What caught my eye this week.
Watching a handful of my friends get pretty rich over the past few years, it’s been striking how little they’ve changed.
Of course the props are swapped. Better cars breakdown. Household appliances are replaced with services, or even by part- or full-time staff. Baggage is stranded in more exotic locales. Arguments with their partners go upscale.
Sometimes one of them does something odd, like painting all the interior walls of their home griege and replacing literally 95% of the furniture to match the same rain cloud tone.
But mostly they are the same old Tom, Dick, or Harriet they were before.1
I recently had a coffee in Berkeley Square with one who was fitting me in between the hedge funds. He was lamenting in turn his success or otherwise with dating apps, and trouble with his teenage son.
The same pep talk I offered could have been delivered to an old childhood mate in his caravan in the provinces back home.
Spare any change?
Of course this is a convenient narrative for those who want to argue that we’re all in it together.
We’re not. Those of us with a lot of money have it better.
But it’s true, too, that there is a limit to how much better.
Not because of the canard that, after a certain point, happiness brought about by money plateaus. This bit of social science no longer appears to be true, according to recent research. (See the Guardian article I linked to above).
Rather, it’s because much of what really matters to us simply cannot be bought.
As a beautiful post by Lawrence Yeo on More To That put it this week:
You can be the healthiest person on the planet, but if you love no one, what’s all that vitality for?
You can be free to do whatever you want, but if there’s no one to spend that time with, what’s the point?
Is it even possible to feel a sense of purpose in your days if you believe that you’re loved by no one?
Yeo is doing original digging on a very well-worked seam in his article – albeit not so much in the Beatles-y extract above, which nevertheless ring true – and I’d urge you to give him a read.
Maybe follow up with Ben Carlson, who this week wrote:
Happiness is a complicated topic because when you ask people what they want out of life the answers typically involve career achievements, financial goalposts, or status.
A good job or a high salary or a certain level of fame are easy to quantify and define. Relationships are not.
Money has a value you can attach to it. It’s impossible to quantify the value of strong relationships in your life.
Or with Indeedably, and his sombre reflections from a palliative care unit:
Over the weeks spent visiting the ward, I got to know some of the patients. Lending a sympathetic ear or supportive hand to those in need of a diversion, while the person I was there to see slept.
None reminisced about the jobs they had performed. The nappies changed, houses built, essays marked, budgets prepared, businesses founded, or lines of code written. Beyond their former professions being a token of identity, they barely rated a mention at all.
None reflected on the things they had bought or experiences they had purchased. Cars. Holidays. Houses. Concerts given or attended. Sporting events witnessed or participated in. All irrelevant.
It must be something in the water?
(Middle) class warriors
I do sometimes wonder if I’ll look back on all the effort I’ve put into saving, stock picking, and even running this investing blog over the years as a bit of a tawdry exercise.
I long ago gave up believing Monevator will make many poor people less poor. If we’re doing our job properly, then we help make ‘are or soon will be well-off’ people a little bit more well-off.
Which isn’t nothing, but it’s hardly God’s work.
I’m not looking for sympathy or anything like that. I’m proud of this site!
I just wonder now and then if I should have been writing poems, or helping out at a care home.
The feeling passes, and I’m grateful for the autonomy my decisions have given me. But I’m also left wondering at the counterfactual shadows. Flitting around, just out of sight.
Have a great weekend.
From Monevator
What order to put things into an ISA or SIPP – Monevator
Pensions, the LTA, and IHT – Monevator
From the archive-ator: Crisis investing as swine flu panic spreads – Monevator
News
Note: Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view click through to read the article. Try privacy/incognito mode to avoid cookies. Consider subscribing to sites you visit a lot.
UK inflation breaks declining trend with surprise jump to 10.4% – CNBC
Households spending 12% more on essentials than a year ago – Guardian
Mortgage rates drop to six-month low – Which
Ministers reportedly scrap plan for earlier rise in UK state pension age – Guardian
Fewer than 10% of over-50 retirees tempted back to work by Budget – This Is Money
TFL ‘to spend £4m naming each London Overground line’ – My London
Amigo to be wound down after failure to secure financial backing – Sharecast
Wealthy executives make millions trading stock of competitors – ProPublica
A sensible strategy for the UK needs radical changes on pensions [Search result] – FT
Counter-argument: Stop blaming everything on pension funds! [Search result] – FT
(Sorry they are both FT search links. I consider my FT subscription a must these days.)
Products and services
How two similar index trackers can generate different returns – T.E.B.I.
