“We were built to depend on each other. Evolution shaped us for cooperation, not isolation. Yet we treat loneliness as weakness and community as optional. We call debt and overspending “behavioral problems,” as if they were moral failings when they’re often just cries for belonging.”
– Self-help is for suckers by Meghaan Lurtz
One of the things I have done this past December is cut down on the amount of Personal Finance blogs/Substacks, videos and podcasts that I consume. At the end of the day, most of the content out there is just splitting hairs for nerds or a rehashing of the same advice. I still enjoy it but honestly, I am well past the point where I GAF* about whether or not, for example, people should buy XEQT or VEQT and save cents on the dollar when we live in a world where most people struggle to even save $100. That isn’t the bottleneck for most people, the basics are. This isn’t shade to those creators – some people love those debates and love reading and writing about them. But I am done with the made-up hand-wringing of nothingburger questions.
Part of this is because we’ve made it: we’ve achieved our goals and quite frankly this content hasn’t been enjoyable for a while, so I am going to just stop. It used to be that I enjoyed reading that content because it felt nice to read people’s individual struggles when I was going through my own. But the other part is that the core tenets of personal finance haven’t changed in a really long time. Sure, the methodology and access to investments has changed but the basics of how to manage money has not really moved the needle since OG DJ Chuck D said, “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty-pound ought and six, result misery.”
Another part of this is that I am just so sick and tired of the constant ads, amazon affiliate links, pop-ups and course offerings shilled by every website. Again, no shade to those creators at ALL: the bills must be paid and somewhere along the way we have collectively decided that user-hostile websites & affiliate links was the way we would pay for content. I actually prefer when creators write books because it feels satisfying to hold a book in my hot little hands (I have also bought books for my kindle, so that works, too). I think I just enjoy having all of the info in one place, offline. But it’s become off-putting when I hit a website where it’s pop-ups and ads skewing the window and there are so many affiliate links, calls to action and mediocre course offerings/coaching** that consists of someone just editing a mish mash of content you can find for free online and giving it a fancy new name, “It’s not a budget! We hates budgets, don’t we Precious! It’s Personal Accountability Tool!”
This is also just discussing people who I actually do give out good advice – established, intelligent folks who give advice that I may not agree with but is generally well thought out and competent. On the flip side, we have these TikTok Finluencers who have the most unhinged hot takes (enragement is engagement!) whose existence I generally try and ignore.
Finally, as I mentioned earlier: I am spending more time in the meat space. What happens when you achieve your goals? As it turns out, for me, the answer is to live a bigger life learning new things, doing more art, hanging out with more friends and trying new things. I no longer HAVE to sit in front of a computer for work so I don’t have the need to take short breaks to read posts or to listen to podcasts while I work. I think I kept up with a lot of websites and podcasts because it was good to have a few things in my back pocket to keep my brain busy when I was stuck in place. Then I just didn’t cull when I retired.
I eventually did start to scale back the content I was mainlining and worked on my social media use as well. Now, I have nothing but facebook now (marketplace and local communities keep me hooked and it’s just basically an address book now) which I only access by desktop.
I suspect I should write up what I believe are the core tenets of personal finance. So maybe that will be next. Or maybe my absolute frustration with Substack and the complete lack of viable business models for content. Or maybe authenticity vs. income.
Oh, and if you’ve read this far – Happy New Year!
*Give a fuck – shout out to my Oldhomies
**As an aside, I know a disproportionate amount of people who lost their jobs and became life coaches
What I am currently reading
I have so many links in a variety of formats that I have enjoyed and have saved to make a post about. But by the time I get around to it, the links are generally older and posted elsewhere. Here is a few from this week:
“Dishabituation can be achieved in two ways. The first is to take a break—remove yourself from your environment for a period of time, however short, and then return to it without making any permanent changes…The second way to dishabituate…is to insert variety into your routines.” How to fight habituation
The U curve of happiness, is now a hump.Youth mental health declines in 82 countries
When life hands you unaffordable housing, build your own with friends.
“More chaos is coming, I fear. AI tools are making it easier and easier to manipulate images and videos. Every day, it gets easier to generate content that plays into people’s perceptual biases and confirms their prior beliefs — and easier to warp perceptions of the present and possibly even change memories of the past.” The internet peaked in 2015
Speaking of which, How to object to Meta’s AI data usage. Is it convoluted AF? Yes.
Speaking of F’s: one of the best things I have read this year is this essay: A unified theory of fucks.
I have drastically cut down on my social media usage – including the amount of blogs I am reading & youtube videos I watch. While I love to read a variety of personal finance blogs, the ratio of relevant information to ads/sponsored products has tipped over into the “not worth the hassle” category. I realized this weekend that one Canadian blogger I read has a 50/50 ratio of content to referral links. UGH. Don’t get me wrong: I am glad people are out there making their bag producing informative content for people. It just really isn’t worth my time anymore to read it because there really isn’t much new out there. On top of that, Instagram is now testing unstoppable ads. I haven’t come across them yet but it just may be the nail in the coffin there as well. I am only really posting pics to the account related to this blog because my personal account is overrun with things I can’t do much about, as I have written before.
I remember Amy Dacyczyn (of The Tightwad Gazette fame) used to compare her newsletters to Weight Watchers. Her argument was that people generally knew how to lose weight like they knew how to be frugal but the value was in the community and seeing other people do it, too. I think for a long time I consumed a lot of content based on that premise: it confirmed what I already knew and I got to read about similar people on a similar path. But now we have solidified our investment strategy, saved enough for Mr. Tucker to retire, paid off our house, saved enough for the kid’s post-secondary etc. with no plans to really change things up. Most debates that occur in the Finfluencer community are faits accomplis for me, so they aren’t really decisions that I am wringing my hands over anymore.
For example, I always joke to Mr. Tucker that when Ramit Sethi runs out of ideas, he runs a new video about owning vs. renting. Don’t get me wrong – his content is amazing – but CHRIST ON A CRACKER please save me from ever consuming any content on owning vs. renting ever again. It’s a personal finance dead horse as far as I am concerned. Do definitely read his book and watch his podcasts on Tuesdays with couples. Those things are great, especially if you are just starting out or need to change course. But I own a house, the house is paid off, and while I will happily sell it and become a renter if I need to someday, for right now that isn’t changing. (also, if you want to hear a pro-ownership argument Karsten at ERN does a really detailed one with a lot of numbers. In fact, his content is also fantastic if you like getting into the weeds)
Also, it helps that June has been a super busy month for us so far. For some reason we decided last minute to sort out our storage room that hasn’t been touched since we moved in and join the community garage sale. So we spent a week of evenings cleaning and sorting stuff. We told the kids that they could split whatever we made & they each made around $55. Not bad. The rest got sent to friends, the thrift store, or organized in bins to sell when the weather turns (it’s hard to sell snowsuits when its 30C out). We also happened to discover that our toilet was leaking so we had that fixed before it became a HUGE problem. So a small victory there as well. On top of that, dragon boat practice is twice a week, and The Eldest has a series of band events and job training to do. The Youngest is graduating from middle school and they also have many end of year field trips and events. So it’s a busy time for everyone – especially Mr. Tucker who is the maestro of everything. So I haven’t even really had a ton of time to read online content.
But we have been adding more fun stuff into our budget & reducing friction in our lives. More on that another day.