnings) to make it fancy.
This got off to a good start. I’ve always loved nice furnishings and so on – from afar. But by the middle of the hot summer I was bored of spending money.
I’d lost enthusiasm, I’d lost my girlfriend (she said she didn’t like my sudden interiors obsession, but perhaps she just didn’t like the sofa I finally selected?), and I’d lost (/spent) more money traded for matter than I’d spent on things in the previous two decades combined.
I didn’t even go crazy! It’s just that living like a graduate student even as your earnings multiply is pretty low-rent.
For most of that long era I used to opine to my more normally spendy friends that buying stuff only produced problems. Which in my experience was almost always true.
Stuff didn’t work, or you had to upgrade something else, or it broke, or you felt guilty, or you had to wait in for days to get it delivered, or you were worried it’d get nicked when finally you did get hold of it – or any one of a dozen other woes that people who buy stuff all the time think is just the way the world is.
Only two things hit the spot for me without fail when I splashed the cash. Black cabs – which I almost never took, and felt so luxurious in those pre-Uber days – and the first beer with two poppadoms and all the sauces and other gubbins.
Obviously I did a gazillion other things over the decades. I didn’t just taxi around London from curry house to curry house! And often it was money well spent.
But never reliably so.
Well, this whole flat buying and furnishing thing has proven my younger self right.
Through the keyhole
Don’t get me wrong. It’s coming along. It looks beautiful, to me if not my ex. I feel lucky to live among all these things I chose in my still-new flat, even while knowing luck is only part of it.
But, oh! I guess I secretly thought the universe would notice The Investor Is Finally Throwing Money At The Problem and the rules would change. But they haven’t.
Stuff comes broken. Trades people don’t show up. Some of them are great, but some are – well – yet to find their true calling. Deliveries don’t arrive. I made a final push to finish my flat before Christmas, and caned the Black Friday offers. But only three of the seven resultant purchases that were scheduled for delivery have actually made it here so far. A new record of rubbishness.
Coffee machines are harder to use than you expected. Analine leather sofas stain if you sneeze near them. Complete automatic watering systems require add-ons to water completely. Your boiler is already up for a service – and that’ll be £100+ with VAT please.
I feel sometimes like Robinson Crusoe, finally back on the mainland after a long sabbatical away catching fresh fish with his hands and brushing his teeth with a fragrant root. I can confirm 2018 has a lot of gorgeous stuff on offer – but as we all know it comes at a price and doesn’t really solve anything.
Still happy I did it, but pleased I’m mostly buying things that will last.
Once I’m done the hedonic treadmill is going back into storage!
Note: Yes, it’s an expensive coffee machine (though one of the cheaper good ones). I’ve always liked a few quality things in life, I’ve just tended to get them cheaply. I saved about half my income for 20 years, so while the Frugal Police are welcome to give me a caution, keep in mind that I wrote the (racier) pages of the book you’re throwing at me. 😉 And beware Buffett’s Folly.
From Monevator
From the archive-ator: Death, infirmity, and investing – Monevator
News
Note: Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view you can click to read the piece without being a paid subscriber. Try privacy/incognito mode to avoid cookies. Consider subscribing if you read them a lot!1
Here’s how much fund managers are paid [to lose to the market] – Institutional Investor
Houses prices down on fundamentals not Brexit, research suggests – ThisIsMoney
Property slump could cut number of affordable homes built by 25% – Guardian
UK migration: Fewer EU arrivals, but overall figure stays the same – BBC
Do you live in one of the happiest places in the UK? – ThisIsMoney
The inheritance tax mess, where richest pay a lower percentage rate – Simon Lambert
Products and services
UK rail fares to rise 3.1% in January – Guardian
Shawbrook tops table with a 1.65% one-year cash ISA rate – ThisIsMoney
Ratesetter will pay you £100 [and me a bonus] if you invest £1,000 for a year – Ratesetter
New breed of elite dating apps for wealthy singletons [Search result] – FT
Comment and opinion
How to own all tomorrow’s winning stocks – The Evidence-based Investor
John Bogle needn’t worry about index fund dominance – Pragmatic Capitalism
The proliferation of indices isn’t all it appears – Abnormal Returns
In praise of old jobs – Young (Mrs) FIGuy