Millennials and Gen Z are driving up the price of retro items at auction – This Is Money
Open a SIPP with Interactive Investor and pay no SIPP fee for six months. Terms apply – Interactive Investor
English wine: the brilliant bottles to try – Which
Open an account with low-cost platform InvestEngine via our link and get £25 when you invest at least £100 (T&Cs apply. Capital at risk) – InvestEngine
Tesco to reduce value of points with Clubcard reward partners – Which
Studio flats for sale, in pictures – Guardian
Comment and opinion
William Bernstein: riskless at age 104 [US assets but relevant] – Advisor Perspectives
How seven couples aged 20 to 80 manage their joint finances – This Is Money
Youth: the envy at work that dare not speak its name [Search result] – FT
Threadneedle’s dubious claims about active fund outperformance – Trustnet
Are pensions really so good for inheritance tax planning? [Search result] – FT
Status games: absurd or necessary? – RAD Reads
Don’t let the tax tail wag the investment dog…okay, maybe once – S.L.I.S.
Altogether now – Morgan Housel
Unhealthy claims [The NHS isn’t perfect, but at least it avoids all this!] – Humble Dollar
More evidence time in the market beats timing the market [Research] – Ben Felix via Twitter
Reminders about risk from the banking crisis mini-special
Understanding the banking panic [Short video] – Cullen Roche via YouTube
Everything you didn’t think of – Young Money
Reality meets expectation – Fortunes & Frictions
Five ways investors can succeed by knowing their limits – Morningstar
Banking crisis highlights shifting nature of real estate assets – Dror Poleg
Crypto o’ crypto
No, Bitcoin isn’t pumping because it’s a safe haven from the banks – Molly White
Coinbase, SEC on collision course for ‘existential’ clash over crypto industry – Reuters
SEC charges various celebrities with crypto violations – CNBC
Naughty corner: Active antics
Defending discounts: the investment trusts buying back the most shares – Trustnet
With regime change, institutions are rethinking their portfolios – Institutional Investor
Short-term gain, long-term pain – Capital Allocator
Wandisco revisited – Maynard Paton
Strategic thinking matters – Klement on Investing
What is Bill Ackman up to? – Institutional Investor
More thoughts on the banking crisis – Calafia Beach Pundit
Kindle book bargains
Banking On It: How I Disrupted an Industry by Anne Boden – £0.99 on Kindle
Bank of Dave by Dave Fishwick – £0.99 on Kindle
Never Go Broke by Lee Boyce and Jesse McClure – £0.99 on Kindle
Green Living Made Easy: Hacks to Save Time and Money by Nancy Birtwhistle – £0.99 on Kindle
Environmental factors
Bathing water status rarely granted in England, analysis finds – Guardian
Scientists release ‘survival guide’ to avert climate disaster – BBC
Cruise ship invasion – Hakai
We need to talk about carbon credits – Klement on Investing
DIY giant B&Q offers solar panel installation for the first time – This Is Money
Bras fit for burying: Australia to set standard for composting textiles – Guardian
Off our beat
The age of AI has begun – Bill Gates
Unschooling [On taking your children out of school] – Aeon
What are the world’s safest holiday destinations? – Which
Dining across the divide: “I thought I was going to meet an awful Tory” – Guardian
The real reason South Koreans aren’t having babies – The Atlantic via MSN
Please get me out of dead-dog TikTok – The Atlantic via MSN
I saw the face of God in a semiconductor factory – Wired
Off our beat Succession season 4 mini-special
The final season of Succession is going to be a bloodbath… – Vox
…with Tom Wambsgans on the up and up… – The Ringer
…though there’s still a lot of wood to chop to the top – The Ringer
And finally…
“There are no atheists in foxholes or ideologues in a financial crisis.”
– Ben Bernanke, quoted in Too Big to Fail
Like these links? Subscribe to get them every Friday. Note this article includes affiliate links, such as from Amazon and Interactive Investor.
- At least after a hard-to-endure 12 months for those who got rich very quickly, before they get over themselves… [↩]
Perhaps making happiness your aim in life is slightly delusional
It seems to be a very fleeting human state of mind that appears when circumstances are right and disappears just as quickly when circumstances change which they will and do
Better to aim for achievable goals under your control like taking responsibility for your actions and being as competent as you can be
Success here will give you bursts of happiness as things come together even if it is only for fleeting moments
You can look at what humans have defined as success-being responsible and competent ie achieving a “reasonable “ income ,maintaining a functional lifelong partnership with another human being plus having a few kids -this could be one aim-tried and tested as a successful path over hundreds of years
Other roads to Dublin can be tried as environmental conditions out with your control can determine the life paths available to you
Resorting to drugs has been tried as a shortcut-expensive and life shortening-usually
You pays your money and makes your choice
xxd09
Small spelling check, I think it should be ‘Driving’ ? – Millennials and Gen Z are diving up the price of retro items at auction.
