Wednesday Reads: No Shortcuts

A round up of interesting or cool stuff I’ve read.

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There are no shortcuts

I’ve read a few different news articles and blog posts over the last week that all emphasise one thing:

There are no shortcuts.

I saw two different articles on the BBC:

• BBC – Cheltenham Festival: ‘I gambled £50,000 on a horse and lost everything’
• BBC – Football Index collapse: ‘I lost £4,000 in seven days’

In both cases, money that couldn’t afford to be lost was risked unnecessarily.

On the subject of Football Index, Katie (The Twenty Percent Blog) covers some of the lessons that need to be learned, and the wider impact this may have – The lessons we need to learn from the Football Index crash.

Funnily enough, just before I read these two news stories, I read Chris’s (The FI Journey) latest post,  Get Rich Quick versus Get Rich Slowly…, and found myself nodding along. He compares the desire to get rick quick versus the reality, and finds a balance in “getting rich quicker.” Avoid get-rich-quick schemes, but do work to increase your income, and invest.

Finally, Blair duQuesnay (The Belle Curve) reiterates that getting rich quickly is not easy – Get Rich versus Stay Rich. Whilst not specifically about Football Index, (I imagine the platform doesn’t even exist in the US!) her message still bears repeating:

“I have a rule of thumb for this type of investment – If you can set this cash on a table, light it on fire, and watch it burn without risking your financial plan, then go for it. Gamble a little if you enjoy it. If you win, awesome. But you don’t need shiny objects to stay rich, and the chances of you getting rich this way are less than winning the lottery.”

 

Interesting links that caught my eye this week:

Decumulation:

• Fire and Wide – Drawdown In Retirement: From Saver To Spender
• Mr MedFI – The MVP
• Gentleman’s Family Finances – Planning for Decumulation 
• FI UK Money – Planning for Decumulation
• Quietly Saving – My Decumulation ‘Hypothesis’

A number of excellent additions to the Sovereign Quest March Challenge – Planning for decumulation.

I thought Michelle’s (Fire and Wide) was excellent, as she’s been living the Early Retirement life for the last few years. Most bloggers, on reaching retirement, seem to cease blogging not long after! So it’s useful to see things from the other side.

The other entries mentioned above are all untested plans (much like my own) but it’s still great to see the similarities and differences in everyone’s approach.

 

Investing

• Occam Investing – Is investing a zero-sum game?
• Mantaro Money – The Death of Alpha

 

Mindset:

• Your Money Blueprint – Find your why
  

  “Having money is not the goal. […] Money is just the vehicle”

 

• Scott Adams – Goals vs Systems & Retire in Progress – The Almanack of Paul Graham
  I stumbled upon this old post from Scott Adams thanks to Mr RIP. RIP’s latest post has opened a rabbit hole of new-to-me essays that I will probably start reading once I finish this blog post. For now, I’ll leave you with this quote, and then urge you to check both posts and the subsequent links found within:

  “most of us, we have no idea where we’ll be in five years, what opportunities will arise, or what we’ll want or need by then. So our best bet is to move from a place of low odds to a place of better odds. That means living someplace that has opportunities, paying attention to your health, continuously upgrading your skills, networking, and perhaps dabbling in lots of different areas.”

 

• Morgan Housel – Investing: The Greatest Show On Earth
  Another great piece from Morgan:

  “The point is we should go out of our way to learn about investing by looking at things that have nothing to do with investing. And we should learn about things that have nothing to do with investing by looking at investing.”

 

Misc

• Sign up to Trading212 via this link and we both receive a free share.

 

• Sovereign Quest – A new personal finance curation site launched by Indeedably. Check out the March Challenge.

 

• Reddit – FIRE Flowchart for US Citizens in the UK. I doubt I have any UK-resident-but-US-citizens amongst my readers. But on the off-chance that I do, this is a very helpful resource for those in that position.

 

Thanks for reading. Hope you’re all having a great week!