Spend more: The most ignored piece of financial advice [Search result] – FT
How to retire forever on a big stash [US taxes/insurance] – Mr Money Mustache
FIRE Day! – Retirement Investing Today
You would not have invested with Warren Buffett – Behavioural Value Investor
Anti-FIRE: The YOLO train wreck edition – Simple Living in Somerset
Juggling six-figure margin debt [Don’t try this at home!] – Fire V London
The top 20 personal finance questions answered – Guardian
Morningstar gets into the finance-meets-food-pyramid game – Morningstar
Five things parenting and (active) investing share – The Value Perspective
What can we do about over-confidence? – Behavioural Investor
An attempt at estimating the true ‘global market portfolio’, including all the unlisted assets in the world [Research] – Alpha Architect
Brexit
Government finally admits UK will be worse off under all Brexits – New York Times
Leave voters statistically much likelier to believe conspiracy theories – Guardian
A Daily Mail EU scare story debunked [Again, people believe this rubbish] – Tom Pride
The French village that fears for its British community – BBC
Romania has lost 16% of its population to rest of EU in a decade – MSW via Twitter
Brexit TV Debate: A former Remainer will argue for her Brexit deal, a closet Leaver for a better deal or Remain. What a time to be alive! – BBC
I’d like to Exit from these homegrown cretins. Where do I vote? – BBC
Kindle book bargains
Why You? 101 Interview Questions You’ll Never Fear Again by James Reed – £1.99 on Kindle
Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations by Thomas L. Friedman – £1.99 on Kindle
The Spider Network: The Wild Story of a Maths Genius and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History by David Enrich – £1.99 on Kindle
Tiny Budget Cooking: Saving Money Never Tasted So Good by Limahl Asmall – £1.09 on Kindle
Off our beat
Internet: The end of the beginning [Video/Presentation] – Benedict Evans
Watch how just a few self-driving cars prevent traffic jams [Graphics] – Science
Nike and Boeing are paying sci-fi writers to predict their futures – Medium
Woman who names daughter ‘Abcde’ is upset when someone finds it funny – ABC News
A man actually ticked the US Visa form ‘Are You A Terrorist?’ box – via Twitter
Maps showing how we’re divided by more than Brexit [Funny, old-ish] – Ink Tank
And finally…
“Why should we look to the past in order to prepare for the future? Because there is nowhere else to look.”
– James Burke, Connections
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It’s nice to see real an example where you can be both frugal and then spend on nice things (without going too crazy! 🙂
And if it’s worth anything, I can relate to your issues with deliveries and trade people. I sometimes miss my old apartment where I had a concierge to receive the deliveries. I had not realized how lucky I was until I moved out!
Good luck with furnishing the apartment, I’m sure it’s looking nice!
Thanks. Great read as always.
A very nice machine, and I’m glad you didn’t do the maths to try and justify it 🙂 , A tip on trades people… Having being one and taught hundreds over the years, they are variable in the extreme. A free market exists for their talents. All of them try to get as much from the free market as they are able (some are less honest than others), (some are less able than others). The market for bad cheap ones exists. The market for good, and expensive ones exists. If you find a tradesperson from the latter category it is worth paying them to retain their services. (just as buying a better coffeemaker might give you a better life experience)… Outsourcing to overseas countries may be coming to a halt as a lot of Europeans have seen the grass grow greener on their side of the “border”. (I do not believe this to be necessarily a good thing)
Find a good one through personal recommendation. Pay them on time and make them a brew. Talk to them a little. If the job is good tell them so to their face, they have pride in their work.
JimJim
So the Barista training course.
Was it a training course that MMM and TEA would be proud (ie getting a job in a coffee shop)? Or did you actually pay for this thing?
Also a /real/ mustachian would tell us how many thousand pounds a year they’re expecting to save by avoiding coffee shops.
I’m disappointed 😉
I love my Gaggia Classic, it’s served me well for 9 years. I like the routine on weekends. The only real kitchen gadget that earns its keep.
@TEI — Yes, I’d love a concierge! That *would* be worth paying for. (I get most small Amazon deliveries sent to my local Post Office, and wander down and collect them when I fancy some fresh air. Quick chat to the lady behind a counter, no need to see my ID anymore, lovely.)
@Dave — Cheers Dave. Always good to get some positive feedback!