I was interested to read Bill Bernstein’s piece and his confirmation that inflation-linked annuities are not available in the US market.
Guardian article has a slant; no news there then as they have something to sell. Good quote from Killingsworth ‘the dissenter’ seems to actually say that for emotional well-being money isn’t the be all and end all. “Money is just one of the many determinants of happiness,” he says. “Money is not the secret to happiness, but it can probably help a bit.”
@TI Posts like this are why Monevator is so brilliant – it is so much more than just a standard investing blog. It matters because you make us think and think more deeply than we would otherwise have done. Always something to look forward to on a Saturday morning.
Struck by Indeedably’s reflection that the biggest question is how to fill our time as the clock inevitably runs down, and do so in ways which are satisfying and fulfilling. The greatest value of money, and understanding the means to obtain it (e.g. through investing) is in how much control it can give us over that time.
Well, you could listen to that inner voice and volunteer in a care home. Or do something similar. You might get a lot out of it. And you could use your financial expertise and communication skills, perhaps to help people who are poorer, whether due to misfortune, mishap, or just mistakes.
“If we’re doing our job properly, then we help make ‘are or soon will be well-off’ people a little bit more well-off.”
You’re selling yourself short here. There’s huge value in everything you bring together in the site and it’s useful to people in a wide range of situations.
And it’s unlikely that your commentators are representative of your readers – must be lots of readers who gain a lot by learning the basics from Monevator and never comment.
@all — Thanks for the comment so far. Very busy day for me with a friend’s 60th (he’s playing in a punk band in Camden for it, so not your the standard one…) but I’ll be checking in and moderating as usual. 🙂
@FI-Fighter — Great spot, thank you. Fixed now!
Perhaps life is about experiences……have you really lived if you haven’t experienced loss or grief, have you really lived if you are just happy?
Saying you can’t be happy or complete without a special someone to share it with seems old-fashioned and quaint to me. I share experiences, thoughts, and even meals(!) on a regular basis with dozens of people around the world. Of course I’m not going to celebrate getting a lot of likes on a post when looking back, but at least I’ll have records of all of them when my dementia-addled self forgets everything else.
On the poetry angle, it was national poetry day last week. I think you’ve got a few good poems in you almost certainly. You should have a poetry weekend read, you kick it off and get the readers verse in the comments? That’s what greedy guts Felix Dennis ended up doing.. I’d also argue almost anyone can do a better job than Simon Armitage. I met him once in Lyme Regis outside a news agents. Just smiled and kept my view on his work very much to myself.
Is TI coming up to a significant birthday, maybe? There is some reason to suspect it will get better. And some anecdotal experience 😉
Be kind. Get outside the city limits every so often, although the Great Wen is graced with a decent proportion of green spaces compared to many big cities, I used to like Hyde Park, you can almost get away from the traffic noise as you get near the cop shop of old, prob long gone. You’re right that it’s not all about the money, but having enough improves the ride no end. More than enough, weirdly not so much.
Oh and as to the value of what you do, well, this grizzled mustelid appreciates the wisdom you shared, all the way from that strange transmission ‘Who isn’t buying the market now’ onwards. Chapeau!
Completely agree with @ballard sentiment.
As an infrequent poster – but regular reader of all Monevator content – the tools/advice/insights have allowed my focus to move from the financial planning to deeper reflections on life planning.
The conversations I now have with friends are evidence of the wider impact of your content – making many more think about what is important beyond stuff, titles, work etc.
Keep on….
In defense of having money it insulates you from the hassle, hassle and harassment of modern life.
It does give you new worries but does mean you can lose a connection to 90% of the population who in their wage slave ways need to balance the books and can’t afford the cost of living as it is and the price rises we are seeing on a daily basis.
There is the concept in Buddhism of the fundamental unsatisfactoriness (dukkha) of everyday life. It’s as relevant now as it was over 2000 years ago. The human condition is still the same.
As far as worldly achievements go, I think this blog is a big one. Add up the years of independence that people gain to pursue whatever their calling may be. That’s a big impact.
The money/happiness debate is a straw man imo. It distracts from the ever-growing inequality that is undermining democracy.
