Links

• AI in property valuation: The Most Consequential Algorithms You’ve Never Heard Of. My friend Jenn sent me this, so, hat tip to her!

• Inflation is cooling, the cost of living crisis is not. I found the graph on pessimism and inflation interesting as so much of the market is perception and not fact.

• The Commonplace Book: where early modern thinkers collected ideas was the internet of its time. I never knew about Commonplace Books until I read this article and I love the idea. I have historically kept notes when I read books but that habit has fallen by the wayside this year. I think I want to start back up again keeping snippets of wisdom from various places. When I posted that article to facebook, a friend of mine told me that every year her mother assembles a Commonplace Book which she sends out at Christmas. What a lovely idea!

• “On the other hand, too many people ignore creature comforts and decide to spend their funds on investment management while they fly in the steerage.” One Size Fits One Spending in Retirement.

• Feeling lucky, punk? Really lucky people may have a specific set of skills that bring chance opportunities their way.

• 30 things you can do today to reduce debt. I have a love/hate relationship with “little treats” culture. On the one hand, yes, you should definitely treat yourself regularly as a way to bolster your mood and reward yourself. On the other hand, if you are drowning in debt and it is keeping you up at night, maybe a $210/month latte habit should be revisited? This list is a good one if you are new to rethinking your spending and are wondering where to start.

Which kind of flips into a teeny rant about

• Girl Math…what the everloving f..? Aside from being horribly idiotic calling it girl math is just a wildly sexist moniker for what is just poor financial management. Tik Tok trends are wild for their absolutely bonkers ideas that get traction because they feel good not because they’re right. You know what Girl Math SHOULD be? Setting aside a nice chunk of change for discretionary purchases that you just don’t beat yourself up over. But when it’s gone, it’s gone.

Books

Mr. Tucker and I have started a habit of sitting down after he gets off of work, lighting a candle and just chatting for a bit before we start dinner. The other night I asked him if he had ever read The Wealthy Barber, and he said he hadn’t. I was surprised!

If I could recommend ONE BOOK to anyone trying to learn more about personal finance (aka, someone who has zero knowledge and doesn’t know where to start) I would 100% recommend The Wealthy Barber. Replace “mutual funds” with “index funds*” (in the 90s when this was written, index funds weren’t as well known). Having said that, it is extremely dated and some of the language and descriptions are – as the kids would say – CRINGE. However, if you can look past that and think of it as a product of its time, the narrative makes an easily digestible story about the basic tenets of personal finance.

Like I have mentioned before, humans learn best through storytelling so this is where this book really shines. I also think The Rule of 30 is great stab at a narrative personal finance book (albeit wrong about the trajectory of inflation post-pandemic – but smart people will look past that and realize that the core info is still good) but a little more complex with the charts and numbers. That makes it a bit more confusing for many folks.

Today I pick up a SUPAH SEKRIT non-fiction book that I happen to be in and so I received an advance copy of it.

Today

Mr. Tucker is heading to the condo to finish off a few details. I am going to research new appliances in the hope that we can get them delivered soon so the condo can go on the market as soon as possible.

#13DaysOfHalloweenMovies

UGH. Last year The Eldest wanted to watch The VVitch (she loves Anya Taylor Joy) but we nixed it because we felt it was too scary. It ended up on the list this year and BOY HOWDY did it have mixed reviews. There be SPOILERS below.

The Youngest: 0/10 Unnecessary screeching and praying & naked children are weird and gross.

The Eldest: 0/10 I’m traumatized. Never again.

Mr. Tucker: 10/10 Uncomfortable. Atmospheric. Weird. Unpredictable. Original. Nailed the ending. (special shoutout to the scene with the mother and the crow)

So for context, my children always find anything we find terrifying to be NO BIG DEAL. They generally don’t get scared by much and are constantly trying to convince us that they can handle even the scariest of movies. We do try and push off the movies we think are bad but when we do eventually watch them the kids usually roll their eyes at us for thinking it was scary.

in the middle of The VVitch The Eldest got up, announced that she was absolutely done with the movie and then left. Her sister ALSO left with her. Mr. Tucker and I kept watching and were generally enjoying it but 10 minutes later, The Eldest came back crying and saying that she was really upset about the movie. In her defense, it would have been good to know in advance that a baby is brutally murdered and a dog dies in it. There is also a fairly graphic representation of both of these things. It also has some borderline themes of child sexuality which is fairly creepy (Mr. Tucker noticed that in the credits they had an on-site therapist). Also, the dialogue is incredibly difficult to understand, leading to some confusion.

We talked it out and I explained that I NEVER want her to stay in an uncomfortable situation (whether its feeling like she has to consume media, or whether or not people make her uncomfortable) and that she has every right to decide that it isn’t for her and to leave. We had a pretty big discussion about it and she felt a lot better by the time she went to bed. But I felt badly that it had affected her so much. Truth be told, had I known in advance I would have 100% eliminated this movie.

Having said that, I enjoyed it. I found it super interesting that he wrote the movie based on the records and folklore from the era. I originally thought it was going to be a psychological thriller based on a family going wonky in the wilderness, alone. So it was surprising when it went full supernatural.

The scenes were just so haunting. It managed to capture the absolute vastness of the landscape and lack of human connection through the lens of people who left the plantation. You could really feel how terrifying it must have been for the Pilgrims to come to the new world where it was nothing but miles and miles of new territory and unknown fears lurking around every corner.

Anyway, happy Thursday!

*yes, I know that index funds are a type of mutual fund which isn’t actively managed but for the purposes of not being a pedant where it is low stakes, I am going to define them as different things.