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.

Bringing Sexy Back

I know that there’s a huge crossover between folks who’ve been reading Get Rich Slowly for a long time and folks who loved Budgets Are Sexy before J. Money left the site. Well, guess what? J. Money is bringing sexy back. That’s right: J. Money has re-purchased the site, and he’s begun publishing new stuff regularly. Yay!

In other blogging news, I’d like to share my current favorite read: Money and Meaning from my buddy Douglas Tsoi. Douglas and I met a few years ago and have formed a solid connection. He’s a deep thinker, and I like that.

Douglas and I presented a financial workshop together at World Domination Summit in 2019. I bought his 1993 Toyota pickup from him at the end of that year. (Boy, does Kim hate having that thing parked in front of our house!) And in February of this year, he launched Money and Meaning through Substack. It’s truly terrific. You should check it out.

Cashing Out

You know what else is terrific? Kiersten and Julien Saunders from the rich&REGULAR blog have published their new book, Cashing Out. I no longer review friends’ books at GRS (because that’s truly a Kobayashi Maru), but I will say this: I read an advance copy of Cashing Out and thought it was great.

Here’s what I wrote to Kiersten in Julien in February after reading their book:

K&J,

I deeply appreciate that your book isn’t just a re-hash of the same stuff everybody has already said. You go deeper. You talk about society, culture, relationships, and psychology. I believe this stuff is far more important than merely mastering the mechanics of money. The mechanics are simple. (They may not be easy, but they’re simple.) These other things are what make money management complicated, and they’re too often ignored. You’ve written an excellent book, and I’m happy to help promote it.

Anyhow, here’s what I came up with for a blurb. I hope that it’s useful.

“Cashing Out is important and inspirational. Kiersten and Julien avoid the B.S. that plagues most money manuals, opting instead to provide readers with the knowledge and confidence necessary to save, invest, and — in time — cash out by cashing in on the American Dream. Highly recommended.” — J.D. Roth, founder Get Rich Slowly

Thanks and good luck, my friends!

–j.d.

Taking Stock

Speaking of books, I’m excited that my friend Doc G is close to releasing his book, Taking Stock. It’ll be out on August 2nd.

For those unfamiliar, Doc G (a.k.a. Jordan Grumet) is a hospice doc who also hosts the excellent Earn & Invest podcast. He and I roomed together at a past Camp FI, and we’ve had several terrific discussions over the years. (Near the end of my cousin Duane’s life, Doc G helped talk me through what was coming next.)

Here are two videos promoting Taking Stock: the book trailer, and a conversation between Doc G and Grant Sabatier. (Note that despite my best intentions and ample opportunity, I still have not read this book. Sometimes I am a bad friend. 🙁 )

Oh, and speaking of Grant Sabatier (notice how one subject is naturally leading to another here? crazy!), earlier this year he partnered with The Motley Fool to produce a course called Financial Freedom in Uncertain Times. I’m honored to have been one of the folks interviewed for the project, along with Doc G, Kiersten & Julien, Jamila Souffrant, Stefanie O’Connell Rodriguez, Bola Sokundi, and Amanda Holden.

Again, I haven’t had time to work through the course, but I’ve talked with Grant extensively about it, and I know that our interview was deep and insightful. I suspect the course contains quality material, and I do hope to dive into it in the future.

Buy This, Not That

While we’re discussing the future, I should mention the upcoming book from Sam Dogen, a.k.a. The Financial Samurai. Sam is a polarizing figure in the world of personal finance, and I get that. But even when I disagree with him, I find his writing thought-provoking and often truly insightful.

Sam’s new book is called Buy This, Not That and it comes out on July 19th. I haven’t read it yet — the postman legit placed a preview copy in my hands three hours ago — but I plan to do so after I finish Doc G’s book.

During a recent email exchange, Sam had this to say about Buy This, Not That:

The book is more than just trying to achieve financial independence. It’s also about how to make more optimal decisions to live your best life possible. […]

I read a dozen books as research before writing my book. I wanted to see what worked and what did not. And the key missing elements from many of the good books were specific action items and frameworks to follow based on different situations. I also wanted to write about a decision making framework on how to tackle some of life‘s biggest dilemmas. Real life stuff that go beyond money.

As a side note, my brother used Eat This, Not That to help him figure out food and lose weight. For a long time now (since the beginning of GRS, I think), I’ve wanted to do a similar “Buy This, Not That” series on the blog, but never figured out a way to make it work. I’m glad Sam has.

Little Miss Evil

To close things out today, I want to mention something fun. I’m sure many of you are familiar with Bryce and Kristy from Millennial Revolution, which is one of the few money blogs I still read regularly. Well, these two don’t just write about money. Several years ago, they also published a kids’ book called Little Miss Evil.

I’m reading Little Miss Evil right now and it’s a heck of a lot of fun. I love the core idea: What’s it like to grow up with a super-villain for a father? A super-villain who uses a nuclear bomb for a coffee table?

I always enjoy seeing my personal finance friends do other stuff — making art, producing music, climbing mountains, brewing beer — and that’s certainly true in this case.

Okay, that’s it for today. I didn’t intend to spend two hours writing about all of these things, but hey — it’s stuff I’ve been meaning to share. Maybe you’ll enjoy one or more of these projects from my friends.

Oh, one last thing: Old comments are really, truly gone. That’s right: More than fifteen years of comments here at Get Rich Slowly have vanished into the ether.

Well, that’s not wholly correct. The comments still exist in the database, but for some reason they have all become disconnected from the articles they belong to. We have no idea how it happened, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to fix it. I’m bummed, as you can imagine. It’s a huge, huge loss. But neither Tom nor I can come up with a solution to restoring them.