At moderate levels, wealth is about freedom. Someone who is in debt or must sell their time for money (often at conditions dictated by others) is clearly unfree.
It is also about citizens’ rights. In theory we are equal before the law, in practice we are not, with lawyers costing hundreds per hour and ruinous litigation costs.
And access to healthcare, especially these days as the NHS is falling apart.
At higher levels, wealth is obviously about power. This country offers many ways in which influence and power can be bought, and that’s quite certainly not by accident.
I would say that monevator & the general bringing of investment to the masses does help improve social mobility – especially between generations as people are able to advise their children, in this way we might un-hollow out the middle classes a bit. Also if people get better at investing it’ll being money towards poorer towns, and into local economies when it gets spent, it might also help the UK itself be a little more efficient at bringing money in vs the rest of the world and might grease the wheels of the capitalist machine who’s efficiency made the west richer in the first place (the fact people want to migrate here is a massive compliment and evidence in favour of capitalism)
I’ll happily say that Monevator has been a significant contributor in my journey from nothing and occupying the lowest possible social class to being FI. Not the only one, of course, but perhaps it’s of some comfort, TI. We aren’t all Finnimus lol!
@sparschwein, I absolutely loved your post.
@TI, your social circle sounds awesome!! Hedge fundies, a 60yo who still plays punk and @TA, etc.
@others, I found an old London work pass the other day – Chase Manhattan before it became JP Morgan Chase (20 year old me had a fringe!! I wish I’d souvenired other banks that have since failed, eg Lehman’s and Merrill Lynch). Anyway, my point is the biggest and (so-called) smartest market participants continue to fail … AND yet we all stand (and most of us are thriving)!! And that’s not nothing!!!!
“But I’m also left wondering at the counterfactual shadows. Flitting around, just out of sight.”
Beautifully put.
Thank you for the link to the Wired article on TSMC, the world’s most important company. When I read a piece by a journalist about something I know about, it’s nearly always full of errors and misunderstandings, but this one is just fantastic.
Money cannot prevent misery but it will buy you a new hip, heat your home, pay for lawyers and, generally, rig the game in your favour.
Apologies for the additional comment. We hear a lot about the regrets of the dying, but life is full of choices – and perhaps we are destined to regret the near infinity of choices not made rather than celebrate those we did.
I agree focussing on happiness (which kind?) is a fools quest. I learned this early on from being on a drug as a teen for a then recently diagnosed condition. One side effect of the drug was a near constant euphoria. After three months of this, I desperately wanted the shade back. Kipling was right.
I much prefer the mix of contentment, curiosity and urgent optimism, tinged with the occasional small dose of – usually self-inflicted – suffering that characterises much of my life now.
I would be interested in hearing from the dying who have no regrets or concerns. What did their lives look like?
It would come as no surprise, to learn that the majority of subscribers already have what the majority of those living in socially deprived areas would settle for.
“Good Health”, doesn’t appear on many listings either, perhaps thats because real trauma has yet to visit. Which is guaranteed to put everything in perspective.
Aeons past, I was advised that you eventually reach a stage where the most important thing in your life, will be the comfort of your armchair. I would add that the way “you leave” is important too…..Gareth, in four weddings, nailed it.
Thanks again for the links and musings @TI, hope you enjoyed the birthday celebrations!
@Barney indeed. I was somewhat suprised to discover this week I now approaching 38 and coming up to five years of hard saving, have twice as much in assets than the average private pension at retirement (according to Finder – https://www.finder.com/uk/pension-statistics).
I tend to fret that I started too late or won’t have enough down the line, but then remember I have it really good compared to many (Albeit with a recent trend towards frugality and a massive acknowledgement of a bit/lot of luck getting a deposit for house with low LTV ratio due to partners somewhat unfortunate family circumstances)
I can’t find an online version but there was an interesting piece in the back of the print Observer today about millennial pension savings. I completely get the cost of living, energy bills, high rent prices impacting of those ability to save for mortgage deposits and pensions, but some of the case studies were odd. One was a 20 something on £85k a year (over three times my current salary!), who said they couldn’t afford to pay into a private pension due to saving for a deposit and had opted out of their workplace scheme. No mention of lifestyle choices otherwise, but seems a very strange choice to make to me. Surely something is better than nothing.
