Hello, friends! I have a lot to say, and I've done a lot of work on Get Rich Slowly during the past three weeks, but most of my efforts aren't yet ready for public consumption.

• The site de-design is 95% complete, but that final five percent is fiddly. I could be ready to launch the new layout tomorrow — or it might be two weeks. It's tough to say. If you're curious, though, you can check out my current progress here. But be warned that the site isn't fully functional. (For fun, I mocked up this very post in the new format so you can see the difference.)
• I have several long articles in the works — quality! the internet is dying! the sunk-cost fallacy! — but nothing that's wholly finished. And with my attention more focused on the de-design and Real Life than on writing, it'll probably be a while before anything is complete enough to publish.

Still, I thought it'd be fun to stop in with a J. Money-esque stream-of-consciousness post to share a some cool projects from some of my friends.

Speaking of J. Money, let's start there.

Interest rates on home mortgages are rising rapidly across the United States, which seems to be slowing most housing markets. (Some, like the market here in Corvallis, have been less affected. Give it time.)

The average mortgage rate for a 30-year loan was about 3.0% at the start of the year; today, it's at 6.245% — even for somebody with an excellent credit score over 800.

Continue reading...

A couple of weekends ago, Kim and I enjoyed a short vacation on the Oregon Coast. She's been taking foraging classes, and she had an early morning workshop on harvesting sea vegetables one Sunday. Rather than wake in the middle of the night to drive out, we rented a small place in Tillamook and took the dog for an adventure. (The dog loves the coast.)

We let Tally lead us on a walk through town one rainy afternoon. Coming home, we cut through a trailer park. "We're in the poor part of town," Kim said.

"Yep," I said. "But look at that trailer house right there. That is almost exactly like the one I grew up in." Here's the trailer I grew up in:

Last month, the Federal Reserve released a new report: Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2021 [PDF]. This annual survey gauges American financial health and attitudes. The 2021 edition was conducted last November.

Here are some highlights from the report:

• Seventy-eight percent of adults were either doing okay or living comfortably financially, the highest share with this level of financial well-being since the survey began in 2013.
• Fifteen percent of adults with income less than $50,000 struggled to pay their bills because of varying monthly income.
• Fifteen percent of workers said they were in a different job than twelve months earlier. Just over six in ten people who changed jobs said their new job was better overall, compared with one in ten who said that it was worse.
• Sixty-eight percent of adults said they would cover a $400 emergency expense exclusively using cash or its equivalent, up from 50 percent who would pay this way when the survey began in 2013. (Note that this survey is the original source of this oft-quoted statistic.)
• Six percent of adults did not have a bank account. Eleven percent of adults with a bank account paid an overdraft fee in the previous twelve months.

These little nuggets of info are interesting, sure, but what I find even more interesting are the charts and graphs documenting long-term trends.

Both my ex-wife (Kris) and my current girlfriend (Kim) tell me I get too worked up about things sometimes. "You over-react," they both tell me. Maybe so. I prefer to think of myself as passionate.

One of the things I'm passionate about is scammers. I hate them. Scammers are evil, evil people who prey on the most vulnerable members of society. They take advantage of social constructs in order to manipulate people into parting with their hard-earned money.

No surprise then that one of my favorite sub-genres of YouTube videos is "scammers getting scammed". Scambaiters are modern-day heroes. As much as I despise scammers, I think scambatiers deserve high praise.

One morning just over ten years ago, I had an interesting conversation at the Crossfit gym. I was "rolling out" — using a foam roller to break up tissue — with the usual group of guys, when one of my buddies brought up this new thing called Bitcoin.

"Bitcoin is digital money," he said. "But it's completely private and not tied to a government."

"How does that work?" I asked. From the very first moment I heard about cryptocurrency, it didn't seem to make any sense. My friend tried to explain. We all chatted about it for a few minutes, and then we lifted heavy weights and/or sweated extensively and/or both of the above.

It's December 1972. I am three years old. My parents have to be away for the night. They drive me to stay with Dad's brother and his family. It's cold and it's raining. We stand on a covered porch and knock. A big lady with a big smile opens the door to greet us.

"This is your Aunt Janice," Mom tells me. "And this is your cousin Nicky."

You are standing behind your mother. You are eight years old. This is the first time we meet. You're not interested in a little kid like me, and I'm too timid to pay much attention to you.

Because I've been driving back and forth from Corvallis to Portland so much lately to attend to my mother and cousin, I've had ample to time to listen to audiobooks. I find that I'm actually grateful for the opportunity to "read" in this fashion. (Like many folks, the past decade has destroyed my attention span and ability to read for long periods.)

I'm currently reading Stephen R. Covey's classic The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. (Five stars on Amazon in 5672 reviews!) I read the book once long, long ago — sometime during the mid-1990s. I've referred to it now and then as the years have gone by, but mostly I've forgotten its lessons. Continue reading...

Last Friday, I drove from Corvallis to Portland to help my cousin, Duane. Duane has been living with throat cancer for several years now, but in recent months things have grown worse. It feels like he's preparing for the end. And that means he's packing up his apartment (where he's lived for 21 years!) to move someplace smaller.

We spent all of Friday afternoon sorting through his office. This was a challenge because (like most Roths) Duane is messy (and a self-proclaimed hoarder). Duane and I packed boxes and boxes of collectible card games, ancient coins, books on Greek and Roman history, and outdated computer games.

While we packed, we talked. Duane is my cousin, yes, but he's also my best friend. Because we're family and friends, I feel like we share a deep connection. We can call out each other's bullshit without hurting feelings. We can sing each other's praises without becoming obsequious. Most of all, we can talk about nerdy stuff like Magic: The Gathering, The Great British Baking Show, the ignorance of history in supposedly "historical" television dramas, and so on.

Life has been lumpy lately. I've been dealing with some heavy stuff in my personal life — Mom, my cousin Duane, etc. — and that's left me feeling low. Combine that with my natural inclination toward depression, and you've got a recipe for a gloomy guy.

That said, I woke up feeling great today. And that energy carried through as I had my regular Zoom call with Diania Merriam, the organizer of the EconoMe Conference.

Diania and I started these calls for professional reasons, but after nearly two years they've evolved into something else. Now they're mostly a chance for us to help each other with our respective mental health struggles. During today's conversation, we had an interesting digression about personal finance.