@JimJim — I am with you to a great extent. E.g. I tracked down the plumbers I’d had come around as a tenant because they were friendly and competent, and had them do my boiler service. I always offer tea/coffee/biscuits too (though nowadays nobody takes it — I noticed this started with the Polish/Romanians a decade or so ago, who I presume try to pack as many paid jobs in during the day as possible? I’m not complaining, and usually find Poles especially the most consistently good. Also have had great English plumbers etc, too, so not a sweeping statement!) All that said I don’t think I should in practice need to butter up someone I’m paying a decent amount of money to for them to do a good job, beyond the realms of normal politeness! 🙂
@Ben — You’re perhaps going to be happy AND disappointed with my reply. It was *free*, and on the back of an investment! But on the flip side, I got it as a reward for putting money into a crowdfunded mini-bond, which I’ve confessed to investing in before! 😉 (https://monevator.com/my-mini-bond-portfolio/) It’s due to repay me in early next year, so fingers crossed this one has worked out.
@Freemantle — Yes, I think I’ll be happy in the long run. I realized this morning that I’d gone from clearly under-extracting to just wincing a bit at a strong double espresso shot (I always drink coffee with milk, heathen I know). So I’m nearly there I think!
“Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts.”.
Are you proud of buying this coffee machine? I’m joking. Quality over quantity.
This coffee machine has completely transformed my mornings. No, seriously. I love coffee and once I found the perfect configuration (grind level, tamp pressure, smooth milk foam) I see the value.
A few tips after 3 years of using it:
* get the Urnex Grindz cleaning tablets for the grinder and the Cafiza ones for the machine
* try the Planalto beans from Pact coffee (subscription)
* use soft bottled water – preferably Volvic
The Investor. Agreed. “All that said I don’t think I should in practice need to butter up someone I’m paying a decent amount of money to for them to do a good job, beyond the realms of normal politeness! ”
Totally correct. If polite norms are stuck to, we are always happy. (as you don’t seem to be an objectionable fellow, it may come as a bit of a surprise the number of objectionable people there are out there!) The important bit is to recognise a good job well done, and voice it. Believe me, to a good tradesperson that makes a huge difference in the quality and speed of service they are willing to offer in future. Paying handsomely for it is only part of the reward, good tradespeople find no difficulty securing clients, they choose the ones they wish to keep.
🙂
The coffee machine looks great.
I think that investing in quality things in areas that you like (And who doesn’t like coffee!!!!) is well worth it.
Each cup of coffee will.cost you only a few pennies over the product lifecycle and those machines are built to last.
@JimJim — When I moved in I had a problem with my bifold doors. The developer fixed it but in doing so a worker accidentally dinged the frame with a gash. This took more hassle to get them out again, but eventually the same chap came over at about 7am and spent over an hour filling, sanding, and repainting and blending it in. He wouldn’t say so but I suspect he’d been made to do this for free, as he’d caused the gash.
Anyway I was amazed how good the job was. From dismay to I couldn’t see it!
I spent three emails and a text eventually getting my thanks for a job well done through the developer,language barriers, and his line manager, who seemed bemused by my bother. But I was well impressed and wanted to say so! 🙂
The aeropress (£25) makes remarkably good coffee, and is great for travelling/hotel rooms etc.
Amazon locker might be a solution to your delivery problems?
@TI & JJ
An ounce of praise is worth a ton of criticism – especially relevant if you are a parent / teacher / employer. Always lead by example.
Life gives back to you what you give to life.
and “Life gives back to you what you give to life”.
@(10)
Said twice for emphasis!
Thanks for the links – some interesting stuff as ever. Can’t help thinking that I should get my recently made redundant partner to set up an FI blog since she is staying at home with the kids while we live off a single income for the foreseeable though!
“Government finally admits UK will be worse off under all Brexits”: surely even the most zealous remainer must giggle at that NYT headline.
But on to serious biz: I’ve wondered for years at the obvious market failure of paying investment managers such absurd sums of money. Obviously they must be paid partly on the same principle as judges – enough to reduce their temptation to steal or accept bribes. But thereafter it’s bonkers. I remember thirty years ago remarking to a younger colleague that it would be the easiest thing in the world to program a computer to do the job. He protested mightily, leaving me suspecting that his father might have been in that line.
