T.G.I.F. Friday: Volume 167
Welcome to “Thank God I’m FI” Friday, Volume #167
Here are some things I really like and that you might too!
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Financial Independence/Work Life/Retirement Articles & Content
Gen Z is defiantly ‘giving up’ on ever owning a home and is spending more than saving, working less, and making risky investments, study shows (Fortune) “younger generations are so disappointed and frustrated by the state of the housing market they are spending more of their earnings than they are saving, they’re working less, and they’re making risky investments, according to a paper by Northwestern University and University of Chicago researchers.”
Survey: 43% of Americans Don’t Have Savings to Pay for a $1,000 Emergency (US News) “Emergency fund balances are down, and one-third of Americans say their savings wouldn’t cover one month of living expenses, according to a U.S. News survey.” Dave’s Comment: I love these financial surveys which is why I keep posting them. I think the vast majority of my readers are in a much better situation than the answers given in this survey, so they’re a great read when you want to congratulate yourself and realize how well you’ve done – even if you think you haven’t.
Video
My brother and I got into watching wrestling (the fake kind) for a short while in our youth. My favorite was when one wrestler would jump off the ropes and fly across the ring to pummel the other guy. Watch this jaguar put that move on steroids and launch from 25ft up in a tree to take out a caiman. Nature is cruel and awesome!
What I’m Grateful For
My Yamaha FG-401 dreadnought acoustic guitar. I bought her sometime around 1993 or so and she’s been a workhorse. This winter has been very hard on her as her neck has warped a bit from the low humidity in my house. I’m confident the high humidity that will be here soon will take care of it and I should really take better care of her.
Lyrically Speaking
You see, I just work there to finance my real life
That begins with scribbles on pages
From “Notebook” by The Innocence Mission
I get up early every day, very early. I love the quiet time of early morning to do my graphic design work. No helicopters, minimal airplane and ambulance noise, and mercifully no loud rumbling cars and trucks. I have a special morning music playlist of what I call “chillax” music, and The Innocence Mission features prominently. Karen Peris is the chief songwriter and singer for the band, and I could listen to her sing a list of chemicals in a bio-weapons lab. Her voice soothes me and is the perfect way to start a day.
This is rainy day music folks, so don’t expect a dance party. But if you like to chill the Innocence Mission might be for you. They’ve released 13 albums dating back to 1989 and they’re still going strong with a great release in 2024. As for the lyrics above, they wrote them for me. The last decade of my job I was really just working to fund my artistic dreams, which really didn’t need any funding at all except for free time. As a bonus check out the lyrics to the whole song. It’s a song about working a boring/stupid job to support a life of creativity and art. It has gems like
“I write in my notebook
With feeling that takes me by surprise
And thoughts that I don’t know I have
They’re hidden by useless facts
That I’ve compiled at the office where I work
Where there is no time for feeling anything”
Hello! I think I need to do an entire blog post about this song 🙂
Miscellaneous
Training harder could be rewiring your gut bacteria – “Training harder may do more than build muscle—it could transform your gut.
Data center builders thought farmers would willingly sell land, learn otherwise – “Even in a fragile farm economy, million-dollar offers can’t sway dedicated farmers.”
How Instagram addictiveness lawsuit could reshape social media – platform design meets product liability – “A Los Angeles courtroom is hosting what may become the most consequential legal challenge Big Tech has ever faced.“
Hey Dave, we have a saying, picked up from a FIRE site, may have been you, from a good long time ago… Regarding ‘43% of Americans Don’t Have Savings to Pay for a $1,000 Emergency’ we call this a ‘runway’ (a month’s worth of spare cash) and like to have 3 months runway, just in case… We FIRE’d 5 years ago, and still like to have a runway of ‘cash’ ready for anything that life may throw up. Age advice from whoever gave us that process. What’s the way forward for those less able to have a 3 month runway, and on a larger scale, the clear and present impending ‘spend’ that is just around the corner? Many people are living hand to mouth… It’s tough out there… We’re (my family) are very very lucky… We never forget that and your article highlighted an important point to reflect upon.
Thanks again for your time on this blog.
SCHA
I think the vast majority of Americans can get to the point where they have a 3 month runway, many just refuse to give up things to do so. Just as my family didn’t have air conditioning, cable TV, a microwave, or a dishwasher all through the 80’s and 90’s when these things were common, folks have to – dirty word alert – sacrifice to get that runway. Most refuse to do it. Spend less than you earn, rinse and repeat, and you will eventually win. Thanks for stopping by Stuart!
Hey Dave, thanks for sharing the links to a new round of interesting and insightful articles. They are just one of the many things which keep me visiting your blog every week (bonus points for the cool jaguar video). I was not surprised that almost 25% of people tapped into their emergency fund to buy holiday gifts. I worked hard to pay off my house and retire early only to have a relative tell me he wasn’t lucky enough to afford a nice place like mine “due to the economy.” He then went on to tell me about a $10k family vacation recently booked using a credit card because “you only live once.”
Haha, those types of “you are lucky” comments rub me the wrong way too. Luck exists for sure, but making wise financial decisions for decades and sacrificing unnecessary wants and things for freedom and a better life are surely not ‘luck’. Congrats to you Mary and thanks for reading!
Great blog as always. I love your music shares. As a non music guy, it exposes me to some great bands.
I still flirt with the idea of starting a music blog from time to time but I only have so many hours and too many hobbies. And that’s a very crowded space. Stoked that you like it, Thanks for reading!
Gen Z are not even 30 years old, so I don’t really think it’s fair for these articles to generalize their home-buying proclivities; can’t say I thought I’d be able to afford a home in my early 20s. A lot of the accusations seem familiar to those said of us Gen X “slackers” at that age. (No criticism against you, Dave; always enjoy seeing what links and videos you serve up.)
You make a great point Brandy and I agree that it’s not ideal to characterize entire generations with millions of people in a single basket. But at the same time trends and behavior patterns between generations are real, even if they amount to pluralities only and not majorities within the group. And I myself wasn’t really able to buy my first house until I was 31, thought I might have been able to stretch it and do so a few year earlier. But it would have been too risky for my financially conservative nature. As for us GenXers, we certainly came of age in the “angst-y” days of the 90’s, with, in my case at least, the heyday of binge-drinking to fuel it.
This winter, I got hard cases and humidity packs for my ukuleles. They helped a lot. My nice ukuleles deserve humidity control. 8)
Smart move Joe, I’ve never had an issue with it as even our winters here are relatively humid. But this winter was our coldest in 20 years and with the heat running that much my interior humidity was really really low. It just happened. I’ve already noticed her coming back to life a little as warmer temps have moved in and hopefully the wood will soak up the water vapor, but I will be buying humidity packs for next year.