TessMore Finance Blog

It's Sunday morning as I write this, and my weeklong adventure at Fincon 2022 in Orlando has come to an end. I'm exhausted. As has become customary, I didn't actually attend any workshops or keynotes or breakout sessions here at Fincon. Instead, I spent the entire week connecting with friends: I enjoyed chatting with Rob Berger about how he's managed to grow his excellent YouTube channel from 0 to 63,000 subscribers in two years. He now makes more than he used to earn with his blog (and he made plenty with his blog). He does this by putting his audience first and only promoting a handful of products that he actually uses and endorses. Love it. Rocky Lalvani from Richer Soul told me about Marisa Peer and the biggest disease affecting humanity . As a guy who has struggled plenty with his mental health, I like Peer's message: “I am enough.” (This is now the lockscreen on my phone!) Donna Freedman told me all about her frugal adventures in Anchorage, Alaska. Don

This week I'm in Orlando for Fincon , the annual gathering of folks who work at the intersection of money and media. As a result, I haven't had time to do all of the things I normally do during a week. I haven't been reading or writing about money. Instead, I've done a lot of chatting with colleagues. We've been coming together at Fincon since 2011. At first, we were nearly all strangers to each other. Today, many of these people are my closest friends — but they're friends I see in person only once or twice each year. I value every moment I get to spend with them. On Tuesday, for instance, a group of us booked a private VIP tour through the Disney theme parks . We had a blast. I mean, look at this wretched hive of scum and villainy… Chatting with other money nerds this week has given me additional clarity about the future direction of Get Rich Slowly — on the web, on YouTube, and in the email newsletter. You see, most money bloggers (and podcasters and Yo

Last week, I raved about the book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. These two Standford design professors have taken design principles and applied them to helping people figure out what they want to be when they grow up. After advocating Designing Your Life to several friends, two of them suggested that we work through the book's exercises together. One of those friends is Kim, my long-term girlfriend. The other is Craig, a college classmate. I thought it might be fun to share some of these exercises as we complete them over the next couple of months. Because I want to respect the intellectual property of the authors, I'm not going to describe the exercises exactly . Instead, I'll provide a vague overview and then discuss my own answers. (And, when it makes sense, I'll also include answers from my friends.) With that out of the way, let's dive in! Let's see what happens as I begin the process of designing my life. Start Where You Are Th

This article is difficult to write. It's an admission that I failed. And it's not like I failed once, but failed repeatedly over the course of several years. And it's not that I really failed failed, you know. It's that I failed myself. I failed to live up to my own expectations. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning. Goody Two-Shoes I grew up Mormon. Among other things, this meant that nobody in my family consumed recreational drugs of any kind. Mormons have a strict prohibition against such indulgences. And, as most folks know, they even take their stricture against “strong drink” to mean that caffeine is forbidden. So, my parents didn't drink alcohol or coffee. They didn't smoke cigarettes. They didn't do anything that led to altered states. Hell, my father even hated television because he considered it a “plug-in drug”. For much of my childhood, we didn't have a TV. When we did have a TV, access was often restricted.

I am obsessed with the film Everything Everywhere All at Once . From the moment I saw the trailer, I knew the movie was meant for me. I was right. The film's bizarre blend of action, philosophy, science fiction, taxes, and juvenile humor feels specifically targeted to me and my brain. For those unfamiliar, here's a quick plot synopsis. Evelyn and Waymond Wang own a laundromat. Their business is failing, their marriage is fracturing, and so is their relationship with Joy, their daughter. During a meeting with the IRS, Evelyn is visited by a version of her husband from a parallel universe. He says that the multiverse — all of the many parallel universes — is under attack from an evil being named Jobu Tupaki, and Evelyn is the only one who can save it. The rest of the film is about Evelyn overcoming her skepticism and discovering her true power (and Waymond's). This trailer pretty much nails the mood and theme of the film. If this preview intrigues you, you'll probably

This is just a quick (and temporary) note for folks in the Portland area. Tomorrow night (Wednesday, August 17th) from 6:30 to 9:00, the free Plutus Voices gathering will take place at TaborSpace. The topic will be pursuing financial independence on a low income . Here's how the Plutus Voices website describes its aims: Plutus Voices is a series of networking and learning events from the financial media and beyond. The series brings attention to speakers and topics that are crucial to success with financial literacy, capability, and empowerment through blogging and podcasting. Hear from the best community-builders and influencers about inspiring action in their audiences and participate in an inspiring group discussion in which all participants shares their unique insight. While Plutus Voices includes short talks from featured speakers, all who attend the event have the opportunity to participate in a special group activity. The evening also includes many opportunities to ne

This is a guest post from Michael Laurence . Previously at Get Rich Slowly, Michael has shared his thoughts on investment risk and what happens when more money makes you miserable . You hear the phrase “the game of life” all the time. There are books on Amazon instructing us on how to win at the “game of life” . Hell, Milton Bradley's “The Game of Life” from 1860 — still sold today — was the first popular board game in the United States. In the Real World, the game of life's rules and criteria for success are vague and never explicitly stated. But we all know what they are. To win, you need: money (or, more accurately, conspicuous consumption) physical attractiveness kids who go to great schools and are athletically successful and so on “The game of life” has become more than a metaphor. Many people — obsessed with their status, career, or where their kids go to school — have internalized this idea and literally view their life not as something to enjoy, but as a

Today, the Get Rich Slowly summer of books concludes with an excerpt from Cashing Out: Win the Wealth Game by Walking Away from Julien and Kiersten Saunders. Julien and Kiersten are the power couple behind the rich & Regular blog and YouTube channel . The following excerpt from Cashing Out (published by Portfolio/Penguin) is used with permission. Copyright © 2022 by Rich & Regular LLC. This passage has been edited to be more readable on the web. Dr. Sue Johnson is a clinical psychologist who specializes in emotionally focused therapy. She says that when couples fight (regardless of the topic), they're doing a dance. One partner makes a move, and the other one responds accordingly. She insists the dance is always the problem — not you, not me, not us — and not the topic. By focusing on the dance, we can shift our focus and look at our interaction patterns whenever there's an issue. The rhythm of one person responding to the other person's moves is what ultim

The Get Rich Slowly summer of books continues! Today's excerpt comes from Jordan Grumet, better known in the FIRE world as Doc G, host of the Earn & Invest Podcast . When he's not talking about money, Jordan is a real-life hospice doc. His new book, Taking Stock , offers lessons from the dying to the living. The following is from Taking Stock by Jordan Grumet with permission from Ulysses Press. Copyright © 2022 by Jordan Grumet. This passage has been edited to be more readable on the web. I used to have a patient who was an undertaker. We had many conversations about philosophy and practicality, and it didn’t take long for me to realize that one must gain profound insights from being engaged in such a unique business. As I was often fond of saying: When the undertaker speaks, you should really listen. Those of us who have made death and dying our business may seem unlikely investment advisers, but because both the undertaker and myself have spent extensive time in clo