But still I chortle at these great enthusiasts for free-market capitalism so clearly living high on the hog by somehow avoiding its consequences. Roll on creative destruction! Let’s just hope that there will still be second-hand cars for them to sell.
Although its not mentioned this this time i wanted to protest agains the term “vanilla index fund” implying its plain
Vanilla is definitely not a plain flavour (as i discovered with cream soda and better qulity ice cream) , but it is used in such small amounts by cheap ice cream etc that people believe it’s unflavoured and even label unflavoured ice cream as vanilla when it comtains no vanilla flavour
Auctions are good. Brown furniture antiques very cheap and it slows down your spending and gets you out of the house/ flat/garret.
@ The Investor
I am sorry to read that you lost your girlfriend. But do not overly concern yourself on this account. You now have a nice home and this is always attractive so you will have a different one soon enough. You may wonder how I know these things when I am a mixture of healer and warrior but all the while a monk. This is because we are only technically monks. We are supposed to be bound by vows of penury and chastity but in practice completely ignore both, gathering wealth as we may and fornicating at every opportunity.
@Foxy — Cheers for thoughts! I’m using filtered water and the tank has its own further filter too. Will have a look at Pact. I have a local amazing coffee place that does its own beans that I am dialing in, which is what is making the process hard and expensive! (They are very light, and I know how well they should taste!) Nearly there I think (he says, sipping. 😉 )
@GFF and others — I didn’t go down the money saving angle as I’m pretty sure it won’t save me much. Fresh great beans are amazing. There’s regular cleaning to be done. And I don’t buy coffees every day, maybe twice a week. (I drink more for free, due to various offers I surf from O2’s Cafe Nero deal to investments made in indies and even Waitrose’s very average free coffee). And I was using a cafetiere before, anyway. And it’ll make me (even more of) a coffee snob. But at least I’ll wake up and smell the coffee!
@Saul — Thanks for thoughts. I’ve a friend who does great things with an AeroPress, too. Bought one for my sister a few Christmas’ ago and she’s never get on with it for some reason. Secretly, I think I wanted a shiny machine. (I’ve never driven, owned a car etc. Another way to save a fortune over 20+ years!) I used the Post Office for small collections and a Doddle place for slightly larger. Amazon Locker’s near me never take bigger parcels… and as I say this machine is heavy! 😉 (The other stuff to come is mostly heavy mirrors, too)
@Factor — Agreed.
@E&G — I wouldn’t expect to make much money from a blog for several years — at least not if you ignore the literally dozens of emails I get asking to run paid posts, insert links, do sponsored reviews etc which I always ignore or turn down — but it’s fun for other reasons.
@dearieme — I think the secret is the punters want to feel special. Most people don’t want to invest money according to, for example, the ideas of a quirky website they come across randomly Googling, even if backed up by evidence etc.
@Matthew — Vanilla is my favourite flavour. There was a shortage this year (may still be) and the raw price soared!
@MrOptimistic — I’ve bought a couple of old things, not dark brown though. At some point fashions are going to change no doubt, and the old dark brown stuff (which I’m told is now often chopped up/upcycled, or shipped to America if expensive) is going to be super valuable I suppose.
@Hospitaller — Ha ha, cheers for thoughts. Fear not — it’s not my first crusade. 😉
I have many things to be thankful for in life, and one of them is not catching the coffee bug but being content with a tea bag. ;o)
Regarding the sofa, from personal experience when I bought my first flat, you should have italicised the “I” rather than the “finally”.
Women are hardwired to want to purchase furnishings together for a shared nest, so it is challenging if you are making independent decisions. This is regardless of whether you bought the flat 100% yourself.
So it is best to be single when sorting your place out if you want it done to your particular tastes.
You will have other girlfriends, and they will try and change the furniture anyway if you let them move in, but thats a challenge for another day 🙂
Hahaha …..sweating all uncertainty re: deliveries, phones on silent – I thought I was the only nutjob – I wish I wasn’t so introverted/OCD, have you tried CBD oil &/or products?
An Aeropress or a Bialetti will both make good coffee for £25 each and each last longer than the monstrosity in the picture
Shiny things will not make you happy for very long
New build flat prices in London are tumbling in the central post codes, these don’t show up in the land registry figures as the land registry only shows the sold price not the difference in the sold price and the reserved price
“Once I’m done the hedonic treadmill is going back into storage”
Yehhhh, ‘once your done’…….