I think you undersell the site when you say it won’t make poorer people better off. There are some ancillary benefits which are not related to investing, that you cover in passing. Below the line, a lot of followers have either discussed or signposted alternatives to simple waged work as a career choice. There’s a lot that was missed by the poor careers advice (mostly none) at school. I wish I had read this stuff in the seventies
@all — Thanks as ever for the comments and for helping to make Monevator a bastion of sensible discussion! A few specific replies…
@xxd09 @Sparschwein @others — I definitely agree (and have debated at length in relationships, haha) that long term satisfaction and ‘content-ness’ is different from day-to-day excitement or happiness or anything like that. But I’m probably coming from this from a different direction from most people. I used to really think happiness was extremely overrated in my late teens and 20s. In fact I thought it was sort of phony. Looking back, I don’t think I was giving myself much room to experience it. So I’m mindful about it now, and I try not to pursue overtly unhappy activities. I also make a lot of effort with relationships (as alluded to with @London ALA elsewhere here) but then that brings its own happiness challenges. Relevant to the articles and the site though, I can’t recall money ever coming into whether I was base-level happy or not. Perhaps not feeling like I could or should buy a flat in London for many years (because of stretched prices) made me a bit unhappy I suppose. The stock market crashing doesn’t wash off my back quite like it did. But some would argue these are challenges that are about more than happiness anyway (more linked to goals etc?)
@Faustus — Cheers, glad you’re still reading us after all these years!
@Haphazard — Of course, but there’s only so much time. 🙂 Monevator is the side project that became a monster, much (most?) of which isn’t seen on the site. (Moderation, email, technical support, liaising with industry/advertisers, trying to upgrade, etc). If I could transition it to being my full-time gig then that would free up some space for something like that. Would like to try a few options before I became (if I ever do) fully-FIRE that’s for sure, rather than trying post-income.
@Jusin — Will it sounds to me like you have many someones. That works too! 🙂 As somebody who can go for weeks without seeing anyone if I let myself (highly ‘I’ in the Myers-Briggs tests) I’ve made myself focus on keeping people in my life, and think there’s a lot in the common wisdom about the importance of relationships.
@The Rhino — I used to write poetry as a late teenager but gave up as I thought it was terrible. Looking back, it was only average ‘starter’ terrible. All the best poets were young in my view. Maybe a novel.
@ermine — Thanks. And… astute! 😉
@London ALTA — As a sort of strategically sociable introvert (see above!) I have always had a foot in lots of friend camps. I always thought this made me a sort of perma-outsider (and indeed I think it does) but many years ago an ex- described me as a Gandalf, based on the way he rides around Middle-Earth and knows all the different tribes and they call him different names. I’m a bit like that! 😉
@Rich — Thank you.
@Gareth — Nicely put, I’ve always thought the apparently tragic note in Four Weddings… was in some ways the most optimistic. Anyone can fall in love with a beautiful woman standing on your doorstep in the rain… 😉
@Bob @Ballard @KOKO @Matthew @G @others — Thanks for the generous words. I hope the site has helped people (well, judging by my big email folder of notes from readers I am sure it has) and I’m very pleased with that. But I doubt that any truly struggling Britons are going to be helped much by Monevator. That’s not to say they couldn’t be, but navigating the site or coming back regularly is going to seem a pretty esoteric activity for most without savings or in debt and on a low income. Add in the fact that our reading regular scores ‘university degree’ or above in tests (something we’ve improved, at one point it was all ‘master’s level’) and we’re just not that accessible a site. As I said, I’ve made peace with it, writing truly entry-level guides in plain English would never be my forte! @TA could probably do it, if he hadn’t gotten so nerdy about investing 😉
I was a poor person who got less poor because of this site. I’ve been homeless several times. My focus to secure financial security is very strong. People assume benefits and all that stuff is available. Often it isn’t and wasn’t in my case. All I could do was to trust and learn as much as I could for when that big money arrived in my life (aka cross your fingers and hope). It was the only strategy available to me. I am now climbing my way out and I have told a lot of women I know also in similiar positions (yes, there are a lot of us), about this site too and I am helping others out. So on the surface of it, this blog has made no difference. Often we don’t know the ripples we make and yours is a damn fucking huge one. Cheers mate.
In reply to TI: ”But I doubt that any truly struggling Britons are going to be helped much by Monevator”.
Perhaps somewhat true, but there’s ‘MSE’ and there’s ‘Moneyvator’ (and other sites). Each serve different but overlapping sections of society. And you ‘could’ always volunteer a day or evening per week for Citizens Advice offering financial advice if you thought it would be satisfying.
On meaning and purpose I think we all exist in a prison just some prisons are larger, with nicer inmates, furniture and meals. Difficult to always appreciate the freedoms you have until they’re not there.