How about you tell us a few personal facts about your recent purchases and financial decisions – then i can also shoot you down with some mean spirited comments?
TI is knowingly picking some holes in his own super frugal persona, this humility being just one of many facets that make him an excellent writer.
You need to be a little more self aware when posting.
The FT piece about people failing to spend is quite easy to slip into i imagine simply on the grounds of not being able to predict how much is enough and keeping a safe amount, especially if the investor takes risk, and they might be more risk taking if they can afford to lose, and they might simply enjoy the sport of making money
I think we cant say that spending is bad because unspent growth is pointless in the end, its just about judging when and how much to up the lifestyle.
I think you can reach a point of a virtually unspendable amount of money anyway, where you get no extra pleasure beyond a certain point.
I think the money spent on your home can never be called wasted. I paid £2.2k for a rug a few years ago, and you can’t beat quality. Albeit I only own one custom made piece of furniture, most stuff at my place was (to me) eye-wateringly expensive when I bought it. It’s worth it.
No, buying expensive furnishings hasn’t been a spiritual experience, it hasn’t changed my life, but it makes coming home quite pleasant, and I’ve never felt embarrassed to invite anyone over to my place. And when you’re buying things that’ll last, it pays to spend a little extra time on research and design. Your ex should’ve known that.
@e17jack
True story. I had a neighbour once who was a middle aged divorced partner in a law firm
He bought himself a Ferrari
Sitting in the Ferrari and getting in and out of the Ferrari did his back in so he had to sell the sell the Ferrari
He’s not my neighbour any more but I’m pretty sure he’ still a divorced middle aged solicitor
Shiny things don’t make you happy for long
@e17jack — Cheers! I’m afraid @Neverland has never slept a night in a bed he’s gotten out the right side of.
Sobering that one who knows the answer to everything has seemingly found so little joy in life.
What hope for us bumbling fools?
Then again, perhaps taking issue with 99.9% of my posts makes him happy.
Maybe we shouldn’t begrudge him his small consolations.
And once you have read
“Why we sleep” by Matthew Walker you will hardly ever drink coffee again
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-We-Sleep-Science-Dreams-ebook/product-reviews/B06Y649387
Guess that This is Money is London based if they think Leicester is a northern city. Some people need to travel around the UK a bit more, or just look at a map.
If something makes you happy, it makes you happy…can’t see much mileage in arguing about that. Yes, there are consequences to everything, but at least you were happy once! Now, should I buy my 62 year old brother the Nintendo retro I really want…..
It’s painful (to misers like us 😉 at least) shelling out loads of money on a new house and/or doing it up, but ultimately worth it I think. You’ll get long term value out of all the nice shiny things you’ve bought, and you don’t come across as the type to fall into the “let’s change the whole lot every 2 years” trap.
Did anyone else find it funny that the story about Abcde was broken on ABC news? 🙂
I presume the mother of the child must pronounce that news channel “Ab-Ci-news”!?!??!
@ A beta investor (31)
Yes, read it from cover to cover a few months ago, and it’s an eye-opener (no pun!).
@Neverland, Aeropress and Bialetti are OK when you’ve scared all friends away with your “positivity” as then you’ll only need to make a single cup of coffee for yourself ;). Two or more and it’s hassle when one is entertaining guests.
I’m a coffee snob myself and have seriously considered getting a fancy pants coffee maker like TI’s. I don’t put it past me to eventually give in, it’s just that, right now, the minimalist in me looks at yet another possession as a master I need to slave away to…
But, what is the point of all this penny-pinching if there’s nothing we allow ourselves to spend the money on and enjoy it? So, good on you TI, for showing the other side of the coin.
@Weasel
You buy a 4 cup Bialetti moka express and half fill it for use yourself and simply cool the bottom part down with the tap when when you need to make more than two cups of coffee. I hope that isn’t too complex an answer?
My Bialetti is more than a decade old and all it needs is occasional replacement rubber ring from Amazon. I’ve never had a electric coffee machine that’s lasted much more than 3 years…
… you will buy that electric machine and weep at its demise in the early 2020s